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first of all, i wish you all the best, a speedy recovery, and continued good health.
the thing is, i'd actually like to continue using the 1776 VPS that i had canceled.
Take care of yourself.
If you have a ticket, please give me the number and I or someone else will get you sorted if possible.
Thanks, hoping for the best.
This last week I have had 2 ultrasounds, 1 x-ray, 2 urinalysis, 2 blood labs, 1 CT-Scan and the next step is some rather invasive scope work to get up in my insides and take a look around with a camera. not ideal
Anyway, I'll be fine, I'm sure. May go somewhere else (different country) as I'm relaying all the details and results given to me by the local hospitals to Dr. Grok and Dr. Gepete for second opinions and there is some conflicting details and opinions given to me locally. With that said, I still want answers but I'm beginning to think the local hospitals and clinics just see me as a foreigner with no insurance who'll pay out of pocket so they can just say whatever. On the other hand, in the US I've never had health insurance because it's monthly cost was out of reach for me so I'd have likely been personally bankrupted or put into lifetime debt over just the above procedures already. Need to find a decent balance between good, honest care with modern tech and education and the retarded healthcare system of my home country (US).
@MannDude hope all goes well and you come out with a clean chit after all the probes
Not a fun sexperience at all to be probed.
But c'est la vie
I read somewhere you're in Asia (Thailand?) - if you are still considering another country in Asia, you might want to look at Vietnam. The people are welcoming and the doctors are highly skilled. While some hospitals may not always have the latest equipment, but depend on what you're looking for, it could be more than enough. I can also refer you to a few friends (doctors) there who may be able to help if you'd like.
Yeah heard that in US it costs a fortune. Life is becoming very expensive. But ya, if you have got access to foreign healthcare, give it a shot. Please please look after your health.
@PulsedMedia
Oh dear lord 😂
Reccomendation for TH doctor, right?
Bumrungrad i hear is great, i have experience with Bangkok Pattaya Hospital (BPH) -- but they are still doctors and they too make mistakes. The difference is that it's very fast and you get to a doctor very fast, at relatively inexpensive cost.
I'm sorry to hear that, @MannDude.
I live in the US and have had a few wakeup calls with medical care. Having kids is scary. Thankfully, they haven't had anything too bad yet as far as injuries go.
I'm gradually coming out of my teenage/20s mindset of being indestructible. I have some shoulder trouble now that I'm not sure how to take care of. I'm not on any medications, have almost no allergies, and overall am in good health. But a year ago I had appendicitis and had my first surgery removing it. I think it was like $22k at the hospital that I paid out of pocket. I negotiated a measly 15% off and I paid for it with my time. They kept sending me updated bills saying I hadn't paid the full amount, despite being told that I had. Took a couple months of back and forth to resolve. Apparently, pretty common practice. Very sleazy if the crazy up front cost isn't bad enough.
Obviously, running a hospital is very expensive, but $22k is kind of nuts. A few more of those and we could be in serious trouble.
I did find out, after the fact, that there's a local surgery group that you can work with. I think an appendectomy through them is something like $7k. They are very friendly and nice to work with. I recently signed up our family at a direct primary care provider. It's expensive, like $300/month for the family. We normally try to avoid doctors, but it seems wise to visit from time to time. That $300/month does not get you everything, though. You still have to pay out of pocket for scans and such that they're not able to do in the office.
Direct Primary Care + the cash payment surgery group has renewed some of my faith in the US medical system. I think not all of the cost is just greed, though. Some people have insurance and can blow through millions of dollars of care in a year. Maybe those millions should be several hundred throusand, but still. I like getting insurance out of the loop and going direct. I was offered a cash payment price with a doctor about 15 years ago for a multiple visit issue, and I was quite happy with it.
Different hospitals and doctors have remarkably different ratings. They're definitely not all created equal. I don't know if it would make sense for you, but I think you can have good outcomes in the US. I'm sure you can have great outcomes in other countries as well, though. I have no first hand experience with that.
