u/alteregobobby

Location: Alabama

I'm young, 24F, and I don't expect to die soon(knock on wood). But I do have a genetic connective tissue disorder that can cause life-threatening issues which I am being monitored for but still, it's possible that I may die prematurely.

I have a two year old son, and his father hasn't seen him or asked me about him in well over a year now. He is not paying child support, despite court orders. He is very unstable and has three children now by different mothers, none of whom have ever known him, including my son. He is, however, on the birth certificate. I also don't yet have a will, but I am setting that up soon and I have a small life insurance policy that will cover my burial(provided by the company I work for) but I'm working on getting another policy to provide for him in the case I did die.

My mom and her wife have helped me raise my son from birth, they are my village and he is most comfortable with them after me, and they know him best out of anyone else. If I died, I would want my son to go to them. I know that they would fight for him as well. I guess I have a few questions:

1. If I die, will the court automatically look to place him with his father since he's on the birth certificate? Will they check his living situation and drug test him at least?

2. If he did get custody by some tragedy, would he have agency over the money from my life insurance policy? Could I prevent that?

3. Is there anything I can do now to ensure that my son doesn't end up in his hands? I don't think he'll sign his rights away, he wouldn't even show up to court for the child support hearings. Though I've heard he'd like to so that he wouldn't have to pay child support.

Hey, I've had unexplained back pain for almost my whole life. My mom says I started complaining around age four. I don't have scoliosis, and that's about all any doctor ever checked for because they quite plainly didn't believe I was actually hurting as badly as I do.

I need to get more scans done but it's really just so costly and I always just want to cry at the doctor when I complain of pain because I have been dismissed and condescended to for so long. And it seems every time I make an appointment to talk about my pain(when it gets bad for a while), by the time I get seen, the pain isn't so bad anymore. And then they ask me to rate my pain at that time and I can either lie or tell the truth and they always look at me funny either way.

I know the two most common causes of marfan-related back pain are scoliosis and dural ectasia. Does anyone here have experience with dural ectasia? If so, does it "flare up" or is it constant? I always have pain with too much physical exertion, and it worsens with stress, but sometimes the pain is neat-constant for a few weeks and then it gets better again. Since friday most of the time even just standing from bed or from sitting I can't stand straight up, I have to hobble around and slowly lift up and it hurts like a bitch. Please share your experiences!

I haven't watched the movies in ages(i get movie and book details mixed up if I do both), but I don't think the Hogwarts anthem was in them. I really hope it's in the tv show