Thank you!  ❤️

I'm so sorry!  Cancer truly sucks.  Both sisters, father, and wife, along with various friends and friend's family members have/had cancer in some form.  it's a truly terrible disease.  Prayers to your DIL.

Yes it truly does. Prayers from me too.  I hope the time she has left is as comfortable as possible.

She’s being “populist” and defending the working class?  Does she support Trump now? 

Agreed.  The simple solution is for Russia (and soon China) to stop getting them started.  But once started, what are we supposed to do?  Appeasement doesn't seem to work: Let's give them Ukraine and then they'll stop.  Let's give them Taiwan and then they'll stop.  Honestly, I don't know the solution.

Putin and I think Bush 2.0 were on the way to an alliance when GW went back home and was talked out of it by... whom???  We don't really know.  We were already cooperating together on space projects.  There is no reason since the breakup of the Soviet Union we can't be friends with Russia. It would mean the likes of NK, China and Iran would be non-issues. We have our differences with Russia but nothing that can't be overlooked given the benefits of the two greatest superpowers on the planet allied against threats such as Islamoterrorists and totalitarian commie regimes. Sure Russia is now a fascist plutocracy but at this point, the U.S. pretty much is too. After all, who were the people that talked GW out of making friends with our former adversary again?

That rebuff pushed Russia toward China and Iran. It's almost like somebody WANTS there to be endless proxy wars between the two biggest superpowers. While China looks for an opportunity to take over Taiwan, Iran gleefully uses the money Biden gave them to fund terrorists attacking Israel (our biggest ally in the MidEast) and "Death to America" protesters all over the world, and North Korea is back to testing nukes.

Good going, whoever the hell you are.

.

I had a thoracotomy in 2005.  For several years following the surgery, I would occasionally have the distinct sensation that the skin on my stomach was wet.   a strange sensation...

When my feet are bare I still feel like I have socks on.  I was recently told I have moderate peripheral neuropathy in my feet and can't feel cold sensation anymore so I bet that's what's going on there. The doctor wants to put me on a ZERO carb diet. No low, zero. I still don't have diabetes, just pre-diabetes but apparently that can cause PN too.

Although some days it's the middle finger that's the most used.

Ah, the zings!  Right up the finger if I move just wrong.  It's better now that it's just numb.  Nerves are pretty amazing things.

The numb is better but also disconcerting. I cut my thumb just a few years ago on the same hand and it severed a nerve so the left side of my thumb has been numb ever since.  That’s been nine or ten years. At the ER that time, he gave me a choice, either let him just stitch it up, or call in a hand surgeon and go to the ER and let the guy open it up, find the ends of the nerve and stitch them back together but the surgery option came with greater risk of complications. So I opted for him to just close it up and let me go home, knowing the numbness would likely be permanent.

Ow ow ow!  I hate those hand sticks.  Once in the emergency room they had a hard time finding a vein.  Tried to stick between my thumb and finger and hit a nerve.  Five years later and it's still numb there.  I truly appreciate medical professionals, but sometimes they miss.

Yes they do. Years ago I had a serious injury to the index finger on my right hand, arguably my most important digit. The second joint was torn open to the bone.  At the ER they stitched it all up, bandaged the whole finger and sent me home. A few days later I removed all the gauze and discovered that the very tip of the finger had also been cut, just under the nail and they had completely missed it. It had started healing around the gauze and I ripped the gauze out which hurt like hell.  It never healed right and to this day it’s like there is a raw nerve just under the skin which zings if I hit it just right, and the nail grows kind of bent.  Been like that for over 40 years now. 

I also truly appreciate medical professionals but they are only human, and it that case it’s not like I noticed the other “little” cut either. The open second joint kind of grabbed all the attention.