u/DruidWonder

I'm leaving the hospital soon, and while I'm prepared to do bag changes, I'm completely unprepared when it comes to accessories. Specifically wraps for sleeping and daily wear to stop the ostomy from flopping around.

Is there something I can jury rig in the mean time, like tying a piece of fabric around my waist for sleeping and going about my day? Most of the companies online I planned to order accessories from, I am only just finding out do not ship to Canada; and the Canadian companies seem to offer lower quality products. In either case, I won't have anything in hand before I go home!

What can I do as a stop gap? I don't know how to crochet and I can barely sew, lol. So bear this in mind as well.

I have stage 4 right-sided (cecum) colon cancer, a relatively large tumor with local spread. It's dMMR/MSI-H and being treated with immunotherapy currently, which I started not long ago.

My main problem is pain management. I'm on slow release hydromorphone that I take every 12 hours, plus fast acting hydromorphone for breakthrough pain. Nothing seems to really get rid of the pain completely? Making matters worse is that some of the tumors have invaded my psoas muscle, so when I walk or use my right leg at all, it chain-reacts into my cecal tumor and it hurts like hell.

I need to ambulate and not be stuck in bed all the time due to pain. The cachexia is running away with me and my body is getting badly deconditioned from all the lying around.

But I don't know what to do about this pain. My doctors have seemingly given me all the pain meds. Should I ask for more, or different kinds? I dunno. Hydromorphone seems strong as it is. I can't take NSAIDs and tylenol doesn't seem to work on me (never has).

Are there any other tips and tricks I'm not aware of to help things feel a bit better? The pain is sometimes unreal. I can't get over it.

Thanks a lot if you took the time to read this. <3

I desperately need a way to supplement protein as I'm losing weight like crazy. I am celiac and also lactose intolerant. But my bowel is so raw right now that other additives are also a problem. It seems like every protein powder has thickening agents like guar gum, carrageenan, and others that give me instant D.

Meal replacement shakes are no better. I've tried them all. They're all loaded with vitamins and minerals, and one of them inevitably gives me D. Usually it's calcium, magnesium or zinc in the formula. They also tend to be loaded with high fructose corn syrup and other processed crap.

Has anyone had to navigate this level of difficulty with meal replacements?

I have a moderately sized blood clot in my superior mesenteric vein, caused by bowel cancer. I also have ulcerative colitis so I'm prone to bowel bleeding.

They have me on 7500 IU daily dalteparin, walking a fine line between clot growth and bleeding concerns. But the clot hurts. Sometimes I can't tell if it's cancer pain or clot pain. I really want to break down this clot because as far as I know dalteparin will not do that.

I am not at risk of DVT or pulmony thrombosis with this type of clot. But it causes so much pain.

Could I get away with a mild thrombolytic agent being added like a small dose of nattokinase? I feel like I need to do something.

EDIT: I am lactose intolerant. I can't do yogurt or anything milk derived.

Sorry I don't have a lot of energy for an elaborate post. I am stage 4 MSI-H type, undergoing immunotherapy now. I have ulcerative colitis on top of it. Food has just become difficult and complicated.

Does anyone here have experience making their own meal replacement shakes. All of the ones on the market have crap in them I can't tolerate, like maltodextrin, methylated vitamins, or minerals like iron and magnesium. I mostly just beed the macros. I live in Canada so commercial options are limited.

If you know how, how did you learn and what resources can I use for recipes? I need high calorie but macro elemental. I can get micro nutrients by taking vitamin pills.

TIA

41 M. I feel like I am reaching the end, before I even had real treatment. I'll try to keep this brief.

I have an MSI-H/dMMR (MLH1) right-sided cecum tumor that was diagnosed in May 2026. I was about to get surgery but then I broke my back, and I was bed ridden for a month in absolute screaming excruciating pain. I could not get an ostomy on the right side and have a broken back on the left side, and survive that level of pain. Morphine did nothing.

