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Music Festival Emergency Medical Services Reveal Their Craziest Stories

So how Warped does Warped Tour really get?

Music festivals are nothing new. They've been a staple of the rock n' roll experience for generations. We like to think of our parents and grandparents as being more mature and responsible than we were, but remember - nothing is new, children.


We promise, getting crazy at music festivals is something our forefathers knew well - which means needing medical services because you got too crazy at a music festival is a time honored tradition, folks!

One reddit user asked:

EMS/Medical people at Music Festivals, what are your most crazy stories?

We're not sure how half of these people are still alive, but they now have legendary tales to tell. Here are some of our favorites, some may be edited for clarity.


Fruit Pie

Giphy

A guy jumped down from the nose bleed section and then yelled "whats my favorite type of fruit pie?!?" We took him away because he was way too high and had a concussion. Still don't know which pie is his favorite.

- GrandMasterZone

Hydration Is Important

Giphy

Basslights 2015 in Hampton Virginia. This girl was running around the venue topless, mercilessly crushing a water bottle (which was empty) in her first, running up to people and shoving it in the faces screaming DOES ANYBODY NEED ANY WATER?!?! Her pupils were black as night, and she was grinding her teeth to a pulp. It was terrifying.

- Seantimejumpaa

A Bike Pump?

Giphy

Some people next to us a Phish's Labor Day weekend shows had this bike pump. They fitted the end with a little cup and were blasting drugs up their noses with it. We heard em jokingly say "you know those people that party too hard and get taken away by medics, that's totally gonna be us".

Well....it was them at like 4am Sunday morning.

- AutoConversationalst

The Legendary Bugsy

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On the Woodstock album, there's an announcement: "Bugsy, please report to the medical tent". I know that Bugsy, he was a family friend.

Whoever was in charge of the medical tent heard about Bugsy, and he spent a lot of time helping diagnose symptoms and talking people down from bad trips.

Bugsy was the go-to guy in town that vetted every single drug that entered that town. Until Bugsy gave the OK, nobody would touch anything. If Bugsy said it was not legit, not only did no kids use the stuff, but the older guys would run that dealer out of town for trying to hurt people. We all looked after each other in those days. Good times.

- NickDanger3Di

"Bro, It's A Rave And This Is How I Party."

Giphy

Got called to an unresponsive person in a stream a few years back. He was almost K holed and high on GHB with his head dangling off the end of an inflatable couch just touching the top of the water. Seriously, if he fell off he would have been a goner. As a harm reduction based first aid team, we brought him to a semi coherent level of consciousness and explained why it was a bad idea to pass out, in the water. And he got quite upset, which led to one of my favorite quotes from a festival ever: 'Bro, It's a rave, and this is how I party man'

A few inches away from drowning apparently? Since he was awake, we brought him and the couch to shore and bid him good day. Then got called to the girl who had ODed on GHB in the middle of the stream and was barely breathing and totally hypothermic. We worked on her for hours and she made it. Point is don't do dissociatives around water kids. Unless it's a rave and that's just how you party.

- 420Flanders

"He's Yours"

Giphy

I walk past the stage and a guy comes out stumbling, supported by two mates. They see us and yell: "He's yours"

And drop the guy in our arms. We assume severe intoxication and start escorting him towards our first aid station. Suddenly a girl taps my shoulder and says: "I don't know if you got the whole picture... he just tried to do a back flip off of a oil barrel, but he landed on his forehead. Since the he started sweating and became even more intelligible."

This gets me worried of course so we hurry to the tent. I put him down on the stretcher and asks him some questions about how he's feeling and what happened. As the festival was in a part of the country with dialect I was unfamiliar with I could always ask myself the question; Why don't I understand him? Is it, a) dialect (his friends were also hard to understand so this was definitely an option), b) drunkenness (he reported somewhere between 40 and 60 beers, so this was also a good guess), or c) brain damage (he hit his head hard and was suddenly sweaty, so this was strike three).

On his forehead I find a dimple about a centimeter deep with the skin still intact, just a deep dimple. The guy fractured his skull and had to be rushed off by ambulance.

