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These People All Turned Out to Be Right, NOT CRAZY

There are examples throughout history of people who guessed, knew, or figured something out a long time before anyone.

And in general, they were usually written off as huge kooks.

Most of us have trouble believing in what we can’t see, and it turns out that we’re also a bit mean to the people who don’t – but these 15 people stuck to their guns, no matter who called them nuts.

But it was all good in the end, when they were proved to be right.

15. How did I not know this?

Sinead O’Connor

Younger Redditors might not know who she is but she was a singer/songwriter from Ireland who was a staple in the Alternative Music scene during the late 80s and early to mid 90s who had some cross-over hits.

Anyway, at the height of her popularity she was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live after canceling an earlier scheduled spot in protest against the guest host which was some dumba$s standup comic from the 80s called Andrew Dice Clay (As Scott Thompson described him: “it’s as if someone took your grandmother, the one who can’t speak English, and taught her to swear phonetically, gave her a special on HBO and made her a star”).

During her performance she sang an acapella version of Bob Marley’s “War” changing the lyrics to make it about child sexual abuse instead of racism. At the end of the performance she shouted something like “Fight the real enemy” and ripped up a picture of the pope.

In the following weeks people lost their shit and on the next episode of Saturday Night Live they had at least 3 sketches that tore her apart. A few years later the Catholics S^x Abuse Scandal broke internationally.

14. Always a tough call.

The ex-husband of my ex-girlfriend . Turns out he wasn’t the crazy one after all. He kept trying to tell me and if I would have listened from the beginning I could have saved 4 years of my life.

13. Some people just know.

About ten years ago there was this stoner who always hung around the shop that I played Magic at. One day, he told me that he didn’t trust Jared from Subway. I said that there was nothing to worry about and that the only thing that Jared did was eat sandwiches. He said that there was something really sinister about Jared, and that he could tell just by looking at him.

12. They knew she was telling the truth.

Courtney Love and her quip about Weinstein.

It’s still wild to me that people will villainize someone while knowing damn well they are speaking the truth.

11. There isn’t a happy ending.

That one journalist Gary Webb that uncovered the truth that the CIA aided and abetted Nicaraguan contra rebels in funneling cocaine into inner city communities.

And then he was blackballed and later killed himself.

There is actually a book about Gary Webb, his investigation, and the aftermath called Kill the Messenger by Nick Schou.

10. A classic for a reason.

The classic example, of course, is Cassandra; in Greek mythology she was cursed to know the future, but for no one to believe her when she told them.

9. Moms are (almost) always right.

My mom. Turns out being Emo was really just a phase.

8. He was bound to be telling the truth at some point.

Johnny Rotten said in an interview that he knew Jimmy Savile was into all kinds of “seediness”.

People dismissed it as typical Johnny Rotten anti establishment talk (for which he is famous).

As it turned out, he was right.

7. The joke is on all of us.

The people who said the government was spying on its citizens.

6. Those things freak me out.

The people who discovered prions.

All the other biologists thought they were crazy to suggest one protein could be an infectious agent.

Nope those biologists were wrong and Nobel prizes were awarded.

5. This hurts my heart.

Corey Feldman.

Dude went on national TV to tell everyone that there was a network of sexual abusers in Hollywood, and that he himself had been abused, and people LAUGHED AT HIM and shunned him.

And then it came out that pretty much everything he was saying was true.

4. No one wanted to believe it.

Me. About my (now disowned) cousin.

He kept stealing things from me which my family felt was no big deal. But it escalated. It went from stealing candy, to my things, to cash, and after that I asked them how much longer they would support him and call me “selfish” for “not sharing”. The line was finally crossed when he stole our grandmothers credit cards and her car.

She finally wrote him off.

This was AFTER he had stolen all of her jewelry, including the last present (anniversary ring) my grandfather was ever to give her.

Oh, but he tried to say that our family kicked him out because he’s gay. No. None of us cared about that, it was because he’s a thief.

His “friends” have bailed him out of jail and then dropped him when he steals from them.

But he claims the world is “just unfair” to him.

Now he tells his pity story and milks the “my family disowned me because I’m gay” to everyone he begs from. I learned this when he tried to do it to one of my friends.

3. A tale as old as time, unfortunately.

The people who were tortured as a part of MK Ultra.

Imagine trying to convince the people around you that the government is trying to make you crazy with mind control, only years later to find out that not only was it true, but you wouldn’t get compensation for it. And you were subject to illegal human experimentation.

2. Did they think he was jealous?

Jose Canseco. He revealed that a bunch of baseball players (Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, etc) were doing steroids.

No one believed him for years, until everyone else got caught doing steroids.

1. Hindsight and all of that.

Congresswoman Barbara Lee was the only congressperson out of 535 members who voted no on the Authorized Use of Military Force Act after the 9/11 attacks (there were also 12 present/not voting recorded). In her words,

“It was a blank check to the president to attack anyone involved in the September 11 events—anywhere, in any country, without regard to our nation’s long-term foreign policy, economic and national security interests, and without time limit. In granting these overly broad powers, the Congress failed its responsibility to understand the dimensions of its declaration. I could not support such a grant of war-making authority to the president; I believe it would put more innocent lives at risk. The president has the constitutional authority to protect the nation from further attack, and he has mobilized the armed forces to do just that. The Congress should have waited for the facts to be presented and then acted with fuller knowledge of the consequences of our action.”

For her vote she received death threats, a damaged political career, she was called insane, a traitor, and a communist. And she was 100% right.

Humanity sure would be a lot better off if we had listened to some of these folks early on, don’t you think?

What’s your favorite example of this phenomenon? Drop some knowledge on us in the comments!

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Doctors Share Appalling Stories of Really Awful Diagnoses

Doctors go to school and go through training for years, which is why we trust them with our literal lives.

Of course, everyone is human and it only makes sense that, no matter how good they are at their jobs, doctors are going to be wrong at least some of the time.

These 15 misdiagnoses, though, are too blatant to make any patient comfortable.

15. He had to fix it himself.

I had the opposite of this. Had a small rash that wouldn’t go away, so went to see the doctor. He said it was ringworm and gave me an anti-fungal. The rash got worse. I went back, he gave me an even stronger anti fungal.

The rash spread. It was all down my arms. I went back to the doctor to get a referral to a dermatologist. He took one look at the rash and said “that is contact dermatitis.” I had changed soaps, and it irritated my skin and gave me a little rash. The doctor’s stupid anti fungals were making my skin go crazy.

I just stopped using soap for like a week and it was fine, but I had skin discolouration for like a year

14. Doctors like to ignore the gallbladder.

Told by my doctor my health issues were stress related. The second opinion found my gallbladder was functioning at 3% and had that sucker removed a couple weeks later.

What’s worse is I specifically asked the first doctor about gallbladder and they assured me it couldn’t be that.

13. Well that’s gross, Ma.

My mom did something like this to me.

I had a small spot that looked like something she had once so she gave me the cream she’d used.

It got gross looking so she took me to the doctor.

He asked what I’d been using and we told him. He said it was ringworm and whatever we’d been using was essentially feeding it.

It took a couple of months to clear up completely at that point.

12. That was a close one.

Dealt with an unrelated incident, and reading a patients notes found he had been diagnosed with a rare but deadly skin cancer and was booked in to have his upper lip removed. Obviously this would leave the patient quite disfigured.

On a whim he’d booked in to see a dermatologist at our hospital, who advised it was a cold sore, prescribed acciclovir and the problem was resolved.

11. A reprimand? That’s it?

I had a period of about a year, where I was getting constant UTI’s. Which – apparently – as a woman in her mid 20’s is “normally” caused by not peeing after sex. I’m still not sure what was causing mine, but I was NOT sexually active at all, due to vaginismus.

