In January of 2019 I woke up on a Saturday with a pain under my ribs/ kind of like heartburn. I have awful anxiety and thought it was a panic attack so I took half a Valium and went to my daughters basketball game. After the game the pain hadn’t gone away, so I took the other half of Valium and decided I needed to sleep off the panic attack.

By Monday night the pain still hadn’t gone away so I went to an urgent care after work. They told me it could be a gallbladder attack but didn’t think so because I was fine – I mean besides the pain I was fine. I wasn’t in horrific pain, probably a 4 on a scale of 10. But they said since I’ve had this pain for 3 days I should have an ultrasound of my gallbladder to make sure everything was ok in there. They didn’t seem too concerned at all. So I got in for the ultrasound on Wednesday, I drove myself, the pain still there but again, not awful, just annoying at this point. It was constant but got worse after I ate anything.

Thursday the urgent care called to tell me everything on my ultrasound was normal except for a few gallstones but there weren’t any blockages. I told them I still had pain and they said I should probably go to the ER to be seen. I was at work and didn’t want to leave early so I told my coworkers and boss what the doctor had said and was trying to decide if I was going to go to the ER when I got off work. They all decided I had to go NOW. I was so upset. I was just going to sit in the ER for 4 hours and pay a $600 copay with insurance to be told I had a few gallstones and to go home.

well, I went. And the doctors looked at me, had another ultrasound done, and I hear the ultrasound tech tell the doctor “I don’t know what they’re talking about, she doesn’t have any stones.” The doctor looked at the screen and started pointing everywhere, “stone, stone, huge stone, all of that that looks like sand… stones.”

They told me I needed to stay overnight and have surgery the next morning and I was so upset because my 5 kids were at home with my husband. The next morning came and I had no pain. The doctor said since he had seen all the stones and already had me scheduled for surgery that morning I should just get it done before it caused problems again, and that it’s an in and out procedure, takes about 45 minutes and I’d go home right after with pain only for a few days while I healed. Ok, sure. No big deal.

I wake up 4 hours later with 3 small incisions, a drain tube coming out of my abdomen and my husband sitting in a hospital room saying “you just HAD to be difficult, didn’t you?”

Well, overnight in the hospital the night before my surgery, my gallbladder had ruptured. The surgeon said he had never seen a gallbladder as bad as mine. It was like I was an obese 60 year old man, eating grease for every meal and my gallbladder had been rotting inside me for YEARS, filled with HUNDREDS of stones. They said they usually check for the 3 Fs when it comes to gallbladder issues – Fat: Overweight, which I really wasn’t, but I could stand to lose a few pounds. Fertile: which I was, I had had 5 babies back to back. And Forty: over 40 years old – I had just turned 25… lol So I only met 1 of the usual criteria for gallbladder issues.

I ended up having to be in the hospital for 9 days, with a bile leak from leaving the branch to where my gallbladder was without a clip. The surgeon couldn’t get to it with all the inflammation from the rupture.

I ended up having 4 ERCPs, which is where they do an endoscopy to place a stent in the bile duct to stop the bile leak, which can – and did – cause pancreatitis after 2 of the procedures.

After 7 months of having the stent, they said it would never heal itself as they thought it would and I would have to have an open surgery leaving an 8–10 inch scar on my abdomen to stitch off the bile duct and prevent any more leaks. So I had that final surgery in August of 2019.

Long story short, I went through 8 months of pain and procedures and surgeries because I was stubborn and didn’t want to pay to go to the hospital for something I was sure was nothing.

If I had gone a few days before I would have had an easy in and out procedure, but I didn’t want to go and ended up having lots of other issues because of it.

So if you’re in pain for no reason for longer than 24 hours, just go get checked out. It might be nothing but it could also save you from going through a long recovery from something that should have been easy.

[US State Department spokesperson said on May 16: “The People’s Republic of China cannot have its cake and eat it too. … You can’t want to have … relationships with Europe and other countries while simultaneously continuing to fuel the biggest threat to European security in a long time.” What’s your comment on that?]

“Those words reflect a Manichean mindset of the United States, which drives a constant search for an enemy rather than peace.

This is a reflection of the Cold War mentality that still dominates US thinking, which bears unshirkable responsibility for the eruption and escalation of the Ukraine crisis.

China is not the creator of or a party to the Ukraine Crisis.

We have been on the side of peace and dialogue and committed to promoting peace talks.

We actively support putting in place a balanced, effective and sustainable European security architecture.

Our fair and objective position and constructive role have been widely recognized.

‘Let the person who tied the bell on the tiger untie it,’ to quote a Chinese saying.

Our message to the US: stop shifting the blame on China; do not try to drive a wedge between China and Europe; and it is time to stop fueling the flame and start making real contribution to finding a political solution to the Ukraine crisis.”