- Hans1234567890

"Daddy" Issues

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Was an EMT B, signed up for a shift during governors ball in New York two summers ago. Some drunk and severely dehydrated Russian girl in her early 20's starts taking off her clothes in the ambulance while my partner was sitting in the front heading towards the hospital. She barely spoke English. She started messing around with herself and I, a semi new EMT at 19 yrs old, didn't how to best handle this.

So I decided to use some zip ties and tied her wrists to the stretcher and then covered her body with an extra bed sheet. She started yelling daddy towards me as I pushed her stretcher into the ER to get her checked in, the triage nurses at that hospital called me Daddy for the rest of my time working as an EMT.

-B-s1

All Hail Party Snake!

Giphy

Worked a large Electronic music festival in 2016. A patient found a snake somehow in the woods near by, carried it around in his pocket until he was in the rave pit, and took it out. It proceeded to bite the living hell out of him. He dropped the snake and came to the med tent. Well it turns out that another festival goers found the snake, picked it up and put it in HIS pocket... and so the story repeated four more times! Finally the poor snake bit a patient through his pocket and he came in with the snake still in his pocket since he couldn't get it out.

5 patients. One snake. Lots of drugs.

All hail party snake!

- CanisPecuarius

"A F^cking Redneck Bloodbath"

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I volunteered with a rescue squad that was tasked with providing EMS for the Blue Ridge Music Festival. It was a very small scale country music festival that went on for 2 days. It was far from a huge festival, but there were hundreds of people present and it was a bit of a logistical nightmare. So the first year they did this festival we were woefully under prepared. We had maybe 40 or so providers and it was all hands on deck, but we were split up roughly 20 on one day and 20 on the other. The temperature outside was in the 90s and they were serving tall 24 oz beers to people as the only alcohol you could get. You overpaid and got these tall boys and then went and crushed it out in the heat where there was no shade as it was a smaller high school sized football stadium with no real covering. They had the bright idea to cover the field with this big black tarp and everyone was out lying on this thing all day. What resulted was a redneck bloodbath.

First of all, these were people that are not used to the festival atmosphere, local bros, country girls with their cowboy boots on their feet all day, not drinking enough water, getting drunk on these tall boys. It was a recipe for disaster. A lot of people didn't realize that you can't dome six 24oz beers like you can dome a standard 12 oz six pack. But there's still beer in your can so you keep drinking and only count that as 1 beer - because drunk math.

It wasn't long before the radios were blowing up. We had drunk people falling out all over the stadium. We had people stationed all over the place trying to respond to calls and while on their way they would stumble upon someone else that was covered in vomit and not able to sit up. Then we had teams dedicated to the parking lot because people were pre-gaming out there. Its next to impossible to respond to a 911 call for 'a drunk guy passed out next to the back of a pickup truck' when that is the scene every 5 feet. I would head to a call for someone down/seizing/injured with 3 or 4 people and have to send the other providers off in different directions to follow people asking for help with other sick/injured/seizing people.

I vividly remember stepping out from our little tent and seeing the mass of drunks we had collected. All these people piss drunk lying around drinking the water we gave them. I watched as a girl walked up, started vomiting, and just walked along this whole row of people spraying them. It was a warzone.

We got our a**es handed to us for two days straight and thankfully nobody was seriously injured or died, but we probably sent 15 to 20 people to the hospital over the course of the festivals 2 days and treated/released 3 times that many. Again, it was a smaller festival but still for us this was waaaay more than we were equipped to handle. We were stretched thin but somehow got through it.

So the next year we knew this clusterf^ck was coming and we planned accordingly. We brought in 3 other rescue squads to help staff it. We setup rapid exit points at 2 points of the stadium. Basically if a call went out the decision was made that a medic would assess the patient, if they were deemed too sick/fucked up/whatever to remain at the festival and take care of themselves they had two options, PD would escort them off the property or they had to go to the hospital (obviously if someone was not competent to refuse transport they also went to the hospital).