My doctor was away for school holidays and stupidly – I thought I could last a week until she was back – nope. Two days later, I could barely move from the couch in pain.

So, I called a doctor. This doctor (a home doctor cause it was a public holiday) refused to hand over the script until I acknowledged that I was being sexually irresponsible. When I said “I am a virgin” – embarrassing and potentially dangerous statement to make with a strange man in my house while I was home alone – this jackass LAUGHED his ass off and said “No you’re not. Nobody is at this age. Stop pretending to be all innocent”. Slammed the prescription on my coffee table and walked out – refusing to give me the starter dose that they’re required to carry (for people, like me, who are alone and can’t get the prescription until the first dose kicks in enough to begin helping).

I called the office to complain and he did get reprimanded. But holy hell was I embarrassed.

10. The nurses always know.

Nurse here. I cared for a woman who had been diagnosed with broken vertebrae. She was in a lot of pain, couldn’t get her pain under control, and her blood pressure was very low. She’d lose consciousness, and be very difficult to wake. I also couldn’t get her doctor to answer the phone (middle of the night).

Something just felt off about the whole situation. He finally answered and demanded we Narcan her, insisting we’d overdosed her on narcotics (following his orders). I then had a hysterical woman in a lot of pain going in and out of consciousness

I finally walked down to the entrance of the hospital and grabbed the cardiologist who came in at 4:30am for rounds and said “This isn’t your patient but I think she’s going to die.” He came upstairs with me, looked at her and her chart, grabbed the bed and rolled her to ICU himself.

I have no idea how the conversation went between the cardiologist and her doctor. She didn’t have a broken back, she had an aortic aneurysm, which caused the pain and the low pressure, and the loss of consciousness.

She died the next day. Doctors, if the nurse says “something is wrong” you might want to lay your eyes on the patient rather than shouting orders through the phone.

9. It all started with a hangnail.

Got an infected hang nail so I went to urgent care. I got a shot of an antibiotic a a prescription for another. Took the pill for about a week out of the 10 day dose.

On that 7 day mark I was in my chemistry class (which was at the end of the day) feeling extremely lightheaded, tired, and so dizzy I could barely see. I stagger down the stairs of my hs to see the nurse but she was out to lunch. I didn’t know what to do and had bad attendance due to chronic illness so I stayed for the next class. Went home on the bus and passed out on my couch. For the next 2 days I had a bunch of symptoms. I spiked a fever of 104°F, had a swollen lumpy throat, in and out of consciousness, vomiting, coughing, and dizziness so bad i couldn’t stand.

Went in the next night after coming home from school with the fever of 104. Urgent care doctor said that wasn’t a treatable fever, that I had a upper respiratory virus that was also untreatable, and told me to go home and not worry. I wasn’t allergic to the antibiotic I was taking because I was taking it for a week and had no reaction before that day.

Next night felt even worse. Couldn’t keep food down, could barely breathe, dizziness was so bad i couldn’t get up to use the bathroom without being in severe danger of falling. There was also a rash that was going from behind my ears down to my stomach in little red blotches. Went to the ER this time. Also had a yeast infection from the med. Doctor there wouldn’t touch me. He barely wanted to look at me. He wouldn’t do any kind of exam on me besides look at the rash on my stomach. He said it was measles. Gave me nothing for that. Said there was no way I was allergic to the antibiotic. Sent me home.

Went the next day to see my primary doc who squeezed me in due to my symptoms. Talked to the assistant getting my vitals and symptoms about what was going on. She said I was allergic to the antibiotic. She wrote in my chart that I wasn’t supposed to take it. A nurse practitioner came in and listened to me tale of woe. He said I was having a bad reaction and also wrote AGAIN that I should stay away from the antibiotic. He said I could’ve died and usually would’ve because it built up in my system and caused a deadly reaction. Doc comes in and says the same thing. If I take it again I’ll probably die. Not measles, not an untreatable upper respiratory virus.

8. It’s not always the easy answer.

My husband had a situation where he almost died because of a misdiagnosis. To preface this at the time we were young in our mid 20s living in a college town. My husband had horrible pain (on floor on hands and knees horrible), we went to the ER and the doctor barely looked at him and just told him to stop drinking and he would be fine.

We go home the pain is getting worse and now he is vomiting. As soon as the doctors off opens back home were we grew up we drove 1.5 hours to see our primary care. Within 15 minutes of walking into the GP office my husband was rushed to emergency surgery, his gallbladder had completely ruptured and he was going septic.

It was a total mess and he almost died all because of a misdiagnosis.

7. Talk about pain and suffering.

I was diagnosed with MS, sought out a second opinion, and turns out it was an easily solvable vitamin deficiency. Pretty damn different… $15K in medical bills later only go have all symptoms subside with some nutritional advice, and supplements. I’m still salty about it.

6. Don’t want to ignore that.

My grandmother fell from her horse one day. Not a terrible fall, but from the way she landed, she wanted to get checked out – she felt she’d really jolted her neck/spine, and was an older lady with fragile bones.

Her doctor looked things over, gave her one of those soft neck cushion things and sent her home.

A couple days later, she decided to get a second opinion. No real reason, she just hadn’t felt listened to by the first guy.

The second doctor basically took one look at her X-rays and freaked out. He told her they needed to get her immediately into a brace to immobilize her spine (I googled to try to figure out what it was – I think it is a halo brace, but in my memory it’s bigger and more metal than what I was seeing in the pictures).

Basically she’d broken her neck (the same injury that had paralyzed Christoper Reeve), but she wasn’t paralyzed because the vertebrae hadn’t dislocated. The second doctor anything that did dislocate it (another minor fall, twisting wrong in bed) would mean being permanently paralyzed from the neck down.

She wore her intense metal brace that kept her spine in place for a few months and was totally fine, she lived another 15 years after that. But I think about that story often – the second doctor saved her mobility and freedom.

5. Happens to fat people far too often.

I went to a sleep doctor because I was constantly tired and falling asleep standing up and such. Serious shit. Doctor was like “well, you’re overweight, so it’s definitely sleep apnea.”

I did a sleep study, came back negative for sleep apnea. Doctor was like “well, I’m still positive it’s sleep apnea, cause you’re a fatty.” So he sent me home with a cpap machine for a month.

After a month of using the machine, which records your sleep apnea events every night and STILL said I didn’t have sleep apnea, and with me having zero improvement in any of my symptoms, I we t back to him and he said “well, if this isn’t working, I can’t help you, because you obviously have sleep apnea since all tubbos have sleep apnea, so you must not be using the cpap.”

So I dropped him like a fresh turf and went to get a second opinion. New sleep doc, new sleep study. Come back in and the new doctor’s like “Yeah, this is textbook narcolepsy. You have all the symptoms and the sleep study proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

I told him about the other doctor and he said, “This is obviously narcolepsy. Your previous doctor was a moron.” And, unlike the other quotes in this story, that is an actual, direct quote. I’ll never forget the look of disgust on his face when he said the word “moron.”

4. Not a sinus infection.

I went to a walk-in clinic because I couldn’t swallow anything.

The doctor pressed on my forehead and asked if it hurt. I guessed kind of? He told me I had a sinus infection and prescribed me antibiotics (that I couldn’t swallow) and sent me on my way.

Turns out I had had a stroke and ended up spending three weeks in the hospital.

3. I would not have gone back there.

Years ago I had a mycoplasma respiratory infection that kicked my asthma into overdrive. At the time I didn’t have a primary care physician because I didn’t see the point. I’d just go to urgent care for everything.

Despite my peak flow meter reading being at 50%, and despite me telling the UC doctor that I’d had to sleep sitting up the night before (a huge red flag that the patient isn’t properly oxygenating), and despite asking for a breathing treatment the doctor said no because “I’m sending you home with prednisone and your O2 is at 97%.” Note that our bodies are really good at compensating for shitty lungs, so if an asthmatic has a low O2 saturation, they should’ve gone to the ED an hour ago. (97% is fine the issue is my peak flow was down 50%.)

