Disney drop bear. It looks suspiciously clean… do you reckon it still has gonorrhoea or whatever it is they carry?

How about fencing? (That’s a terrible joke, I’m sorry).

What does “altfedi” mean? And what content is illegal in Germany and Czechia?

Yup. It says that in the article too.

The article says all South African prisoners are eligible for parole after serving half their sentence.

… in the article you posted it says all prisoners in South Africa are eligible for parole once they’ve served half of their sentence.

I didn’t know they treated headaches with gabapentin! Is that prescribed off label? How’s it working for you?

I took a look at your post history to see if you mentioned an underlying diagnosis and saw you’ve taking antidepressants. There are a couple that help nerve pain, secondary to acting as an SSRI; duloxetine and venlafaxine. If you’re not already on one of those and the nerve damage becomes painful, it might be worth asking if you can try one of those.

You didn’t say whether you were talking about the nerve pain or the itching mentioned in the title, so I was clarifying.

Gabapentin is great for long term nerve pain, but I can’t imagine a doctor prescribing gabapentin for something as short term as wound healing - at least not in the UK. Heat, distraction, OTC antihistamines and maybe a prescription for something like zopiclone for short term relief if the itching is preventing sleep completely, should provide enough relief from the itchiness.

OP, I’m not sure if you can stand at the moment, but be extra careful when standing up if the loss of feeling extends to your foot. I have neuropathy and dislocated my ankle just getting up off the sofa before it was diagnosed. It definitely takes some getting used to and taking more care over how you step. Get well soon!

I’m in the extremely vulnerable group so in 2020 I didn’t leave the house for 7 months… until my appendix burst and I spent 10 days in hospital. 7 long long months only to end up in the worst possible place for me! Amazingly I didn’t catch covid then, or since.

I’m gonna say no, it doesn’t count. Mainly cos I can move one with just a twitch from the other and I’m not special at all.

Op and SomeoneElse! I have a couple of accounts. I use this one mainly as my personal one for browsing and SomeoneElseMod for mod related stuff and creating posts. All the “someone” accounts listed as mods in the sidebar are me.

I only found this photo, not the whole listing unfortunately!

Hateful woman. Each time I think her policies can’t get any more evil she outdoes herself.

Yup, the airport provides the wheelchairs (and someone to push you) if you don’t travel with you own wheelchair. Even if you do travel with your own wheelchair, it’s always put in the hold, not the cabin. I’ve never needed to use a wheelchair ON the plane, just to get to it, but when you book special assistance in advance you’re asked if you can walk up the steps to the plane and whether you can walk through the cabin to your seat so arrangements can be made in advance.

If I had to guess I’d say the airport staff didn’t have the narrower “on board” wheelchair to hand and the pilot didn’t want to miss their take off slot.

I use a wheelchair sometimes and know the answer to this - airlines pay the airport to handle the special assistance. AFAIK they’re not specialists as such, more like hospital porters. Getting onto the plane is just a small part of it. Once you arrive at the airport you’re met by someone with a wheelchair (if you don’t have your own) who fast tracks you through check in and security and pushes you to the gate. Then they come back when the plane is boarding and push you onto the ambilift - a kind of cherry picker platform thingy that lifts people in wheelchairs up to the plane door on the other side. Once you’re on board the cabin crew take care of you.

Just recently Ryanair left a disabled passenger on the tarmac and the plane had to be turned around to pick them up. Ryanair blamed Toulouse(?) airport as it was technically up to their assistance staff to get the passenger on board, and Ryanair pay the airport to do that.

Last month the assistance I booked didn’t turn up so my partner had to push me while I guided the suitcases from the chair. It was a pain in the arse but thankfully we were met at the gate and assisted onto the plane properly.

Yep, increasing the text size helped a little, but adjusting the spacing, alignment and margins helped a lot. I keep the margins thin/small, the alignment left justified and the spacing moderate-wide. Those adjustments plus the more legible font has made reading almost as easy as before my eyesight was damaged. I do have to focus more though, or the words/letters in the centre of my vision go walkabout!

I sustained damage to my macular last year and switched my kindle font to open dyslexic (as well as make the text larger and more spaced out) after reading became harder. That font helped to “anchor” the words down, particularly in the middle of my vision. Someone suggested a hyperlegible font which works almost as well but is better looking. From my very limited experience, I find the Cyrillic alphabet harder to read than the Roman alphabet - but that could just be my lack of familiarity with it. I learnt a little Ukrainian but only using duolingo.

I don’t know if this little nugget of info might help you, but years ago I was doing a PhD in psycholinguistics. I vaguely remember that different fonts can have an effect on comprehension and recall. I briefly considered an experiment to see if stuttering could be induced by different scripts. That was a long time ago though, I don’t know if that’s still the accepted case.

I implement the first two and the last rules in all the communities I moderate. Everyone gets either a message or a comment if they break the rules/I remove their comment/I give them a warning. I also reply to the vast majority of mod reports made, explaining what action I’ve taken and why. All my communities have a one-warning-then-you’re-banned rule, but bans are rarely permanent.

I repeatedly state that I’m looking for moderators, that I welcome all constructive feedback and suggestions regarding the way the community is run and what the rules are. I make it clear I want the communities to be a community effort. I’ve never ever vetoed a suggestion someone’s made - I always offer to let the community decide. What happens? People complaining/criticising but never taking me up on the offer to hold a vote on whatever it is they don’t like. It’s like shouting in the wind and it’s exhausting.

Harley street is the most famous place in the country for (private) medical practices. Today there’s thousand of people employed in one type of medical job or another there.