WoodScientist

This comic occurs in the Dr. Horrible cinematic universe.

If you can't find a syringe that fits the bill, there's one hack you could use. Let's say you're trying to inject .1 mL of E medicated oil.

First, obtain a vial of sterile oil of some sort. You want a sterile vial with an injection port that contains sterile oil inside. (Ideally, this would be the same oil as whatever is used as the carrier oil for your medication.)

When giving yourself a shot, first draw .5 mL of the plain sterile oil. Next, draw .1 mL of your E medication. You now have a syringe that has .1 mL of E oil sitting on top of .5 mL of sterile filler oil.

Inject yourself with the syringe. The E oil will be entirely injected, and all the dead space inside the syringe and needle will be filled with the dummy oil. You'll inject yourself with the full amount of E oil and a little bit of dummy oil.

I don't see any reason why this wouldn't work. Finding sterile oil vials could be tricky, but it's probably doable. Sterile vials of bacteriostatic water are a lot easier to find, but I'm not sure if that would cause problems with the differential density between the oil and the water. The oil would want to float to the top of the column (though this may not occur in the time it takes to draw and inject.) While this would be fine with drawing (oil on top, water on bottom), when you invert the syringe to inject downwards, the oil and water would want to switch places. You could try to inject yourself with the needle pointed upward, but that would be a bit of a feat of contortion. Though, if you're injecting into the top surface of your thigh, I suppose you could lay stomach side down between two chairs, with your thigh exposed in the gap in between. It would be a minor feat of contortion, but it wouldn't be too hard.

I would suggest trying to find vials of sterile oil. If you can't, sacrifice a syringe to science and experiment. Try drawing some ordinary tap water and some olive or other oil into a syringe. First draw some tap water into the syringe, then draw some olive oil. See if the system is viscous enough that the oil will stay on the needle end of the syringe even if inverted. If this works, then you should be able to do this dual layer technique even with more easily obtainable vials of bacteriostatic water. Obviously don't inject yourself with this experimental syringe.

Some dead space in your needles is inevitable. But there's nothing that says that your actual medication needs to occupy that dead space.

EDIT: disregard this. Try the airlock method instead. https://old.reddit.com/r/DrWillPowers/comments/yv37fy/estradiol_dropped_by_200_pgml_after_switching_to/iweyuva/?context=3

Yup! And don't get too disheartened by how things look down there. You're just a few days post-op. Everything's swollen and sore. You're recovering from a major surgery. The swelling will end and things will look less and less like a horror show with each passing day. Don't even try to judge things until you're a few months post-op.

Also, if you do get a bit depressed, that's also normal. Post-op depression is extremely common for all forms of surgeries. You're in pain, you're hopped up on painkillers, you're sleep deprived, and your body is freaking out because it has a ton of healing to do. It's natural to feel some level of depression. If anything, maybe your body knows you need to be still and move slowly in order to heal, and what better way to encourage that than to make you a bit depressed?

Anyway, no idea if you'll experience any kind of post-op malaise, some do, some don't. But if you do, just remember it's extremely common. Post-op depression can hit trans people even harder than other surgeries because of all the cultural baggage and judgment that's attached to bottom surgery. If you're not mindful, it's really easy to experience a common surgical after-effect and for your pain-killer addled brain to convince itself that "oh god, this was a mistake, what have I done???!!!" If you experience any depression, just try to keep this in mind, accept it for what it is, and reserve any judgment on the success of the surgery until well after the initial recovery period. If necessary, recognize that in your current state, you simply may not be capable of forming rational opinions on some things. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Not sure if any of this is helpful. Just trying to provide what little advice I can based on my own experience. If it's totally off base, feel free to ignore it.

Regardless, congrats again. I'm so happy for you! Remember, if nothing else, you have now achieved something that no one can ever take from you. No matter what happens going forward, you will never in your life have to deal with that source of dysphoria and pain ever again. It was this thought that really got me through my initial post-op period. If life went really bad, I could end up homeless, living on the street, denied medication, or even in jail. I didn't know what the future would hold; I still don't. But I did know, and I do know, with 100% absolute certainty, that I would NEVER and will NEVER have to face that particular pain ever again. And that is something that no one can ever take from you now. Especially in times as tumultuous as these, as scary as the world now is, I, even now, find some real comfort in that. I'm 12 years post-op, and that still gives me some comfort. I know that no matter what happens, I will never experience bottom dysphoria or face my body remasculinizing ever again. No one can ever take that away from me. They can put me in the ground, but they can never force me back into a masculine box. In this, I am free.

The problem with sanctioning and tariffing everyone around you is that eventually, countries just ignore you all together and start trading with others.

We're speed running the Confederacy here. The Confederacy thought that King Cotton would save the South. They thought that if the British were cut off from their cotton supply, eventually they would be forced to intervene on the side of the South. Instead, the British eventually just found alternative suppliers in Egypt and India. (They weren't exactly angels here, this was still colonialism.)

Sanctions and tariffs can work if they are limited and targeted. Are there two or three countries that you truly feel are doing abominable things? Then cut them off from the trade system, and they will feel pressured to change their ways. If you embargo or tariff half the planet however, all those affected countries can still trade with each other. If you embargo or tariff too many countries, eventually you are embargoing yourself.

I've been through it myself; I know how painful it can be. Just remember that as bad as today might be, it's the worst pain it's ever going to be. Each day is a bit better than the one before.

Congrats! And hope for a quick recovery.

I've ordered DIY before. I'm an international supply chain and logistics expert!

Thanks to sprawling American car-dependent infrastructure, not even Bigfoot can walk to places anymore.

Ultimately any retirement system suffers from these weaknesses. You can have a retirement system based entirely on universal generous state pensions; it won't matter. When the economy takes a hit, the state is less capable of generating revenue.

Exactly. For middle class folks who still have to rely on the stock market for retirement, the best option is to just buy dumb index funds and hold them til retirement. You aren't going to be able to outsmart and out time the actual Wall Street traders who have PhDs in mathematics, access to microsecond trading, and a trading bankroll of billions. If you need to rely on the market, buy and hold is the only sane strategy. At least then you minimize the number of trades you make and the chances for the snakes to screw you over.

If you want real investment advice: no. If you're investing for retirement, and you're not near retirement age, you have decades ahead of you before you need these funds. You know those people who "lost everything" in the 2008 recession? Sure, some people lost their jobs and were forced to burn their retirement savings just to keep the lights on. But far more lost money because they sold when the market was in the toilet. The market did eventually recover, but the timing of the recovery couldn't be predicted in advance, so they lost out on much of the recovery. The market went back up, but they still had their 401k sitting in cash. They lost money on the dip, and then they lost money again on the upswing.

Also, keep in mind that Trump's policies mean that cash savings will be far more vulnerable in this crash than in the 2008 crash. At least in 2008, the inflation rate was basically zero. Cash didn't lose much value just sitting in your savings account. But Trump is trying to weaken the dollar to make imports more expensive and US exports more appealing to foreign consumers. And Trump's policies are expected to be rather inflationary. Cash is no safe haven right now. You could try to move your assets to foreign currencies and companies, but this crash is global. The US set itself up as the linchpin of the global economy after WW2. If the US stumbles, everyone stumbles. The only country that won't be hurt much by this crash will be North Korea. But there really aren't that many investment opportunities for foreigners in the hermit kingdom.

It sucks, but at this point you should just ride it out. If you still have decades till retirement, just ignore your retirement balance for the next few years. Just ride it out and remember that you're investing not for today, but for decades in the future. Or consider the parable of Bob, the world's most unlucky investor.