I eventually did get a PCP and I know now why I have one. I eventually told him about that urgent care doctor who wouldn’t give me a breathing treatment, and my doc got SO pissed off! It made me feel very vindicated.

And as a post script, I had to go back to that urgent care the next day, where a different doc did give me a breathing treatment.

2. This should be criminal.

I went to a dermatologist for a rash on my hands and face.

He insisted it was eczema even though I’ve never had eczema on my life. He refused to do any testing or take a biopsy.

He prescribed me a steroid cream for eczema.

The rash spread and got horribly worse. It was all up my arms and all over my face. It was itchy and painful.

I went to a different dermatologist and explained the situation. They took a biopsy.

It was a bacterial infection and the first doctor essentially gave me a bacterial infection on steroids. I was a minor at the time and I don’t know why my parents didn’t go after the first doctor.

1. What the actual f*ck.

My dad had dementia and was basically nonverbal except saying my mom’s name. He called me (we had all the big buttons programmed with my number) and said my mom’s name over and over while sobbing. I assumed they were having an emergency, so I called 911 and asked them to make sure they took Dad with them if Mom had to go to the hospital. Then I headed over to their side of town, the paramedics called and told me what hospital.

I got there and they were discharging my mom, who couldn’t speak or stand up. Dad was running around like a scared toddler. The staff were telling me the ER wasn’t respite care and I couldn’t send my parents there when I needed a break.

I told them she was walking and talking and driving the day before, so clearly something was really wrong and I guess we’d have to call an ambulance to take her to another hospital. They decided to run some tests and figured out she had sepsis. She was in their ICU a couple weeks.

I would be angry beyond words if any of these had happened to me or someone I love.

If you’ve got a similar story, share it with us in the comments.

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People Discuss the Saddest Truths About Smart People

There are upsides and downsides to everything and the longer I live, the more I suspect the adage that “the grass is always greener” is almost always true.

People want to be rich, but rich people have their own troubles. Likewise, intelligent people have their own crosses to bear.

Here are 15 things people think are sad truths about being smart.

15. We don’t listen to them.

i’m family friends with an epidemiologist, they have been warning that we’re due for a pandemic and we’re not prepared for years.

He was humored at best until last year. He was also one of maybe 5 people in the world that predicted NYC’s cases would drop rapidly during the week where 1/10 people in the city had it. Smart people get ignored until the moment when their right, but IT’S ABOUT BEING PREPARED BEFOREHAND.

14. Knowledge isn’t always power.

The ability to understand most possible outcomes and the consequences often leads to hesitation or inaction. As opposed to some who damn the consequences and just go for it.

It’s called the perfectionists’ trap. If anyone is struggling with this look online there are some very simple exercises you can do to get your mind out of this. Otherwise talk to a therapist.

13. It can be hard to find purpose.

Most smart people never find meaningful application for their intelligence.

12. Ignorance can be bliss.

Best advice I’ve ever received: “keep it simple stupid.”

Sometimes ignorance truly is bliss.

11. Stay in the box.

I was literally told this in my last performance review:

“We know you’re really smart, but you have to sell it better.”

I had just pulled like a week of 12 hour work days and i was told to send out more mails. I hate my existence

10. It’s all relative.

As a person that was repeatedly told how smart I was growing up…1) without social skills it doesn’t mean crap.

2) it easily turns into how you identify yourself and can wreck your mental health (if I’m not smart about everything what good am I??)

3) smart is relative

9. They can struggle in social situations.

I was a career nanny for 10 years, I worked for two families where the parents were doctors. One set especially, Two extremely successful doctors, one anesthesiologist and and a cancer research doctor. I saw their lives from the most intimate view due to working 50+ hours in their home with their children..

the saddest thing is that a lot of them are so, so smart that they stand out as the oddball in all non-academic situations. This is abundantly clear when watching them try to make connections with other, more of average IQ parents

They’re almost just… too brainy and awkward? I have to assume this is a life long struggle.

It just seems isolating at times, I guess is my point here.

8. Expectations are heavy.

I am 31 and peaked in my school years.

It’s depressing and I am embarrassed around family because I think they all imagined me to be the most successful of all the siblings/cousins I grew up with, and instead I’m pretty sure I’m the biggest failure.

I was a teacher’s pet, overachiever, had straight A’s, friends would “hate” me because I rarely had to study outside of the five minutes before class and would still get among the highest grades. Teachers, adult family members, all of them would single me out (in a good way) for being smart. I was constantly praised for sh%t that required little effort/strain, and it made succeeding feel like a given.

Many of them finished college. I literally dropped out in year one. All of them are employed, and several with pretty nice careers. I have been unemployed for a long time and live with my parents atm. Being smart was my “thing” and felt like it was ripped out from under me overnight.

For the last ten years it’s been a battle with depression and the voice in my head constantly calling me stupid. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t feel like a massive failure, and have a hard time feeling like my younger self was actually me.

Sorry for the personal rant but that’s all to say making it your identity can definitely wreck your mental health and self worth as soon as you start failing and having difficulties as an adult. I do not consider myself smart anymore (haven’t for a long time) because despite having some book smarts I have never adapted to the actual world, and I believe adapting is a necessary component.

Praise kids for working hard and trying hard, not only for the things they are naturally good at.

7. Self-care is important.

That’s kind of the thing they’re talking about. They’re so engulfed in their work that 90% of anything they’ve done in the past month is related to their work.

Many folks like that, especially doctors, need to take care of themselves and take some time to developed more well-rounded. +60hr is incredibly draining beyond just physically.

6. School isn’t real life.

Couldn’t agree more. Being put on an academic pedestal and being intelligent enough to pull off straight A’s without studying set me up for a rude awakening for real life.

5. Everything has a cost.

There’s a cost that comes with spending a lifetime developing one’s intellect, as one sees with doctors (particularly specialists), and the like: less time is devoted to developing the social side of their personalities. That makes those interpersonal connections difficult and awkward.

One of the most brilliant people I’ve ever met was an orthopaedic surgeon, but the man was a social hand grenade. There’s a certain professional bluntness that comes with being a doctor, but in more nuanced social settings that bluntness can come across as dickishness.

To make matters worse, the guy had no idea what made him so off-putting…Smartest fucking guy in the room but he couldn’t understand what the problem was…or maybe he could, he just couldn’t solve it. You can’t make up for YEARS of neglected social graces.

4. Hemingway would know.

“Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.”-forgot where this is from

3. Mental health issues abound.

The fact that growing up smart, or being told you’re better or above average, leads to a burnout, anxiety, and depression.

2. They know enough to be depressed.

Smart people can often see the bad stuff coming and can also see that it really isn’t preventable unless people can be convinced to change their behavior and people can rarely be convinced to change their behavior.

It’s depressing watching negative events unfold that you predicted. More often than not, being proved right is really depressing.

1. They don’t like being separated.

The worst is being smarter than the smart people.

I have no idea why my school did this, but they separated the “gifted and talented” (hate that label it’s such bullshit) kids into four tiers and told everyone which tier every kid was in. And guess what? If you were in the top tier, every other one of the “gifted and talented” kids hated your fucking guts.

It was horrendous. I fit in nowhere, because I was a “gifted from elementary” kid who’d always been separated from everyone else, and then now I was singled out from all the other “gifted” kids with a massive target on my back. Because the one thing smart kids hate is being told there’s someone smarter than them.

I finally just went and hung out with the stoner/dropout kids, stopped taking anything except “normal” classes, and learned how to pretend to be stupider than I was for the sake of my own sanity. Turns out, that last skill has come in remarkably handy for the rest of my f*cking life.