The postponement allowed the cancer to spread. It's now stage III/IV with invasion to nearby small intestinal loops and my abdominal wall (peritoneum). Surgeons will not operate.

Originally oncology denied me immunotherapy because I have ulcerative colitis and was simultaneously flaring and on prednisone. They said "immunotherapy is contraindicated in UC" and referred me to surgery. Since then, I took the first 3 loading doses of a UC biology to control the inflammation, and I'm trying to get off prednisone now.

Oncology is now referring me to chemo and radiation, which have very low odds with MSI-H cancer due to its mutation rate. Furthermore, my blood test shows I have poor detox genetics for FOLFOXIRI, so it would do accelerated damage to my body. Chemo would also obliterate my immune system, which I would need for immunotherapy. Radiation would burn my bowel and bring back the colitis.

I feel like immunotherapy is my best chance in hell of surviving this, but the system here in Canada is making it so hard to get what I need. So effectively, I am not on any treatment right now and the clock is ticking.

I am absolutely terrified and all my loved ones are worried about me. My non-oncology medical team is also frustrated by how this is all going down. 12 weeks of immunotherapy could at least SHRINK my cancer and maybe put me back in the surgery window. Yet oncology is still pushing useless treatments like chemo and rad because of this dumb hard and fast rule about me having pre-existing colitis. My logic is, if they try IO and my UC flares, then just put me back on prednisone and abort it. Not trying at all seems maddening given that I have such an eligible cancer for IO.

I don't know what to do. I just don't know what to do. If I was wealthy I'd go to some other country and get immunotherapy. But I'm not, so here I am.

Any Canadians here dealing with this bureaucratic mess? Any other advice that could be offered?

I don't do a huge amount of modern astrology, but I can't avoid looking at Pluto because it has come up a lot in client work. Has anyone noticed that Pluto transits tend to be associated with actual death, and often a suffering death?

Here are some simple case studies:

1. Man 41M, had trans Pluto conj his Sun in Capricorn, exact. He needed to get major surgery for some kind of emergent issue. It wasn't going to kill him now but it would within months. He was offered the surgery now or in a month's time. His astrologers advised him to not get the surgery now because Pluto was exact his Sun. He got it anyway. He ended up dying of a hospital infection. The ICU team gave him a drug to fight the infection but it caused his arms and legs to lose blood flow and he died of gangreen to his limbs.
2. More recently, 39M client with Pluto square his Pluto in 6th house Scorpio. He started having bowel issues at the beginning of the transit (Feb 2026). By May he was diagnosed with stage II colon cancer. Pluto is now retro, and the cancer has spread. The transit will complete in January which is his birthday, but he said he has his doubts he will live that long.
3. 32F, long distance client in the US. During her Pluto/Sun opposition, she ended up having a year's long mental health crisis. Her Pluto was 8th house. She ended up manifesting schizophrenia and long-term psychosis after a relationship ending that deepened until she was institutionalized. Her sister reached out to me over a year later just to let me know what happened. Even though the Pluto transit has ended, she is in and out of mental health care and can no longer function independently.

Pluto is often touted as the planet of suffering, pain, crisis, transformation and regeneration. However, more often than not, I have seen it inflict extreme damage on people that is unrecoverable, sometimes fatal. The "regeneration" part doesn't happen. There is no story of "overcoming," the person just remains broken. I understand that anyone who makes it through extremely intense circumstances and manages to integrate the experience can benefit hugely in wisdom and life change. However, it doesn't seem that Plutonian circumstances always allow for this. Sometimes it just seems like a life ruiner?

I notice that many readings on Pluto say things like... Pluto creates a very convincing, imminent impression that death could really happen, but it almost never does because it's just creating a scenario that will break you down in some way you need to be broken down. (This may be more the evolutionary astrology perspective.) However, it does seem to actually kill people sometimes.