Sorry to hear that, I hope you recover soon. I understand, sorry if my previous comment was a bit harsh. It's not necessarily service impacting but regardless it would have been great to understand the situation. Thank you for replying.
ticket: #0418X91C4
Please take care of yourself & get better soon!
Do you know about lodge doctors? That's the precursors to the system you signed up and medical insurance industry. Just recently watched The Simpsons. Homer gets sick from time to time but he didn't get bankrupt after paying the deductibles for common illnesses.
ACA does benefits few groups. But for most, it's the skyhigh monthly premium or deductibles.
Incognet needs to have a 'report issue' button. I don't know how all of my boxes on allegience.wa-us.vmho.st is dead AGAIN (happens every 2nd month or so) and the status page shows nothing. Very annoying. No point in making a ticket cos by the time I get a response(usually) its resolved. Just frustrating in general..
Announcements. > https://portal.incognet.io/announcements/30/Hypervisor-Security-Patching---Hardware-Rebooots.html
We're patching servers.
All VPS providers are or should be doing this for security.
See: https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/218905/januscape-guest-to-host-escape-in-kvm-x86-cve-2026-53359#latest
Just finished with WA.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
Thanks for the swift reply! Would be great to have that in network status page also in the future. Thank you.
@MannDude When you have time, is there any chance you could enable SEV-SNP on my VPS (168.222.241.36)? I seem to recall that you had that ability but only enable it manually if people ask.
I think @oloke or @onidel is also waiting for some months now. Was going to wait until after I did all the virtualizor migrations since that process has me clearing old hardware of all VMs and reinstalling base systems and configs, allowing me to not just change the required BIOS settings and stuff but also document the process and take note of which HV's support it.
When I said I could do it before, it was more of a, "I did this on a test VM after fucking around a bit but didn't document everything properly." Stupid then to say I could have offered it, but I do want to look more into it and get a process down since it has to be done manually on our end, it's just very very very low priority when I have a bunch of bigger things going on that take precedence.
Like, right now I just patched out entire WA POP but as luck would have it, two hypervisors want to be a pain in the ass and not come back online. Meanwhile, have no console access so waiting on the datacenter.
This morning I had another ultrasound with the doctors not wanting to do another CT scan since I had one six days ago, gave more blood samples (now look like a heroin addict with the brusing on my inner arms and hands from previous injections and samples) and well, it's always something.
No problem! Your health and business plans take priority.
Things higher on the docket: (Not personal / health or other business related)
Update DNS cluster. I have a 20+ server anycast setup, which is going to replace the relatively poor anycast setup we're using now (Just 4 BuyVM POPs). I built some health check tools and stuff to make sure it'll be easier to manage which I've deployed already, but I've yet to do that migration and switch everything live. That'll make our 4 NS nameserver setup more resilient, with two of the NS being that anycast setup with the other two being unicast, two different DDoS protected providers (two different mitigation companies). If all four are down, then I guess... pray? IDK.
Also, updating the DNS cluster that the direct admin shared servers use. I did test (Briefly) it piggy backing on the powerdns cluster we use for domain customers but it was a bit finnicky. It worked but I'm not comfortable putting that into production yet until I break it 100 more times and fix it 100 more times.
Finalize all Virtualizor to Virtfusion migrations. Still have like 350 VMs or something on the legacy platform in different POPs that haven't been migrated yet for one reason or another. One hypervisor in WA has some HDD Storage in it as well that I had forgotten that I had provisioned a few (like, literally 3) people some big HDD storage, so need to do special accommodation for them.
Still have a big storage server that's been racked in KC for like 8 months now. I think it just needs a line card replacement, I forget. Need to get the contractor dude to poke at it again.