I’m not sure there’s a better way to be, honestly. So just be yourself!

If you’re smart, do you agree with these? Add your own thoughts in the comments.

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Doctors Talk About the Worst Diagnosis They Ended Up Having to Fix

People like to put doctors on a pedestal as if they’re more than human or too smart to totally mess up at work.

But the truth is that they’re humans. Humans make mistakes, and that’s why we have backup systems, even in the medical field.

If a doctor gives you a diagnosis, and you feel as if it’s not right or not complete, you can go to a different doctor and ask for their opinion.

Those second doctors are the ones on this thread, confession the worst mistakes they caught their colleagues making when they double checked.

17. It was his lucky day.

This is the opposite answer, but the BEST request for a second opinion came from a CVS minute clinic.

Young healthy law student goes to minute clinic. Has the flu (this was a few years ago—no ‘rona). Feels awful. They check him out, yup he has a fever, aches, sore throat, it’s the flu. Flu swab positive. His clinic vitals were notable for a heart rate of 140—a bit high but not CRAZY high. Reassuring numbers <100. The guy otherwise walked in to the CVS, and is a young healthy guy. Would have been pretty easy to dismiss. Anyway the minute clinic says go to the ER, you need an EKG. So the guy follows orders.

ER chief complaint is “i have the flu and CVS told me to come here.” ER gets an EKG and he’s in SLOW VT which is a life threatening arrhythmia that you have to be shocked out of. They take a look as his heart and it was giant and barely moving. He had an insane myocarditis. Dude ended up getting cannulated for ECMO within hours (cardiac bypass machines as life support).

I can’t say all minute clinics are the same but holy sh%t that was a great save.

16. Sometimes it’s a good catch.

I was one of those instances where the urgent care clinic was right. Went in for pain in my lungs. I had a co-worker who had been diagnosed with bronchitis so I just wanted to be sure.

As the pain got worse the clinic ruled out bronchitis and everything else they could test for and recommended calling an ambulance take me to the ER. I felt bad but not that bad so I drove myself. After five minutes in the ER waiting room, the pain became unbearable and I could not breath.

t turned out I had my first pulmonary embolism before I got to the clinic and a second shower of clots in the ER waiting room. Both lungs were affected and my lung function is permanently impaired – but I feel lucky to be alive.

15. She’s lucky to be alive.

Well when I first started feeling sick the October of one year at college I had:

A non-productive cough.
Night sweats and trouble sleeping. and
I had lost some weight.

The school nurse gave me Claritin.

All of those symptoms got worse, plus I was incredibly fatigued, my lymph nodes swelled up, and I had pretty bad back aches.

My GP took a chest X-ray and prescribed antibiotics for pneumonia. At this point I had almost failed out of school because I was only managing an hour or two of sleep per night.

It took until Spring break for me to go see a pulmonary specialist. He could instantly tell that it wasn’t pneumonia.

I had Stage 4b Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. My first PET scan showed cancerous cells in lymph nodes in all 4 quadrants of my body. At this point I had lost about a third of my body weight. The cough, weight loss, and back pain were my swollen lymph nodes pressing on my lungs, stomach, and my back.

They gave me my first round of chemo and I genuinely felt incredible. I felt like such shit that an IV mixture of (carefully measured) toxins was an improvement. I went home and ate a whole pizza.

Chemo got sh%ttier but it worked, so I guess I can’t complain too much.

14. That’s a bad few hours.

Something similar-ish happened to my wife. She got some routine blood check done and the nurse called her to come in right away.

Basically it showed she was incredibly anaemic and had a very off the charts level of white blood cells and probably had some advanced cancer and will die. The doctor suggested a bone marrow biopsy but since she seemed otherwise fine decided to check her blood again.

This time it came back normal – someone it the lab either mixed it up or f*cked up the test.

13. Unlikely and impossible aren’t the same thing.

I’m a gynecologist. The number of times I’ve seen patients pregnant and upset (or happy) because some other doctor told them they can’t get pregnant – so they didn’t use birth control – is appalling.

Usually it’s family med. Not ragging on all FM docs, just how it goes. I then have to explain that even if the patient has whatever condition that makes it unlikely for them to get pregnant, the odds are almost never 0%.

Maybe <1%, but still not zero, so of course it can happen.

12. Dismissing college kids, ugh.

When I was in college I went to the doctor because I was pissing razors. It progressed pretty rapidly and by the end of the week I couldn’t walk or sleep. The doc asked me about my sex life and I told him the truth that my girlfriend and I had only been with each other and together for many years. He sorta scoffed at that and told me it was likely chlamydia. Had a long condescending speech about safe sex with me and sent me home.

A week later my piss tests were back. Turns out I had the worst bladder infection they’d ever seen. I had to have a camera shoved up my pee hole, multiple rounds of antibiotics, and to this day I struggle to pee due to irreversible damage the infection caused.

11. This made me see red.

Not me but my mom.

She was always exhausted, the type of exhaustion that she’d have a bath, be so tired from it, she’d sleep on the bath mat when she got out.

Went to her doctor told her, “oh, you’re just depressed, go get a hair cut!”

She did. Still exhausted. Went back to the doctor.

Continued to tell her she’s “just” depressed, get a hobby, it’s all in her head etc. Never sent her for blood work, never referred her to any specialist.

Months later she goes back. Her doctor is on vacation. Physician reliving her doctor takes one look at her eyes and says, “it’s your liver. Get these blood tests now”.

Abnormal blood work and a liver biopsy later, she was told she had autoimmune hepatitis and was 3 months from death.

After she improved with medications, she went back to the original doctor and said, “I didn’t need a haircut.”

27 years later she still suffers from lingering effects.

10. I would be furious, too.

My cousin is 21 but severely disabled, and he was telling his mum it hurt to pee. He was feverish as well so my aunt took him to two different doctors within a week and both completely dismissed it.

He spent the next week in Intensive Care due to sepsis from his undiagnosed UTI. My aunt was so furious. Especially since it was in the middle of the height of the pandemic so if my aunt left the hospital she wasn’t allowed to go back in, and my cousin is mentally about 4 and has major behavioral issues.

So my aunt couldn’t leave and she couldn’t get any breaks which is definitely needed with my cuz. She is now super vigilant about that stuff.

9. In a perfect world.

An MD not noticing yellow eyes should surely be grounds for a malpractice suit.

8. Women get the short end, man.

I saw a young Aboriginal girl with Sydenham’s Chorea, a condition that guarantees you’ve had acute rheumatic fever.

ARF is really common in Australian Indigenous peoples, and in the long run it causes cardiac valve dysfunction and death. It’s also really easily treatable by a specific antibiotic regime (although you do have to stay on it for years).

The first doctor had told her it was anxiety and she just needed to sit still.

7. Just terrifying.

I have one that happened to me. I did college gymnastics, my senior year I had an accident in practice landing in my neck. Went to the hospital got x-rays, was told I was perfectly fine.

Walked around in pain for awhile, Weeks later went to another doc got a new set of images, my neck was broken in 3 places and had a dislocation, had a multi level fusion surgery days later. Found out my x days got swapped with someone else’s in the ER and I was originally diagnosed based on someone else’s images.

This was found out when I went to get my records long after my surgery for insurance purposes and my files had someone else’s medical records and images in it.

Because of the time I spent walking around with it I had to have a posterior surgery instead of anterior which is way more invasive and gives me major issues to this day

6. Why don’t they listen?

This happened to my mom like 20 years ago… I believe she was close to 36 at the time (and had 6 kids) My mom was having severe abdominal pain (and if my mom admits to being in pain then you know it’s bad)

Her family doctor was on vacation and so my dad took her to emerg… Emerg doc told her she was constipated and sent her home. The pain got worse and so she went back to emerg a couple days later.