What indicators do you use to determine if a Pluto transit might be fatal vs. it is taking someone to the brink but won't actually deliver the true death? Is there any way to tell, or is it just a matter of which way the cookie crumbles? I have a hard time believing that it simply comes down to "how the person uses the transit energy." Pluto seems to deliver situations in an unavoidable way, and you can only exercise choice within that tiny window. Often there is no choice.

I saw this movie on TV when I was a kid in the late 80s / early 90s, but I think the movie was older. Still a colour film though.

It was a monster horror movie. The monster had arms and legs, or maybe just legs, but the rest of its upper body was completely gnarly and greenish coloured, and lumpy. It had facial features I think, but they were not in the right places. And its face was more on the torso than on a proper head. The monster seemed indestructible. I don't remember the monster's origin story, if it was alien, or if it even started out human. Can't remember.

I remember two distinct scenes. In one scene, the military was attacking it. It walked pretty slowly but none of their weapons could destroy it. They were firing arterilly at it and everything but it wasn't getting damaged. It was kind of weird considering it was more or less human sized despite being monstrous and disfigured.

In the other scene, people (scientists I believe?) setup a trap to lure the monster into a building. As it walked through the front door, it passed through a frame that was setup that looked like an airport metal detector, and a flip was switched that tried to fry the creature. Maybe it was electrocution I'm not sure. People hid inside watching the monster get electrocuted, but I believe this method also failed.

It had B movie monster vibes but it seemed relatively low budget. Everyone in the movie was terrified of this monster and it was a mortal danger to society.

I've googled the hell out of this and even asked AI, but nothing matches. If I had to guess I'd say it was released in the 1970s, maybe late 1960s, and it was in colour. I wish I remembered more but I was like 5 years old when it was on TV. The movie has stuck in my mind for decades and I'd love to watch it. TIA!!

I'm embarrassed to write this post in such a group of experts but I haven't gained much traction elsewhere.

So my tech is... I take small mason jars with brown rice flour inside and a layer of vermiculite on the top, nail holes in the top the jar, and put the jars through a pressure cooker. As soon as I take the lid off the pressure cooker once it's cooled, I put scotch tape over the jar holes and remove them from the cooker.

I then use spore syringes to inject the medium, replace the tape, and store the jars in a cool/dark place to colonize. The syringe needles get flame-sterilized before each injection and wiped with an alcohol pad.

The first two days are always promising, the white mycellium looks great. Then by day 3-4 there is mold. I'm not understanding where this contamination came from or why it's proliferating. I've never gotten to the point that the whole jar is colonized and I can transfer it to a growing/fruiting chamber.

My original hope was to start out with this basic tech for beginner experience, and then move on to bigger batches (like wood blocks or bags) later, but my failure to graduate from this simple early step has ruined my confidence. Can anyone help? Again, sorry if this painfully newbie.

What the title says. I can't handle the non stop posts in my feed from individuals, groups and organizations I don't even follow. GO AWAY. I want to go back to only seeing my friends' content.

What are my options?

I will install a different browser if necessary, but whatever you suggest has to be android compatible. Thanks a lot!!

A relative gifted me an iPad and holy moly, the hoops you have to jump through to get books and media on this are insane. No easy drag and drop. Everything has to be gatekept through a cloud server or painfully loaded one file at a time.

Are there any tablets out there which function more like PC but don't have all this DRMA shit? I'm not super familiar with the tablet market and I can't exactly ask Google for the best pirate friendly tablet.

TIA

Not asking for medical advice, just for quality comparison.

I am severely physically disabled currently, pretty bad shape. My kefir culture is dead, I did not have the strength to keep it alive. My kraut over fermented and the jar exploded, plus it smells like crap. I've been on several courses of strong antibiotics for a severe infection. The abx were unavoidable, trust me. I was borderline septic.

I don't have the strength to deal with cultures right now. Is store bought yogurt and kefir enough to get some probiotic? I'm thinking bio-K, activia, or any yogurt really.