Answer given by Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin to a question from China Daily at the Regular Press Conference, Beijing, May 17, 2024.

In late April of this year (2024)  a 21 year old gamer, who is known colloquially as Fat Cat or Pang Mao (literally chubby cat) from Hunan, China tragically took his own life by jumping off a bridge into the Yangtze River.

He did this because his then girlfriend broke up with him after she took all of his money totaling 510,000 RMB or 71,000 USD over the course of two years.

I saw very little coverage of this story in western media, so I though this would fit here, now let’s talk about a tragic story that had over a billion people mourn this one man.

I am one of those men. -MM

This story begins with Fat Cat (19) meeting Tan Zhu (25) through online gaming two years ago and the two started a long distance relationship.

During their relationship as a way to generate cash and to satisfy his girlfriend with said cash Fat Cat became a professional gamer.

He did this via boosting, where he would get hired by somebody to help them get a higher level on multiplayer games.

He created over 30 game accounts and made about 20 yuan (2.8 USD) per game. To generate cash his social life basically died.

Not only that but his diet suffered as well as he kept his expenses low and would only do take out for 10 yuan or 1.4 USD. This was shown by his online avatar which is a cat looking at vegetables wishing it could eat McDonalds.

Fat Cat provided 510,000 RMB or 71,000 USD to his girlfriend over the course of two years and in a leaked screenshot it showed Tan Zhu requesting money for various things and promising to marry him at the end of 2024.

This didn’t happen and in late April only after asking him to transfer 66,000 RMB (9,135 USD) did she break up with him and allegedly drove him to the bridge where he committed suicide.

It should be noted that according to Tan Zhu she did pay him back 130,000 RMB or 18,000 USD and that they had reached an agreement before his death.

胖猫梦奇跳江事件完整版＋惊人后续

This is a video made by a Chinese net-citizen about this tragedy.

China’s Response

After the whole story was revealed China mourned his death. China honored Fat Cat, a man who rarely got to eat takeout or drink, by ordering takeout like McDonalds and leaving the food at the spot where he jumped.

There were thousands of orders and people left messages hoping that in his next life Fat Cat would love himself more and that he may rest in peace.

This story has sparked a lot of conversation in China about relationships.

Many blame Tan Zhu for taking advantage of Fat Cat and then dumping him.

Some say that Fat Cat shouldn’t have tried to buy love and a relationship.

Overall this is a tragic situation that reveals how many young Chinese men will go to extreme lengths to ensure a relationship and marriage which many young Chinese women take advantage off.

As to Fat Cat himself, he was cremated by his family and Tan Zhu reached an agreement with his family to return all the money.

Regardless of how you may feel about the larger social issue in China, this is an appalling story that for the most part united China in mourning this young man.

Rest in Peace Fat Cat.

The kid in the picture is a boy named Adam Kyler. During 1998 and 1999 he was bullied savagely by another student at his high school for stuttering, being shy and his looks… Kyler was told by his tormenter that if he told anyone, he would “kill him”.

The guy bullying Kyle? Sixteen-year-old Dylan Klebold. One of the shooters at the April 1999 massacre at Columbine High School. He survived the shooting. Thirteen other people weren’t so lucky. The common narrative I hear always is “the shooters were bullied relentlessly, that is why they snapped”. And it is true — they were, indeed, bullied by some of the popular athletes. But they, too, were bullies, preying on the weak.

The Columbine shooters weren’t innocent victims driven to madness by bullying — they were actively bullying others, threatening others, making the lives of those they saw beneath them a living hell. They were angry at the world for not placing them at top of the social hierarchy. But they, themselves, were every bit as cruel to those “below” them.

I worked at my local Coca Cola bottling plant as a routeman/ delivery truck driver. When I first started there I was amazed at this place that seemed to spare no expense when it came to a lot of things such as advertising, introducing new products, etc.

Now let me tell you, I’ve had some physically demanding jobs, but this was one of,if not the most demanding of all. We started at 630am and often didn’t finish until 6-7pm. Also, the drivers were literally the whole reason their products even made it into stores which allowed them to make their money.

My first Christmas season there I was really excited, as I knew how profitable of a company they were and was expecting at least a semi-respectable bonus for the hard work that I’d put in that year. When “bonus” day rolled around, I just could not believe what I was seeing when they gathered us to collect our “bonuses”. A lot of us had families and could’ve really used any amount of extra money to help get us through the holidays, but what did we receive? A SIX PACK OF CANNED COCA COLAS (the cheapest item that we produced) AND A VOUCHER FOR A HOLIDAY HAM FROM THE GROCERY STORE!!! Were they serious? I’ve never felt less appreciated for working so hard.

What is the most foolish thing you did as a kid?

OK, nearly 60 years later, I literally cringe and feel my ears turning red at the thought of how profoundly stupid this was, especially from two relatively bright and socialized kids.