She specifically asked the doctor (the same one from the previous time) if it could be an ectopic pregnancy. He laughed at her and sent her home. She ended up in emerg a third time and got that same stupid doctor who accused her of lying to get drugs.

She had to wait a week until her family doctor came back. Just over the phone the family doctor could tell something was wrong and told my mom that she wanted to see her first thing in the morning for tests – mom didn’t make that appointment because during the night her Fallopian tube ruptured and my dad found her unconscious on the floor downstairs.

He rushed her to the hospital and they found out that she was something like 10 weeks along with an ectopic pregnancy. Our family doctor apparently was screaming at the other doctor in the hallway because of his incompetence.

5. You hate to hear this.

My sister was about two weeks away from giving birth when she suddenly started feeling excruciating pain and vomiting. I called her midwife who refused to speak with me despite my sister clearly not capable of speaking as she sat on the floor next to the toilet, crying and puking. Finally she just took the phone and was told by her midwife that it was probably just a virus and to eat a popsicle

Eventually I was able to convince her to go to the ER. She was immediately rushed in the OR for an emergency c-section. Her placenta had abrupted and my niece was born not breathing, suffered several seizures and even died and then was resuscitated. She is now 15 and has cerebral palsy due to going so long without the oxygen she needed.

4. That sounds like a terrible plan.

I just left a practice partly because a woman brought her 8 month old in for a second opinion. The practice owner had seen the rapidly enlarging sacral soft tissue mass which the mother first noticed about six weeks prior. He told her not to worry about it. I checked his notes, which read, “Plan: ignore”.

I was shocked. There was a new onset rapidly enlarging blue/purple cystic mass on a baby’s sacrum (it looked like a small plum under the skin at the top of her bum crack) and without any investigation my colleague dismissed it. I was appalled. The mother was relieved. This wasn’t the first not great judgement I’d seen but it was one of the worst.

I realized I couldn’t work in a clinic where I’d be stepping on other doctors’ toes and couldn’t trust their judgement. The baby’s had a imaging and a referral to a paediatric surgeon but unfortunately I don’t know the outcome because I’m working elsewhere now.

3. Never considered that.

I’m a surgeon.

I’ve been called to see more than one patient for appendicitis….who has already had an appendectomy.

I’ve also been called in multiple cases for patients who very obviously have previously undiscovered, very advanced cancer. It always too far advanced for me to be of help, so I have to wonder….am I being called so I can be the bad guy and explain everything? Yes. The answer is yes.

2. Life is short – but maybe it didn’t have to be that short.

Not a doctor, but my mom went into a walk in clinic and told the doc she had really bad headaches all the time. She was a stay at home mom to me (10) and my sister (6) so it was written off as stress and got a prescription for pain pills.

Two weeks later the headaches were migraines. Stronger prescription and try to reduce stress.

A few weeks go by and she can no longer get out of bed, throws everything up including the meds, is completely disoriented and barely alive. My dad was a truck driver so he was never home. I was taking care of me, my sister, and my mom all by myself. We go back to the doctor and this lady had the audacity to say this is the weirdest migraine case she’s ever seen. Tells her to take warm baths and just keep taking the meds when she throws them up.

Two months go by and my dad came home, saw the condition of my mother (who was so sick she would urinate herself), the house (which was being kept up by a 10 year old), and said he wanted a divorce.

That night we found out she had stage 4 lung and brain cancer with a tumor the size of an egg pressing on her brain as well as many others scattered throughout.

I still haven’t forgiven that doctor for not taking my mom seriously

As far as my mom goes, she fought hard for two years eventually passing in November 2010. I was 13 and my sister was 9. My dad fell out of a tree about a month after her diagnosis and shattered his heel. He became disabled because of the surgeries it required and his back.

He was a monster while I was home. All I remember from my younger years was walking on eggshells, constantly being accused of things I didn’t do, and being watched like a hawk 24/7. I suspect he is bipolar and has severe PTSD, but you know how older people feel about treating mental illnesses.

As for us, it sucked not having our mom growing up. She talked every day about how she couldn’t wait to beat cancer and leave my dad so we could all have the life we deserved. I think we turned out fairly well. I’m 23, have a family, moved far away from all of those memories, and have committed to breaking cycles and loving my children the way I wish I would have been loved.

I do wish I knew the drs name now. Even though I know that it wouldn’t bring back my mom, make her diagnosis better, or even prevented anything, I still want to ask her if she started believing her patients. I think being a stay at home mom, previously poverty, woman has a lot to deal with how things went down. I wish no harm on the doctor, but I haven’t forgiven her for not saying something about going to the ER.

Life is short. I learned that by watching my mom give up on every dream she had because she knew she’d die. Go do scary stuff because who knows what’ll happen tomorrow. ?

1. I cannot even imagine.

I’m a lawyer, but…. had a client given a devastating diagnosis of an extremely rare heart condition. Doctor told him he had six weeks to live. He contacted me to make his will and set his affairs in order.

Thankfully, he sought a second opinion with an extremely well-known cardiologist (I guess the cardiologist was intrigued due to the rare nature of this heart condition).

THERE WAS NOTHING WRONG WITH HIM. HE WAS FINE. This poor guy, and his family, were tortured over this, so devastated and terrified, FOR NOTHING. He actually called me to tell me all of this, he seemed to be still in the joyous, “I’m not going to die” stage, but I imagine anger comes at some point, when you take stock of what you went through.

I don’t know how a doctor f*cks up that massively, or if somehow my client’s results were mixed up with someone else’s, and some poor bastard’s number is almost up and they don’t even know it.

It gives you faith in the medical community and makes you question it all at the same time.

If you’ve got an interesting missed diagnosis story, share it with us in the comments!

The post Doctors Talk About the Worst Diagnosis They Ended Up Having to Fix appeared first on UberFacts.

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What’s Your Most Glaring “I’m Turning Into My Parents” Moment? People Responded.

Oh, boy, here we go…

Backing up into parking spaces. Filling the water in the coffee machine the night before so it will be ready in the morning. Getting to the airport four hours before my flight.

These are all things that I’ve found myself doing over the past couple of years…and it suddenly dawned on me that I’M TURNING INTO MY FATHER.

Which isn’t a bad thing. My dad’s a cool guy, but I definitely used to laugh at the kind of stuff that he did when I was younger…but here we are, people!

When did you realize that you were turning into your parents?

Let’s see what AskReddit users had to say about this.

1. Gotta do it yourself.

“When I was cleaning the kitchen and didn’t want anyone else to help because I felt like it wouldn’t be done right.”

2. Dad joke!

“There is a shower in my basement that no one ever uses.

There are a couple dead bugs in it that I’ve never bothered to clean up. When our niece came to stay with us for a few days, she planned to stay in the basement.

My wife asked why I hadn’t cleaned the dead bugs out of the shower, I opened my mouth and heard my dad say, “They go with the decor.””

3. Uh oh…

“The first time I yelled at a kid that biked across my lawn I was 23…

The realization hit me like a brick wall..”

4. Caught yourself.

“Yelled at my kid and at the same time saw myself out the corner of my eye in the mirror.

I was yelling something my dad used to yell at me, and I look a lot like him.

I hated it when I was a kid, and immediately apologized to my kid.”

5. You’re doing it all wrong!

“I rearrange the plates in the dishwasher if my boyfriend put them “wrong” so I can do full loads and use up all the space.”

6. What the hell do you think you’re doing?

“Getting annoyed when my roommate was throwing Tupperware lids and containers into the cupboard without ANY organization.”

7. Lights out.

“When I went thru my house the other day, yelling to my two young kids, “When you leave a room, turn the LIGHTS OFF!! This costs money!!”

I’ve officially become my dad.”

8. A nice night in.

“Going grocery shopping or folding laundry on a Friday/Saturday night.

Thinking 8pm is too late to leave the house to do anything.