I'm bad at delegation. I've got help but a lot of this is stuff only I can do. A few other things on the list too that are simpler, but waiting on some of the above to take place first, like opening the Sofia and Swedish based DirectAdmin hosting (servers online, just never fully setup, wanted to wait until the DNS updates were done first) and whatnot.
All in all I look pretty good for 38, no stress at all
Any chance of adding a local recursive DNS resolver on the nodes? It'll help with Tor exits so we aren't stuck with only the choice of using a centralized upstream nameserver like 8.8.8.8 and renting a second clean IPv4 just for DNS.
You don't look a day over 32!
Seems like Liberty Lake has been liberated and back online.
Two hypervisors originally failed to boot back up, one was reverting to non-bootable BIOS options. Fixed that "quickly", all things considered.
The other wasnt reachable over the network. I exhausted everything I knew to do (And ChatGPT for more advice) and all things pointed to it being not an internal problem. DC had to do something on their end.
Does the diagnosed illness starts with the the letter C?
Nah, it's a kidney thing. Well they did mention a tumor as a possibility but I don't believe that to be the case. Would be rare to have a ureteral tumor just beneath the kidney.
Long story short, have an inflamed kidney that is holding fluid. It's not caused by a kidney stone and doesn't appear to be an infection or bacterial cause. They want to insert a scope up through me to take a look because they're not certain exactly where the blockage is taking place or the cause. They'll likely insert a stint at that time and take a biopsy if anything is seen.
My first and only CT Scan I cheaped out on since we were just looking for solid mass, stones. Next one is a newer machine and I'll do the contrast dye which will better highlight blood vessels and such. That should give them a better glimpse before they thread a tubed scope through a sensitive entryway and up through my bladder and towards my kidney.
Mind you, I don't drink. I don't smoke. No soda. Reasonably fit (for this career, at least), etc. Shit happens. 🤷
Seems these are a cause for all your problems
/s
Hope you get a clean bill of health soon
Hope you get well soon @MannDude. Am always love reading your posts here.
GWS.
04:54 AM claude-fable-5
● That description maps pretty cleanly onto a known clinical picture, so here's
what it sounds like — with the obvious caveat that I'm working from a secondhand
summary, not his imaging.
The condition itself: what he's describing is hydronephrosis — the kidney
swelling with backed-up urine because something is blocking the ureter (the tube
from kidney to bladder), likely near the ureteropelvic junction (UPJ), right
where the ureter leaves the kidney. They've already excluded the two most common
causes (stones and infection), so what's left is a shorter list:
unnoticed for decades before it declares itself in adulthood. Probably the most
common answer for "blockage just below the kidney, no stone, no infection."
cause. Notice that his doctors specifically want the contrast CT to "highlight
blood vessels" — that's very likely exactly what they're checking for.
instrumentation, or inflammation.
A urothelial tumor — the thing they mentioned, which the biopsy during the
scope would rule in or out.
The plan is textbook. CT urogram with contrast → ureteroscopy to look directly
at the blockage → stent to relieve pressure and protect the kidney → biopsy if
anything looks abnormal. That's exactly the standard workup for unexplained
hydronephrosis; nothing about it suggests his doctors think something unusual is
going on. The stent part matters most short-term: it takes the pressure off the
kidney so it doesn't sustain damage while they figure out the cause.
One gentle correction worth passing along, carefully: his reasoning for
dismissing the tumor — "would be rare to have a ureteral tumor just beneath the
kidney" — is actually backwards. Upper-tract urothelial tumors, when they do
occur, favor the renal pelvis and upper ureter, precisely the area in question.
What he's right about is that they're rare overall (a few percent of urothelial
cancers), and statistically the benign explanations above are more likely —
especially in a non-smoker, since smoking is the big risk factor for urothelial
cancer. So "probably not a tumor" is a reasonable bet; "tumors don't happen
there" is not the reason. The biopsy is exactly the right move to settle it
rather than guess.
