white noise

Has Goldman Sachs's Succession Plan Changed After Greg Smith Scrutiny? | Vanity Fair

Has Goldman Sachs's Succession Plan Changed After Greg Smith Scrutiny?

• Hogan: High school is over, and some of the best days of your life are in high school, so that means some of your best days are in the past.
• Jake: That must mean life after this is shitty then.
• Hogan: Yeeeeah.

Discomfort

For the last week, I’ve been spending my days with underwear damp from my own piss. Let me take a few steps back here.

Rewind to Christmas Day of last year. I first started noticing that i needed to go the bathroom very frequently. Like, I just went ten minutes ago and feel the urge to go again row now frequent. I let it slide for the first two days thinking that it would go away on its own. ¹ By the third day it was unbearable. I wasn’t actually urinating on myself, but the frequent urge to go caused a sensation that gave me that feeling. It was extremely uncomfortable. After spending the day drinking 2 quarts of cranberry juice and hearing from the urologist that I couldn’t be seen until the following Tuesday, I decided to go to Urgent Care.

I was uncomfortable, but it was clear that other patients had more important needs than I. That was absolutely fine by me. But what wasn’t fine was that all that was required of me was to pee into a cup for a urinalysis and that process took nearly four hours. I had arrived a little before 7:30 and it was nearly 9:30 by the time I got into a room. All I had to do at that point was pee in a cup, and that had taken two hours. Then I had to wait for the results to come back. ²

They found urine in my blood, which was not good, but no sign of infection. I then had an X-Ray of my midsection done to look for kidney stones. No dice. I was sent home with a shrug of the shoulders and no idea what to expect.

By the time I saw the urologist I was pretty frustrated. The cranberry juice regimen from a few days before had helped flush out my system I guess and the symptoms were nearly gone. I had another urinalysis done at the appointment and the amount of blood had decreased but still no signs were showing up that pointed to one particular diagnosis.

A few weeks later it had gotten worse again. I was scheduled for another appointment a few days later with the same doctor. This time I had an ultrasound done. They didn’t find any kidney stones and the urinalysis was (again) extremely inconclusive, other than saying “something is wrong,” and taunting everyone involved.

I then had another appointment scheduled. This is where things started to get really frustrating, even more so than before. I had another urinalysis done (are you counting?) but the doctor wasn’t available. I had essentially wasted my own time (and money) for another inconclusive test that helped nobody but the doctor’s bottom line. I felt betrayed, and was scheduled for yet another appointment.

At this appointment I was scheduled for a CT scan. Since mine was to check my bladder and kidneys, intravenous dye was used to make them show up in the images clearer. Clean images were done first without the dye, and then when the dye is injected, a warm sensation flows from the head down to the rest of the body, and when it reaches the groin area it feels like you’re urinating all over yourself. It’s incredible. The whole procedure took about fifteen minutes and then I was on my way to the urologist’s office once again.

The images showed a healthy bladder and kidneys. ³ I was told that I could have another procedure done that involved anesthesia and a catheter (which would be particularly invasive), but the doctor didn’t recommend it. I was instead written a prescription to treat my symptoms and told to hope for the best. They’d see me in a few months if things didn’t get any better.

That brings me to this week. Things are substantially worse. Instead of just the frequent urge to go and the sensation and uncomfortable feeling it brings, incontinence has actually started to occur. You probably haven’t the slightest clue the personal shame and embarrassment brought on by urinating on oneself involuntarily and without end. I was hoping that this problem would go away but I was told that the issue had the chance of being chronic and I just wasn’t ready to accept that, but here I am.

I have another appointment this coming week, and hopefully something changes. The prescription I was written is now ineffective, for whatever reason that may be. I will likely have to have the invasive procedure done, and I’ve been told that I might even have type 2 diabetes. I really hope that nothing is wrong and that this can be fixed and it’s just a matter of finding out what to do. I’m lucky to have an amazing girlfriend and family members that can support me through this, but it’s not something that just anyone can understand.

I realize that there are many more people that suffer far more than me on a daily basis; I totally get that. I’m just at a point of frustration that I can’t deal with in any way and writing about this kind of thing helps.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for listening.

The World Owes You Nothing

You don’t deserve this. You let people walk all over you. You’re not assertive enough. You have a nagging fear that if you’re more aggressive people will think you’re an asshole, but guess what: nobody cares. People with great ideas and thoughts and emotions have been disregarded because they were too afraid to step up and speak their mind, and you don’t deserve to be disregarded. You have things to say. People should be listening to your ideas and your thoughts and your emotions but they don’t even get the chance to listen to them and hear them and judge them based on their merits because you’re too afraid to voice them because you think that your ideas and thoughts and emotions will be judged based on their origins. Guess what: nobody cares.

Rob Delaney: I love Levon Helm and America