Instead of sitting on these fools, anyone too drunk got those two choices and were dealt with quickly. We would have ambulances stationed at either end and as 1 took a patient another would take its place. It might seem like overkill, but yet again we were pushed to the limits even with twice the manpower and a much better plan. This time though things went 1000 times better. We borrowed a FEMA morgue tent and used morgue stretchers to setup a rehab area. Basically if you were just feeling a little sick/needed to get out of the sun you could come into this giant freezer designed to store bodies after natural disasters and lie down on a corpse cot. It worked perfectly. We would rehab people, if after 10 minutes they were still sick, it was once again, either leave or go to the hospital. While that sounds harsh its not like we were booting people for just being drunk, I'm talking people falling down drunk or having obvious medical emergencies.

It was a good example of learning from your mistakes and developing a revised action plan to handle a large group of people, behaving like idiots, out in the sun all day, not taking care of themselves. Again nobody died and we didn't have a huge number of hospital transports. But one girl around 9 pm was drunk as f^ck and fell in the middle of the crowd and broke her fucking ankle, bone obviously protruding. She didn't want to leave because whoever headliner country music star was coming on. We had to strap her to a board while she was still standing trying to see the headliner and carry her out of the place by like 8 people.

3/10, wont ever work large crowd events ever again if I can help it.

- Raincoats_George

Green Pepper

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Festivals are normally quite entertaining to work. Most memorable was a guy insisting he was a green pepper. He was very scared that someone was going to chop him up and put him in a salad.

- ParamedIT

H/T: Reddit

People Reveal The Weirdest Thing About Themselves

Reddit user Isitjustmedownhere asked: 'Give an example; how weird are you really?'

Let's get one thing straight: no one is normal. We're all weird in our own ways, and that is actually normal.

Of course, that doesn't mean we don't all have that one strange trait or quirk that outweighs all the other weirdness we possess.

For me, it's the fact that I'm almost 30 years old, and I still have an imaginary friend. Her name is Sarah, she has red hair and green eyes, and I strongly believe that, since I lived in India when I created her and there were no actual people with red hair around, she was based on Daphne Blake from Scooby-Doo.

I also didn't know the name Sarah when I created her, so that came later. I know she's not really there, hence the term 'imaginary friend,' but she's kind of always been around. We all have conversations in our heads; mine are with Sarah. She keeps me on task and efficient.

My mom thinks I'm crazy that I still have an imaginary friend, and writing about her like this makes me think I may actually be crazy, but I don't mind. As I said, we're all weird, and we all have that one trait that outweighs all the other weirdness.

Redditors know this all too well and are eager to share their weird traits.

It all started when Redditor Isitjustmedownhere asked:

"Give an example; how weird are you really?"

Monsters Under My Bed

"My bed doesn't touch any wall."

"Edit: I guess i should clarify im not rich."

– Practical_Eye_3600

"Gosh the monsters can get you from any angle then."

– bikergirlr7

"At first I thought this was a flex on how big your bedroom is, but then I realized you're just a psycho 😁"

– zenOFiniquity8

Can You See Why?

"I bought one of those super-powerful fans to dry a basement carpet. Afterwards, I realized that it can point straight up and that it would be amazing to use on myself post-shower. Now I squeegee my body with my hands, step out of the shower and get blasted by a wide jet of room-temp air. I barely use my towel at all. Wife thinks I'm weird."

– KingBooRadley

Remember

"In 1990 when I was 8 years old and bored on a field trip, I saw a black Oldsmobile Cutlass driving down the street on a hot day to where you could see that mirage like distortion from the heat on the road. I took a “snapshot” by blinking my eyes and told myself “I wonder how long I can remember this image” ….well."

– AquamarineCheetah

"Even before smartphones, I always take "snapshots" by blinking my eyes hoping I'll remember every detail so I can draw it when I get home. Unfortunately, I may have taken so much snapshots that I can no longer remember every detail I want to draw."

"Makes me think my "memory is full.""

– Reasonable-Pirate902

Same, Same

"I have eaten the same lunch every day for the past 4 years and I'm not bored yet."

– OhhGoood

"How f**king big was this lunch when you started?"

– notmyrealnam3

Not Sure Who Was Weirder

"Had a line cook that worked for us for 6 months never said much. My sous chef once told him with no context, "Baw wit da baw daw bang daw bang diggy diggy." The guy smiled, left, and never came back."