And he's right that lifestyle has little to do with it — UPJ obstruction and
crossing vessels are mostly anatomy you're born with. Clean living didn't fail
him; this is genuinely a "shit happens" category of problem, and it's being
worked up the right way. The main thing is that he doesn't sit on it — an
obstructed kidney left too long can lose function, so following through on the
scope and stent is what protects him.
05:02 AM claude-fable-5
● Short version: the procedure itself is easy to recover from — it's outpatient,
no incisions, most people are back to normal activity in a day or two. The part
people actually complain about is living with the stent, and it's worth him
knowing that upfront so it doesn't alarm him.
The procedure day. Ureteroscopy is done under general (sometimes spinal)
anesthesia, typically 30–60 minutes, home the same day. Everything goes through
the natural route — urethra, bladder, up the ureter — so there's nothing to heal
on the outside. First day or two he can expect burning when he pees, urgency,
and pink or rust-colored urine. All normal, all from the scope having stretched
and scraped its way through.
The stent period — this is the real "recovery." The stent is a soft plastic tube
with a curl in the kidney and a curl in the bladder, and it stays in anywhere
from several days to a few weeks depending on what they find. Stent tolerance
varies wildly: some people barely notice it, many find it genuinely annoying, a
minority find it miserable. Typical complaints:
curl irritates the bladder wall.
stent holds the valve into the ureter open, so when the bladder squeezes, a
little urine flushes backward up to the kidney. Odd sensation, harmless.
after physical activity. This freaks people out; with a stent in, it's
expected.
Bladder spasms — sudden cramping urgency.
Urologists commonly prescribe tamsulosin (relaxes the ureter and bladder neck)
and sometimes oxybutynin for spasms — both make a real difference, so he should
actually take them rather than tough it out. Lots of water helps everything.
Activity and work. Desk work: a day or two. He hinted at a physically demanding
career — that's the caveat. Heavy exertion with a stent in is allowed (he can't
dislodge it with normal activity), but it aggravates the bleeding and the flank
discomfort, so many people in physical jobs ask for light duty until the stent
comes out. Worth him raising with the urologist specifically.
Stent removal is anticlimactic: either it has a string and he (or the office)
pulls it, or they do a 30-second flexible cystoscopy in the office, no
anesthesia. Expect one day of burning and a bit of blood afterward, then it's
over. Most people describe the relief when it's out as immediate.
Two asterisks. If they take a biopsy, expect a bit more bleeding and a few extra
days of irritation — still outpatient-level stuff. And bigger picture: if the
scope reveals a stricture or UPJ obstruction, this procedure is the diagnostic
and temporizing step, not the fix — the stent protects the kidney while they
plan definitive treatment (e.g., pyeloplasty for a UPJ obstruction, which is its
own laparoscopic surgery with a real but very manageable recovery). So
"recovery" from this scope may turn out to be chapter one rather than the whole
book.
When to actually worry: fever or chills (stent infections are treatable but
urgent), inability to urinate, pain that meds don't touch, or urine that's frank
blood with clots rather than pink-tinged. Those get a same-day call to the
urologist; everything else on the list above is par for the course.
Health stuff sucks. I hope the next CT brings good news and that it's nothing too serious. Get well soon!
@MannDude hope you’re doing better, and wishing you a smooth recovery.
I’ve been fighting for 7+ months to recover / transfer a domain from Internet.bs, through support tickets, emails, registrar-side requests and ICANN. I’m posting here because I really need you to look at this specific case.
There is finally some movement: both ICANN and Internet.bs are asking for confirmation that I am the customer / beneficial holder behind the IncogNET privacy proxy registration.
From what I understand, I only need IncogNET to provide Internet.bs with a short confirmation that I’m the customer behind the domain / authorized to communicate about it with them.
I don’t want to post private docs or drag the whole case into the thread, but I’ve genuinely been battling this for months and this may be what finally moves it forward.
Ticket: #0702W98G7
No pressure on timing, but I’d be very grateful if you could take a look whenever you’re able to.