I know fermenting purists say that store bought ferments are dead... but are they really? I just need to know if I'm wasting my time.

Thank you!

I have an autoimmune disability that cycles. When I'm healthy and in remission I'm basically normal. When it's active, I am completely disabled and dependent.

The men I've been with over the years, they usually get with me when times are good. I warn them in advance that I have this disability and what it looks like when it flares. They are usually very supportive and idealistic.

Then the disability flares. In the beginning they are brave and supportive, but as the months go on I start to hear complaints like... "I feel like I didn't get the partner I asked for." As if I tricked them during my healthy periods into falling in love with me, only to reveal my sick side later. Which is not the case, I am always fully transparent.

When the guy gets to the point that he is disappointed and grieving the fact that the healthy person disappeared and now he has the sick person, the relationship doesn't usually last. He can't handle the "ugliness" of my condition and the loss of shared quality of life.

I really don't know how to cope with this anymore. If my condition was permanently active, then I either wouldn't be dating or I'd be dating someone who sees me in my down-and-out state right from the get go. But because they usually meet me when I'm at peak health, they feel "tricked" when it changes, despite ample warnings... and I don't know what to do about it.

It's not their fault exactly. Not everyone is cut out to be in an LTR with a disabled person. But it just hurts so much. We're talking multi-year relationships going down the drain. It doesn't seem to matter that my flares are temporary. It damages the relationship beyond repair.

Does anyone have any experience with this? Or could shed some light? It is causing me a lot of grief and emotional pain. Thank you.

Can someone help me figure this out?

I have a friend who I've known for two years, who is also a person in my caregiving community because I am quite physically ill right now. I am noticing patterns in her that I find kind of disturbing and I am trying to figure out if she should remain in my circle of care or not. I'll write this in point form to save energy.

• I got a boyfriend, now she's goes on and on about how she's going to get a boyfriend soon too... "I can feel him arriving soon"; she also tried to get my bf's phone number from me when she first met him because she "feels a really special friendship forming with him" even though they have never hung out 1 on 1 and he has no interest in her
• when I suddenly got seriously ill in the past 6 months, my life turned to extreme pain and suffering, and it has been the darkest time in my life; at the same time, she now talks about how she is going through a really dark time in her life over things like work stress and other stuff that doesn't even compare to what I'm going through
• every conversation gets redirected to her "inner process" or something about herself she's working on, except she's not actually doing any real self-improvement or self-reflection. We can't talk about anything that is outside of ourselves because she redirects it back to her. I find myself fighting to pull away from the topic of her in conversation by talking about ANYTHING else, and she detects it and tries to pull it all back to re-center around her.
• constant validation seeking despite being over 35 years old. She thinks one day she will be famous. It's not just a fantasy, she truly believes she will be widely adored one day. In reality she has no friends except me, no ambition. She will enter restaurants and venues like she is a celebrity. When I first met her I thought this was hilarious but I now I see it's not a joke, she really believes it.
• she is not outright malicious, but I find myself hiding personal thoughts, feelings and events about my life from her because she will somehow incorporate them into her identity; like if I tell her I like a certain kind of music, a week later she will suddenly tell me she has been listening to only that genre of music and doing a "deep study of it." It's like she is trying to steal parts of my identity for herself and although it's not abusive, it feels violating.
• she has physical and emotional boundary issues that I have had to set my foot down about many times, over things that are frankly abnormal, like touching me and my friends inappropriately (especially the men), often in front of their partners, in a joking/flirtatious way that no man would get away with if he did that to a woman;
• in groups she is jovial and performatively happy, but when she gets me or my friends alone 1 on 1 she emotionally slimes us with deep gutteral crying about worthlessness. We could have an amazingly fun group friend evening and then as soon as she is in my car alone with me being driven home she balls her eyes out and entraps me with extreme negative emotional intensity.
• when I first met her, she had no friends, and most of her stories were about being spontaneously abandoned by her community, but I can now see why

I mainly want to know what this could be and if these red flags could mean I'm unsafe being under her care. I keep gently trying to direct her to see a doctor or mental health professional but she just won't do it.