– Frostygrunt

Imagination

"I pace around my house for hours listening to music imagining that I have done all the things I simply lack the brain capacity to do, or in some really bizarre scenarios, I can really get immersed in these imaginations sometimes I don't know if this is some form of schizophrenia or what."

– RandomSharinganUser

"I do the same exact thing, sometimes for hours. When I was young it would be a ridiculous amount of time and many years later it’s sort of trickled off into almost nothing (almost). It’s weird but I just thought it’s how my brain processes sh*t."

– Kolkeia

If Only

"Even as an adult I still think that if you are in a car that goes over a cliff; and right as you are about to hit the ground if you jump up you can avoid the damage and will land safely. I know I'm wrong. You shut up. I'm not crying."

– ShotCompetition2593

Pet Food

"As a kid I would snack on my dog's Milkbones."

– drummerskillit

"Haha, I have a clear memory of myself doing this as well. I was around 3 y/o. Needless to say no one was supervising me."

– Isitjustmedownhere

"When I was younger, one of my responsibilities was to feed the pet fish every day. Instead, I would hide under the futon in the spare bedroom and eat the fish food."

– -GateKeep-

My Favorite Subject

"I'm autistic and have always had a thing for insects. My neurotypical best friend and I used to hang out at this local bar to talk to girls, back in the late 90s. One time he claimed that my tendency to circle conversations back to insects was hurting my game. The next time we went to that bar (with a few other friends), he turned and said sternly "No talking about bugs. Or space, or statistics or other bullsh*t but mainly no bugs." I felt like he was losing his mind over nothing."

"It was summer, the bar had its windows open. Our group hit it off with a group of young ladies, We were all chatting and having a good time. I was talking to one of these girls, my buddy was behind her facing away from me talking to a few other people."

"A cloudless sulphur flies in and lands on little thing that holds coasters."

"Cue Jordan Peele sweating gif."

"The girl notices my tension, and asks if I am looking at the leaf. "Actually, that's a lepidoptera called..." I looked at the back of my friend's head, he wasn't looking, "I mean a butterfly..." I poked it and it spread its wings the girl says "oh that's a BUG?!" and I still remember my friend turning around slowly to look at me with chastisement. The ONE thing he told me not to do."

"I was 21, and was completely not aware that I already had a rep for being an oddball. It got worse from there."

– Phormicidae

*Teeth Chatter*

"I bite ice cream sometimes."

RedditbOiiiiiiiiii

"That's how I am with popsicles. My wife shudders every single time."

monobarreller

Never Speak Of This

"I put ice in my milk."

– GTFOakaFOD

"You should keep that kind of thing to yourself. Even when asked."

– We-R-Doomed

"There's some disturbing sh*t in this thread, but this one takes the cake."

– RatonaMuffin

More Than Super Hearing

"I can hear the television while it's on mute."

– Tira13e

"What does it say to you, child?"

– Mama_Skip

Yikes!

"I put mustard on my omelettes."

– Deleted User

"Oh."

– NotCrustOr-filling

Evened Up

"Whenever I say a word and feel like I used a half of my mouth more than the other half, I have to even it out by saying the word again using the other half of my mouth more. If I don't do it correctly, that can go on forever until I feel it's ok."

"I do it silently so I don't creep people out."

– LesPaltaX

"That sounds like a symptom of OCD (I have it myself). Some people with OCD feel like certain actions have to be balanced (like counting or making sure physical movements are even). You should find a therapist who specializes in OCD, because they can help you."

– MoonlightKayla

I totally have the same need for things to be balanced! Guess I'm weird and a little OCD!

Close up face of a woman in bed, staring into the camera
Photo by Jen Theodore

Experiencing death is a fascinating and frightening idea.

Who doesn't want to know what is waiting for us on the other side?

But so many of us want to know and then come back and live a little longer.

It would be so great to be sure there is something else.

But the whole dying part is not that great, so we'll have to rely on other people's accounts.

Redditor AlaskaStiletto wanted to hear from everyone who has returned to life, so they asked:

"Redditors who have 'died' and come back to life, what did you see?"

