Yeah, I wondered about that, too. As a person with an oft-misspelled name myself, that really confused me.

The first time I heard a couple of friends singing an Alanis Morrisette song, I didn’t know who she was. They were teasing me about it, and I told them that I didn’t really listen to current pop music. They were both super offended, like “Pop Music?! This is Alanis Morrisette!!” I still don’t understand that reaction.

Yeah, that’s terrifying. And you are right about the sorry state of sex ed. My son is in high school, and our state used to have an incredibly good, thorough, biologically accurate sex ed curriculum. Then our state government was taken over by Republicans, and they passed new regulations for “abstinence only” type…

It feels weird to say you were “lucky” in response to a story like that, but it really does sound like you were. You literally could have died from dehydration that bad. Your roommates are terrible people.

I wondered the same thing about my husband. How is it he never gets strep when the rest of us are passing it around.

Yeah, I have a friend who worked for years at an STD hotline. I learned more horrifying things from her. The eye thing is way up on the list of things I kinda wish I didn’t know.

OUCH! It hurt me just to read that!!

Wow. MRSA is so scary. Sounds like your mom - and you - have really been through it.

Yikes! That sounds... unpleasant.

Yeah, the candida thing seriously freaks me out, because I have always gotten yeast infections, too. Usually I try to go a different route, but sometimes I just have to take Diflucan. I usually only resort to that after a round of heavy antibiotics requires it.

Oh, believe me, it was a choice to refer to it that way. That’s pretty much the only way we got through it - by cracking ourselves up with the words “strep butt.”

Strep B is a different strain, and it mostly lives in the genitourinary tract. Perianal strep is still Strep A (the stuff that causes strep throat), just infecting a different part of the gastrointestinal system. Strep B doesn’t usually cause symptoms in adults, but can be life-threatening in babies. They now screen…

This is for the cyberchondriacs: Did you know that you can get strep in places other than your throat? I’m not even talking about sexually transmitted Strep B, either. Just regular old Strep A, the kind that causes the sore throat.

This is the one that terrifies me. I genuinely have to take antibiotics at least once a year, because I have a compromised immune system and I can’t just wait out strep (or even a sinus infection). Since I also have the good fortune to be allergic to tons of antibiotics, I can only take the really obscure, expensive…

Everyone in my family has GERD, and none of us have “heartburn.” My brother was CONVINCED he was dying of throat cancer. I kept telling him it was probably reflux, and he should go see his doctor. He would not believe me. He scheduled several appointments with specialists, only to have them tell him it was reflux.

My grandmother and mom always swore by gargling salt water. It’s not my favorite thing to do, but when I get strep, it really helps.

No, I don’t think every person who uses the term “retarded” intends to insult people with ID. I don’t think my great-grandmother intended to be racist by using the term “colored” until she died in the early 90's. For her, that was the “respectful” term. That doesn’t mean I didn’t cringe every time I heard her say it,…

Or worse. My dad “looked” fine when he died from melanoma at 59. He didn’t even have visible skin cancer - by the time they found it in his brain, it was already stage 4.

I wrote something similar before seeing your post. I dated a 33 yr old guy when I was 19, and married a 23 yr old guy when I was 24. The 23 yr old was WAY more mature than the 33 yr old.

I dated a 33 year old guy when I was 19. It seemed totally fine to me then, and I was admittedly very mature. Still, by the time I hit my mid-twenties, it seemed creepy to me in retrospect. Like, there was nothing “wrong” with him, but I definitely don’t think it’s normal.