In my defense it IS a pandemic, so not much to do otherwise.

It’s also winter, and I’m pregnant.. so maybe I’ll be cool again someday.”

9. I was worried…

“Last night, when I got worried because my fiancé was 5 minutes late coming home from the gym and I caught myself saying “I can’t help it, I worry about you.”

Bam, I have become my mother.”

10. Oh, this looks nice!

“When I get takeout sometimes I think, this is a nice container I’m gonna keep this and add it to my Tupperware.”

11. An early riser.

“My parents were always early risers.

On Sunday they’re up and banging around in the kitchen by 7am. They made enough racket that even though we had a pretty big house that they’d always wake me up. Always pissed me off.

When i moved out six years ago i thought “finally, I’ll be able to sleep in.” But i can’t. Even without an alarm, on vacation, I’m awake by 7-7:30. If I’m really exhausted i might be able to sleep in until ALMOST 8:30, but no later.

It’s advantageous in a lot of ways but just once in a while I’d like to sleep in.”

12. No clutter allowed.

“I no longer tolerate clutter.

This past week alone, I sorted out the spice cabinet to the degree that I ended up trashing about 50 vials of expired herbs, spices and sauces, the oldest of which was a bottle of soy from 2013. It was a long overdue task and normally I HATE doing anything resembling housework but LAWDY, it was immensely satisfying to see everything neat, tidy and easily accessible.

I also have started a binder/folder system to store all important documents that were building up on the overstuffed noticeboard, I’m about to tackle the hoard of books under the coffee table and sometime during the weekend, I might even clear out the medicine cabinet.

I also spotted a box of “Microwave Cleaner” on sale in the store today and my first thought was “ooh, €1.50 a box! That’ll be handy.”

I can’t believe I’m saying this but doing housework has made me feel so much more productive in this pandemic along with giving my depression a bit of a kick up the arse.

It’s not an outright cure-all but I’m more happy going to bed exhausted by a busy day and feeling accomplished by the end of it rather than lying awake all night lamenting the fact that I’ve wasted my waking hours once again.”

13. Now I get it…

“I started falling asleep during movies.

I used to get so mad at my mom for doing that, but now I have a job and I understand why.”

How about you?

Have you realized that you’re turning into your parents yet?

Talk to us in the comments and fill us in!

The post What’s Your Most Glaring “I’m Turning Into My Parents” Moment? People Responded. appeared first on UberFacts.

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When Did You Discover That Hard Work Doesn’t Always Pay Off? Here’s What People Said.

There are no shortcuts!

I remember hearing that phrase over and over and over again when I was growing up in school, from family members, and from sports coaches.

And I still think hard work is a really important part of life…but as you get older, you realize that it doesn’t always pay off the way you think it will.

AskReddit users shared stories about when they realized that hard work doesn’t always pay off in the end.

1. Retail hell.

“Easily retail.

Those performance based raises are deliberately rigged to not give people the best raises. I only really understood how much when I became a manager and was overruled on how much to give my employees a raise when I gave them a 5/5.

I was told, and I quote, “No one is a 5/5″

She came in whenever we called. Stayed late whenever we needed. Was the epitome of the perfect employee and was well loved by everyone that shopped there.

They changed her evaluation from a 5/5 which was I believe a 50ish cent raise (still not enough) to a 3/5 which was a 10 cent raise.

She quit a few weeks after I told her and no one we’ve hired has been half as productive as she was.”

2. Lesson learned.

“I never ever called off sick.

And yes, I understand now why that is not a good thing, but when I was young I thought you went to work unless you were on your death bed.

At a staff meeting, boss was reading everyone the riot act for calling off too much and his second in charge said “Well, except for (me), they’ve never missed a day.”

Boss said “Hmmmm, really? I never noticed.”

Lesson learned.”

3. Office space.

“Worked this office job for 9 years, ever since I turned 16.

They kept giving me responsibilities, never any pay raise beyond the minimum they had to, all the while telling me how I was indispensable. Then Covid hit and they laid off all my coworkers.

They told me I could stay, but for less hours than before and definitely no pay raise — just more responsibilities, either working from home or in an empty office.

I declined the offer and quit right then and there. Felt pretty cheated though.”

4. Not impressed.

“The first time I had a real job.

Turns out that working harder than your coworkers does not impress them.”

5. F that.

“Worked hard at my first job for an entire year after a $0.20 raise. Got a $0.10 raise after that year, while a guy that avoided work got $0.40.

So I avoided working too hard for a year and got a $0.40 raise. No bullsh*t. Also passed up a “crew leader” position to work in an easier area, then they made me a crew leader anyway in the new area, I didn’t even ask.

The company I work for now does some *ss-backwards stuff too. It drives me nuts. Progress takes time and there’s a fine line between getting stuck because you’re too good at something and getting moved on to promote you.”

6. Gee, thanks…

“When they reward you for getting your work done well by giving you everyone else’s work to do.

Pretty much every job I’ve ever had.”

7. Whoopee!

“I worked 4 years at a Walmart almost constantly being praised as one of the best employees on my shift / team

Now what kind of reward did I get for this

A raise? A promotion?

Nope

I got a small pin I was “allowed” to wear that just said something like “Management Appreciates Me”.”

8. Lame.

“I worked for a few years at BJs.

First year I got a 59 cent/hour raise, which was unheard of because I’d been hired far higher than what cashiers were hired at. I got glowing reviews by the person who reviewed me.

By the time of my next raise, a trusted person had told everyone who would listen that I was gay. This led to a LOT of gossip, harassment, and bullying on the job. My reviewer, the same woman from before but who just HAPPENED to also be a devout Christian, gave a harsher review and I got something like 9 cents.

I went from being super well liked to suddenly a pariah all because of my s*xuality. It was f*cking awful and I knew that it didn’t matter how hard I worked if some Bible thumper was going to use it as an excuse to hate me.”

9. Taken advantage of.

“I was a really bit of a people pleaser when I was younger.

Tried to do everything to make life for everyone easier, turns out that they just took advantage on me”

10. Not fair.

“When I realized I get paid the same as coworkers who are putting in bare minimum.”

11. Ugh.

“By being taken advantage of repeatedly.

Go above and beyond the expectations in hopes to advance? You now have to do that advanced job with way more work for no pay increase and in less time than the people getting paid more than you.

Don’t ever let an employer know you’re capable or willing to do significantly more work than anyone else for the same pay.

If an opening arises and you have been consistent, you’re more likely to get the position than someone who does twice the work you do for the same pay just because you “follow the book” more.”

12. True.

“There wasn’t one particular moment for me, but the saying “It’s better to be lucky than good.” is oh so true at times.

Sure working hard helps, but being at the right place at the right time is often overlooked by those that purely equate hard work with success.”

13. First job.

“My first job.

I was working at a pizza place known for letting you, the customer, bake the pizzas at home. I was working minimum wage, but I felt like I’d been there a while and wanted to move up. So I talked to my boss about a possible raise. She said she’d keep an eye on my performance over the next month and see if I deserved it.

Now, there was another employee they’re by the name of Jimmy. Jimmy was great of the was a rush because in those instances, just having an extra pair of hands makes a difference. But in all other aspects of running the store, he was useless. He slacked off and left his work for the rest of us to do. Of course, the manager loved him.

After a month of picking up every shift I could and doing every unpleasant task assigned to me, my boss tells me that I’ve been doing a fantastic job and that I earned my raise. I looked in my check and I was now making an extra $0.50/hr. Not great, but I was 16 at the time and it felt like the squeaky wheel got the grease!

Until I find out that Jimmy also got a $0.50 raise. And everyone else did too. Turns out the minimum wage was increasing nationally and they were legally obligated to give everyone a raise. When I confronted her about this, she turned the tables on me, telling me that talking about my pay with other employees was unprofessional.