I have been enjoying morning matcha mixed into lactose free milk. It's one of those pre-mix powders that contains the right mix of matcha and sugar. I heat the milk and then whisk in the matcha.

For some reason though I have been finding that it's causing loose stool and a lot of gas. It's not the milk, I think it's the matcha. When I eat plain matcha this doesn't happen, so I wonder if it's the sugar they add to the matcha mix?

I'm wondering if I should just make my own matcha mix to try? I'm not sure.

Just wondering if anyone else has had this issue. This is NOT a medical question, it's about the tea itself.

I'm not suicidal, this really is an astrology question. And I'm not asking for a personal reading either.

Basically my life has sucked especially since my Saturn return. Now I'm in my 40s. My Saturn return activated intense life or death illness that has plagued me for over a decade. My NN is on the 12th house side of the AC in Taurus. SN is conj Saturn in Scorpio in the 6th.

It's been a non-stop fight to survive. It feels like trying to bail out the ocean from destroying a sand castle I've built on the beach. The forces of my chart are constantly trying to dissolve my life and everything I attempt to create, including my life itself.

At what point is it okay to just give up and let the tide take you? I don't just mean metaphorical surrender. I mean the true death. I've now been diagnosed with cancer. It is technically curable but it's going to be a huge amount of pain and suffering, a radical reconfiguration of my body.

At what point do you just say... okey universe/life, I see that this whole thing is about me being undone. You win. Undo me. I let go and float down the river, to be dissolved into nothingness.

Because that's what it seems like life is trying to do, kill me in any way it can.

The 12th house is such a suffering house. Why bother living this way? It's like working at a company where if you work hard and do good, you just get rewarded with more work. Why struggle to survive if the reward is more suffering?

I don't really get the purpose of the 12th house anymore, besides just trying to destroy you. *Shrug*

41 M, dx with stage 2 right-sided colorectal cancer in the beginning of May 2026. Could be stage 3, hard to know without surgery, but we at least know it's local. I also have ulcerative colitis (UC). Here is my situation...

My cancer is dMMR/MSI-H (MLH1). The surgery team said they can't just do a resection because the reconnection may leak due to active colitis, so instead they must do a total colectomy (total colon removal) and ileostomy. Bowel biopsies from all other parts of my colon show no cancer, it's just at that right-sided spot. I think a total colectomy is drastic.

First oncologist I spoke to completely rejected the idea of neoadjuvant immunotherapy (IO) because it's "an absolute contraindication if you already have colitis." This is because colitis itself is a possible side effect of IO. However, she was unwilling to think creatively at all about how to maybe control the colitis so I could at least try IO. My right to try was rejected.

Second oncologist I spoke to was willing to do IO if I got on a biologic for UC that specifically suppresses a UC pathway in the bowel, but would have no effect on IO. He said a lot of IO patients use this biologic if the IO causes colitis. My UC is not currently severe. It's moderate in the rectum and mild in the rest of the bowel. Over time it continues to downgrade. Before my diagnosis, I was actually coming off prednisone because the flare was ending... but the hospital interventions made it all flare up again (IV antibiotics, colonoscopy, etc).

If they could offer me a resection, I would get that tomorrow... but I have decided to reject a total colectomy given that the cancer is MSI-H. I feel I should at least try IO to maybe save my bowel.

Here is the catch...

It took weeks to get approval for the biologic (Entyvio). I just got the first dose. Those few weeks were lost time. The loading doses for the biologic are week 0, 2 and 6. My UC has to get under control within that time for IO to be attempted. All the while, the cancer could be progressing. I am getting another CT scan (with two forms of contrast) on Monday to assess if there is progression. If there is no real progression, I will better about what I'm doing. If there is progression, then maybe I should just get surgery, I dunno. I was lucky to catch the cancer when it was still a local tumor... and this was because it was causing acute pain. Otherwise I would've had no idea.