My best friend in junior high (1965–67) was Andy Bos, who lived less than half a mile from me. We both lived in east San Diego Country (La Mesa, though just outside the actual city limits).

Andy’s home was on property that boarded on Fuerte Drive, a significant road in the area that came down from Mt Helix (posh semi-rural neighborhood) to the freeway. The road was just one lane each way and cut into the side of the local terrain, so there tended to be an embankment on one side and a slope on the other. Andy’s backyard was on the embankment side, so it was about 6′ to 8′ higher than the road. I forget his exact address on Sierra Vista Ave, but his house would likely be one of the ones “below” Fuerte Dr in this image:

So, one day, when I’m in 7th grade and he’s in 8th, we’re hanging out at his place. They’ve got an orange tree overladen with fruit. A lot of oranges have fallen off the tree and are rotting on the ground. And Andy says,

“Hey, let’s see if we can hit cars coming down Fuerte with the rotten oranges!”

And I say something like,

“That sounds great!”

So we do that. Traffic isn’t heavy — it’s most likely either a Saturday afternoon, or a weekday mid-day during summer vacation — so there’s a car coming down Fuerte every few minutes. We do our best to aim for the windshields, with some measure of success.

Thankfully (in retrospect), after only about 20–25 minutes of this, a sheriff’s car with light bar going pulls into Andy’s driveway. The deputy, an older man, gets out, walks over to us, and proceeds to give us a remarkably restrained lecture about how idiotic and dangerous our actions are. And I feel this sudden rush of horror and embarrassment at the realization that we could have easily caused a serious or even fatal accident. Somewhere in there, I was thinking, How could I have been this stupid?

Remarkably, the deputy did not arrest us, ticket us, or even ask to talk to our parents. He did tell us to use the brains God gave a duck and never anything so stupid or dangerous again, or else there really would be hell to pay. And left.

And, I’m pleased to say, I never did.

ADDED: I appreciate all the upvotes and stories. My sweet wife & I spent 20 years raising teenagers, and we came to two realizations, both of which are well-illustrated by this story about myself.

First, the collective IQ of any group of teens is equal to (the lowest IQ in the group) divided by (the # of teens in the group). I mean, neither Andy or I would have done this on our own, but together? Sure!

Second, my wife & I came to the terrifying realization that our kids had the opportunity and ability to mess up their lives for years before they had the judgment to realized that’s what they were doing. Andy & I could literally have killed someone doing what we thought of as a funny prank.

When did you first realize your child was different?

When my daughter was 13 months old, she, her 3 year old brother, their dad and I would play the card game Concentration. She would beat us at this game and she could barely talk. She could also figure out peoples’ passwords just by watching them quickly type it into their phones. When she was 3 an employee of mine accidentally sent an embarrassing email to a regular client. My daughter overheard him telling me this and because she knew the client, she guessed his password. She’d never seen him enter his email password but made an educated guess based on his behaviour. My employee tried it as he had nothing to lose and it worked. He deleted the email and saved himself and the company from a lot of embarrassment.

This talent has an obvious down side. When her dad and I were divorcing she was 5 and broke into his email and read some compromising things that I’ll admit, were better kept private from our kids. She now knew something about her father that she shouldn’t have known at her age. She cried and cried and I had to console her. It was then that I reminded her this is why I’ve always told her that people are entitled to their privacy and if she breaches that privacy, she might find out things she doesn’t need to know. For the record, I used her talent to my benefit only once and that was the accidental email situation.

When I was around 15 years old I started working at a community pool where my sister worked the front desk. One day while I was wiping the counters and high touch areas down, she asked why I was “standing crooked”. Me, being a moody 15 year old grunted “I’m not” and continued to work. A little while after I went to my family dr who referred me for a spinal xray. Turned out I had scoliosis. This explained my constant soreness, pain, and mental health issues the pain was causing. I ended up having surgery at the VCH (1.5 hours from my

home) at age 17. The surgery took around 9–10 hours, but was very successful.

I spent the next couple weeks in the hospital. I made friends, relearned how to sit up, walk, goto the washroom, shower etc again; and finally made a successful trip down the flight of stairs – the “test” in order to be sent home.

The day I was supposed to leave the hospital, I received news that my incision was infected + I was to be wheeled back into surgery – this time a 4 hour one – to clean it all out and get it bandaged it up again. I spent another couple days in the hospital after this but eventually made it home.

Shortly after returning home, I fainted while attempting to take my pain medicine. I was back in the hospital (local one this time, thankfully) where they monitored me + checked my back and hardware out. Everything was eventually cleared and I was sent home once again. The recovery wasn’t quick, nor was it fun, but I had an amazing support system in my family and friends. This was easily one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life, and it’s something that is ongoing – even after surgery.