She went on vacation shortly after that. I taped my two week notice to her door the day after she left.”

Now we’d like to hear from you.

In the comments, tell us about the times you realized that hard work doesn’t always pay off.

We look forward to your stories.

The post When Did You Discover That Hard Work Doesn’t Always Pay Off? Here’s What People Said. appeared first on UberFacts.

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Women Talk About What They Wish They’d Known Before Getting Pregnant

I can’t possibly imagine what women have to go through when they are pregnant.

The anxiety, the pain, the uncertainty…it must be a truly terrifying experience the first time it happens.

But that’s why we think articles like this are really helpful to the ladies out there.

Women talked on AskReddit about what they wish they’d known BEFORE they became pregnant.

Let’s take a look.

1. Terrible.

“I was absolutely SHOCKED when my first pregnancy ended in miscarriage.

I thought that I must have done something to cause it. When my second pregnancy ended the same way I started to think that I had some kind of physical malfunction.

Only after talking to several other women about it did I realize how common it is. Still heartbreaking though.”

2. Hair loss.

“The hair loss!

I had read about it, but i was not prepared for just how much i would lose or how long it would last.

My daughter is 2 now and i still have some patchy spots.”

3. Painful.

“My f*cking bo*bs hurt so bad.

I hit one in my sleep and woke up in excruciating pain.

Like…wtf.

I knew they got bigger, but the pain was a surprise.”

4. No sleep.

“The sickest joke of all: you stop being able to sleep way before the baby gets here.

Everyone loves to tell me to “sleep now while I can” but pregnancy leads to unexplained insomnia and I’m a total wreck already.”

5. Always different.

“Each pregnancy is different, even with the same person.

I have 3 kids -the 1st pregnancy was very typical and followed the normal timeline. 2nd pregnancy was awful.

I was miserable and sick the entire time. 3rd pregnancy was easy peasy and I finally understood why some women liked being pregnant.”

6. Good to know.

“That not all gynecologists are competent. And if you have a feeling yours isn’t, find a new one.

Mine was very personable, did my d&c for my miscarriage before my first born, didn’t really give me any red flags until after I was pregnant again.

Long story short, he forgot (I guess?) to have me tested for gestational diabetes, and I had it. There were OBVIOUS signs that he didn’t catch, that I didn’t even know were signs until my new doctor told me. My son ended up having to be in NICU for 3 days after he was born because he couldn’t regulate his own blood sugar.

Every doctor and nurse I talked to along the way was appalled I hadn’t gotten tested. He also didn’t catch that I was anemic the whole pregnancy either.

Thank God we’re all healthy and happy now but looking back I should’ve changed doctors.”

7. Mother’s Apron.

“I wish I’d heard the term ‘mother’s apron’ before I had one.

Like, there’s warnings all over,”Your body’s going to change!” and some specifics on how, but everything I read and heard was reassuring me about how it would all mostly go back eventually.

I’m still pretty bitter.”

8. Crazy.

“Your hormones are crazy, literally making anything and everything that happens to your body a pregnancy symptom.

Bloody nose? Pregnancy.

Hands dry? Pregnancy.

Itchy skin? pregnancy.”

9. A very real thing.

“That no matter how much you planned and wanted your baby, postpartum depression can happen to you and it is very, very real.

It is not something you can control. Hormones are liars. Partners of new moms please pay close attention.

Get help. Do not try to tough it out. Get. Help.”

10. What was that?

“Baby kicks don’t feel like butterflies .

They feel like something crawled across your skin quickly; but from the inside”

11. Trust your gut.

“Sorry to be the Debbie Downer, but knowing things can go wrong in any situation.

My first child was stillborn at 41 weeks after a healthy and normal pregnancy from a umbilical cord accident.

Always trust your gut, count kicks, and advocate for you and your baby’s health.”

12. Well, there’s that…

“How being pregnant seems to make other people think they can make incredibly rude observations about your body that they’d never make otherwise!”

13. PUPPP.

“That you can get a horrible full-body rash.

It’s a rare condition called PUPPP. PUPPP occurs in about 1 in every 200 pregnancies and 70% of sufferers give birth to boys.

I gave birth to a girl. So I was in the 0.15% of women who get this horrible, itchy, mind numbing rash that I suffered with for over two months. I couldn’t sleep, I sat half of my day in oatmeal baths. I cried A LOT.

The only thing that stopped the itching for a few hours was Grandpa’s Tar Soap because it left a coating on my skin that soothed or protected it somehow.

I NEVER want to go through that again.”

14. Exhausted.

“How tired you can be in the first trimester. I was falling asleep at my desk most days.

I always hear that labor pains were like really awful period cramps. Nope. Mine felt like someone was stabbing the front of my hip.

And, I had heard about sciatic pain but was 100% unprepared for how bad it could be. I had a c-section and the gas pain was no joke. Had to sleep on an incline for days.”

Okay, ladies, now we want to hear from all of you out there.

In the comments, tell us about some of the things you wish you’d known about before you got pregnant.

Please and thank you!

The post Women Talk About What They Wish They’d Known Before Getting Pregnant appeared first on UberFacts.

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Women Share What They Wish They Knew Before Getting Pregnant

If I’ve learned one thing from people I know who have been pregnant, it’s that every single pregnancy is different and each woman is affected in their own unique way by it.

And by that, I mean physically AND emotionally.

And we hope that women who haven’t been pregnant before can learn about what might be in store when they decide to have a child.

The ladies of AskReddit shared some insight into what they wish they would have known before they became pregnant. Let’s see what they had to say.

1. Painful.

“Your body produces a hormone called relaxin that helps loosen your pelvis in preparation for birth.

Some women get waayyy too much too soon and it loosens everything to the point you lose mobility and every day all day is painful.”

2. Having some issues.

“I wish someone would have warned me about the constipation.

Corollary: I wish someone would have warned me that “fiber supplement” does not equal “stool softener.”

Today, we’re at 26 weeks gestation.”

3. No joke.

“The stuff that stays with your body afterwards.

I developed allergies after I had my second.

My feet definitely got bigger.

Hormones are no joke.”

4. No magic involved.

“I wish someone had told me that no, your body does not magically go back to normal once the baby is out.

You have weeks of healing, either your ripped vag*na or cut open stomach, your bo*bs are still on baby mode and have a whole new set of problems now, pooping will be terrifying lol depression risks are higher, just a lot of stuff continues on after the baby.

I don’t know WHY people insist on visiting right after delivery. I am tired, I am busy with this baby, I am tore up from the floor up, please come in a month when I can at least have some sort of a routine.”

5. Cramps.

“I wish someone had warned me about muscle cramps.

I had to learn a new way to pop my ankles because every night I would pop them and get massive charlie horses in my legs that my fiance had to massage out.”

6. Wow.

“Hair loss! After I had my kid I lost a ton of hair.

I would pull fists full of hair during my showers. I thought there was something wrong with me because no one told me about this.

Went to Google, totally normal and it happens to everyone. It grows back eventually and you’ll go through an awkward baby hair phase.”

7. A lot of sickness.

“That morning sickness isn’t in the morning

And that I would be puking the whole time not just in the beginning.”

8. Had no idea.

“During labor the “water breaking” is not one rush of liquid.

It’s continuous and can occur for several hours. It’s horrendous and messy and incredibly awful to deal with.

It feels like peeing but you have zero control over anything and if you tense up then everything is much more painful and weird feeling.

Nobody ever told me that and I was VERY surprised to find out for myself.”

9. Sad.

“Miscarriage is ridiculously common.

I say this as someone currently carrying a dead baby waiting for the NHS to give me a surgical removal.”

10. Skin problems.

“How I’d get loads of random skin changes.

Skin tags, so many skin tags!