I'm just wondering if anyone here has experience dealing with colorectal cancer through neoadjuvant therapy alone, especially MSI-H? I think if I didn't have the MSI-H mutation, I would just let them take my bowel. Furthermore, if IO doesn't eliminate the tumor but only shrinks it, I'll still be stuck with the same surgery options.

Could I please get some perspective? I know what I'm doing is not standard of care but my current medical team says it's an okay strategy. They just think it's sad that no surgeon would be willing to do just a resection.

41 M, dx with stage 2 right-sided colorectal cancer in the beginning of May 2026. Could be stage 3, hard to know without surgery, but we at least know it's local. I also have ulcerative colitis (UC). Here is my situation...

My cancer is dMMR/MSI-H (MLH1). The surgery team said they can't just do a resection because the reconnection may leak due to active colitis, so instead they must do a total colectomy (total colon removal) and ileostomy. Bowel biopsies from all other parts of my colon show no cancer, it's just at that right-sided spot. I think a total colectomy is drastic.

First oncologist I spoke to completely rejected the idea of neoadjuvant immunotherapy (IO) because it's "an absolute contraindication if you already have colitis." This is because colitis itself is a possible side effect of IO. However, she was unwilling to think creatively at all about how to maybe control the colitis so I could at least try IO. My right to try was rejected.

Second oncologist I spoke to was willing to do IO if I got on a biologic for UC that specifically suppresses a UC pathway in the bowel, but would have no effect on IO. He said a lot of IO patients use this biologic if the IO causes colitis. My UC is not currently severe. It's moderate in the rectum and mild in the rest of the bowel. Over time it continues to downgrade. Before my diagnosis, I was actually coming off prednisone because the flare was ending... but the hospital interventions made it all flare up again (IV antibiotics, colonoscopy, etc).

If they could offer me a resection, I would get that tomorrow... but I have decided to reject a total colectomy given that the cancer is MSI-H. I feel I should at least try IO to maybe save my bowel.

Here is the catch...

It took weeks to get approval for the biologic (Entyvio). I just got the first dose. Those few weeks were lost time. The loading doses for the biologic are week 0, 2 and 6. My UC has to get under control within that time for IO to be attempted. All the while, the cancer could be progressing. I am getting another CT scan (with two forms of contrast) on Monday to assess if there is progression. If there is no real progression, I will better about what I'm doing. If there is progression, then maybe I should just get surgery, I dunno. I was lucky to catch the cancer when it was still a local tumor... and this was because it was causing acute pain. Otherwise I would've had no idea.

I'm just wondering if anyone here has experience dealing with colorectal cancer through neoadjuvant therapy alone, especially MSI-H? I think if I didn't have the MSI-H mutation, I would just let them take my bowel. Furthermore, if IO doesn't eliminate the tumor but only shrinks it, I'll still be stuck with the same surgery options.

Could I please get some perspective? I know what I'm doing is not standard of care but my current medical team says it's an okay strategy. They just think it's sad that no surgeon would be willing to do just a resection.

Two weeks ago I broke my 11th rib doing something stupid. It's toward the spine where the rib joint is. I have never experienced pain on this level. I'm completely morphine dependent and stuck laying on my side in bed. I've been losing weight pretty rapidly as well because opioids kill my appetite and make me constipated.

The thing is, I do not find the opioids are working well for the pain. It takes it from 10/10 pain to maybe a 7. I can't take NSAIDs because of a gut condition, which I am also on prednisone for. Actually I think the prednisone made this broken rib possible.

Can anyone give pain suggestions for my situation? I sometimes just lay here screaming for hours. The ER would not offer a nerve block because they said my spine and discs are totally normal. I can't believe that morphine and hydromorphone are not helping.

I put so much voltarin on my back that I should take out shares from the company.

Thank you everyone in advance for your help. With gratitude.