Moles growing into skin tags then dropping off, like WTF body

Sandpaper dry skin, which I still get from time to time, just this one patch on the back of my right hand

My facial skin changing from t-zone oily to t-zone flaky and never going back

My psoriasis on my scalp going away, this did come back but not as bad.”

11. That’s too bad.

“Nosebleeds.

When I was pregnant, I got nosebleeds every few days during the first and second trimesters.”

12. Cravings.

“That cravings aren’t just food.

I craved dirt, particularly beach sand. The smell of the beach was excruciating, I just wanted to shovel handfuls into my mouth.

I never ate dirt or sand and the craving went away when baby was born.

A friend of a friend told me she craved freshly poured asphalt so in a way I’m glad my craving was just dirt.”

13. Wow.

“From my mom: I paralyzed her from the waist down for a few hours because I decided to take a nap on her spinal cord in the third trimester.

The doctor’s response was “yeah you’ll be able to move again once they wake up.”

Pregnancy is pure body horror.”

Are there certain things you wish you’d known about before YOU got pregnant?

If so, please share your thoughts with us in the comments.

We look forward to hearing from you. Thanks!

The post Women Share What They Wish They Knew Before Getting Pregnant appeared first on UberFacts.

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911 Operators Discuss the Funniest Calls They’ve Taken

I have a friend who is a 911 dispatcher in Kansas City and he occasionally likes to text me about some of the calls that he receives at work.

I think the funny, ridiculous calls help offset the terrible and depressing things they have to deal with, because you know they get plenty of those every day.

For example, he told me a guy called and hysterically told him that Tom Hanks was driving a pickup truck down 75th Street! Tom Hanks! In Kansas City!

What a job that must be…

911 operators talked about the funniest calls they’ve ever received on AskReddit.

1. This is amazing.

“A guy calls from a payphone to complain that he has a pipe wrench stuck up his butt and he needed an ambulance.

He gave his location as the corner where the payphone was located. I asked him if he could tell me his appearance so I could be sure the medics could find him.

His response, “look dude, I’ll be the only guy on the corner with a pipe wrench in his butt.”

I couldn’t argue with that…”

2. I hope he let him out.

“My department dispatches our area’s animal control after hours.

Once received a call from a guy freaking out because he caught a possum in his house. I asked him which room he was able to confine the animal and he didn’t tell me which room, but said he trapped it in a microwave.

I had many questions.”

3. Aliens!

“While working for the Airport PD we would commonly get a call from a lady that lived nearby and thought aliens were scanning her brain.

To solve this we would have to “launch the alert fighters” (which we didn’t have). She lived close enough that we could just wait till a plane took off and tell her that sound was the alert fighters.

She would be fine then for a couple more months.”

4. Wow.

“Woman calls up to allege that her car has been s*xually soiled by a car washer.

She had left her car with a valet service while she was shopping, picked it up and drove it home before she noticed a white mark on her passenger seat. She’s convinced it was spunk, so she calls the police to report it. Operator asked if she had complained to the company, which she had.

They had advised her that the soap they use for fabrics sometimes leaves a mark when it dries and if she just gives it a quick rub, it will go. She then tells the operator that she knows the company is lying because she put her finger on it and then tasted it, and it was definitely spunk and she “knows very well what spunk tastes like.”

Somehow the operator convinced her to complain further to the valeting company and ended the call before falling off his chair laughing.”

5. Haha!

“A man called to say he’s wrestling with deadly 10m (32-33 ft) snake in his backyard.

He was very scared and although I wasn’t sure how did a 10m snake appeared in his backyard I send the emergency to the police. They even called him back, but his father answered. The conversation was quite funny:

Hello, sir. Police here. Is this Mr. Y?

His father.

Do you know where your son is?

I don’t know. Went to the backyard I guess.

Maybe you should check on him. He might be fighting for his life against a deadly snake.

Turned out the guy was a little high and was wrestling with a bush.”

6. We need to figure this out!

“Dude wanted an ambulance because he needed to check if his girlfriend was pregnant or not.

I heard her in the back saying “But my period is over 2 months late!” and he was like “no, no, no. A doctor needs to see it first”.

He didn’t want to accept that it was not an emergency, and couldn’t understand how gynecologists usualy aren’t in an ambulance.”

7. Oh, boy…

“Some guy called about 2 am flipping out becuse his meth batch smelled funny, and he wanted the fire department, but no cops! I got an address out of him after a ridiculous run around, and sent it over to the dispatch people across town.

They didn’t send cops. He was in the county, they sent deputies, and the fire department, and the DEA, and the hazmat team, and he got to come visit and then go spend an ungodly amount of time with the state DOC.

I think he got 50+years. the house/ property he was renting was demolished and is a hazardous area now because he was making so much meth, and I think explosives.”

8. Ouch.

“I used to be a 911 operator from 2014-2018. I was also responsible for training new hires on answering phones.

One day, I get a medic call for a guy wanting an ambulance because he has hemorrhoids. I try to get more information from him like his name, phone number, and where he’s located. I get all of that he starts screaming “MY *SSHOLE, MY *SSHOLE”. During his screams about his *sshole, I turn to my trainee and blankly stare at her.

That was about 6 years ago. We still joke about it to this day.”

9. Are your parents home?

“A young kid called and asked to talk to the fire trucks.

It was pretty late at night so I told him the firetrucks were already sleeping and asked him to put a parent on the phone.”

10. Wrong place.

“We’ve had people wanting the police because those a-hole McDonald’s employees refused to sell them a whopper.”

11. Two stories.

“I had a guy call in to try and rat out a Chinese massage parlor for giving out “happy endings.”

It was clear that he had some kind of religious guilt about it or something with a deal gone wrong (clearly not a case of molestation, so this is okay to laugh at)… and was trying to make amends. While the premise alone is funny, he REFUSED to say “hand**b”, jacked off, etc. He kept beating around the bush about it and wouldn’t give details, just heavy implications

. Over the course of this five minute call, every other dispatcher picked up on the line and muted their mics, but the room was howling with laughter as this dude danced around getting a tuggy. Eventually, I passed it off his call to the detective/vice division, but that was a very funny five minutes of worksafe masturbation humor

I had another call from a neighboring town that called us because the local department wouldn’t take him seriously. His issue was that a co-worker threatened to, and I quote, “punch his dick off.”

The second he said it, I started laughing because I wasn’t expecting it. He said it with what felt like a comical tone to it as well. I recovered well enough and eventually told him there wasn’t exactly a lot we could do, as it was out of our jurisdiction, but he kept repeating that he was going to have his dick punched off and… I dunno, something about that still makes me laugh to this day.

Almost cartoonish levels of violence enters my head where a weiner just gets Falcon Punched clean off and it makes me giggle.”

12. Locked in.

“I had a man call because he was locked in an Exxon station.

Just trying to take care of business and the workers shut down, turned on the alarm (which he immediately set off when he opened the bathroom door) and left. I stayed on the phone with him until the state police got there.

He was like… My car is still at the pump! This alarm is so loud….”

13. A story from Mom.

“My mom was a 911 operator in the SF Bay area in the 80s and 90s. I asked her to tell me a story to pass along, so here it is:

I got a 911 call and I couldn’t understand the caller. He was slurring his words. I knew he was calling from a bar so I asked if he’d been drinking and after asking many times I asking, I was able to determine that he wanted the police, not an ambulance.

He wanted to file assault charges because a woman pulled his tongue. I asked, “how was she able to pull your tongue?” and he said, “because I stuck it out at her.” I had to keep muting the call because I was laughing so hard.

Apparently my supervisor went on to play this call in seminars for years and always got a ton of laughter.”

Have you ever had to call 911 before?

Or maybe you worked as a 911 operator?

If so, please share your stories with us in the comments.

Thanks in advance!

The post 911 Operators Discuss the Funniest Calls They’ve Taken appeared first on UberFacts.