Sensations

Happy Good Vibes GIF by Major League SoccerGiphy

"My dad's heart stopped when he had a heart attack and he had to be brought back to life. He kept the paper copy of the heart monitor which shows he flatlined. He said he felt an overwhelming sensation of peace, like nothing he had felt before."

PeachesnPain

Recovery

"I had surgical complications in 2010 that caused a great deal of blood loss. As a result, I had extremely low blood pressure and could barely stay awake. I remember feeling like I was surrounded by loved ones who had passed. They were in a circle around me and I knew they were there to guide me onwards. I told them I was not ready to go because my kids needed me and I came back."

"My nurse later said she was afraid she’d find me dead every time she came into the room."

"It took months, and blood transfusions, but I recovered."

good_golly99

Take Me Back

"Overwhelming peace and happiness. A bright airy and floating feeling. I live a very stressful life. Imagine finding out the person you have had a crush on reveals they have the same feelings for you and then you win the lotto later that day - that was the feeling I had."

"I never feared death afterward and am relieved when I hear of people dying after suffering from an illness."

rayrayrayray

Free

The Light Minnie GIF by (G)I-DLEGiphy

"I had a heart surgery with near-death experience, for me at least (well the possibility that those effects are caused by morphine is also there) I just saw black and nothing else but it was warm and I had such inner peace, its weird as I sometimes still think about it and wish this feeling of being so light and free again."

TooReDTooHigh

This is why I hate surgery.

You just never know.

Shocked

Giphy

"More of a near-death experience. I was electrocuted. I felt like I was in a deep hole looking straight up in the sky. My life flashed before me. Felt sad for my family, but I had a deep sense of peace."

Admirable_Buyer6528

The SOB

"Nursing in the ICU, we’ve had people try to die on us many times during the years, some successfully. One guy stood out to me. His heart stopped. We called a code, are working on him, and suddenly he comes to. We hadn’t vented him yet, so he was able to talk, and he started screaming, 'Don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me, they are coming,' he was scared and yelling."

"Then he yelled a little more, as we tried to calm him down, he screamed, 'No, No,' and gestured towards the end of the bed, and died again. We didn’t get him back. It was seriously creepy. We called his son to tell him the news, and the son said basically, 'Good, he was an SOB.'”

1-cupcake-at-a-time

Colors

"My sister died and said it was extremely peaceful. She said it was very loud like a train station and lots of talking and she was stuck in this area that was like a curtain with lots of beautiful colors (colors that you don’t see in real life according to her) a man told her 'He was sorry, but she had to go back as it wasn’t her time.'"

Hannah_LL7

"I had a really similar experience except I was in an endless garden with flowers that were colors I had never seen before. It was quiet and peaceful and a woman in a dress looked at me, shook her head, and just said 'Not yet.' As I was coming back, it was extremely loud, like everyone in the world was trying to talk all at once. It was all very disorienting but it changed my perspective on life!"

huntokarrr

The Fog

"I was in a gray fog with a girl who looked a lot like a young version of my grandmother (who was still alive) but dressed like a pioneer in the 1800s she didn't say anything but kept pulling me towards an opening in the wall. I kept refusing to go because I was so tired."

"I finally got tired of her nagging and went and that's when I came to. I had bled out during a c-section and my heart could not beat without blood. They had to deliver the baby and sew up the bleeders. refill me with blood before they could restart my heart so, like, at least 12 minutes gone."

Fluffy-Hotel-5184

Through the Walls

"My spouse was dead for a couple of minutes one miserable night. She maintains that she saw nothing, but only heard people talking about her like through a wall. The only thing she remembers for absolute certain was begging an ER nurse that she didn't want to die."

"She's quite alive and well today."

Hot-Refrigerator6583

Well let's all be happy to be alive.

It seems to be all we have.

Man's waist line
Santhosh Vaithiyanathan/Unsplash

Trying to lose weight is a struggle understood by many people regardless of size.

The goal of reaching a healthy weight may seem unattainable, but with diet and exercise, it can pay off through persistence and discipline.

Seeing the pounds gradually drop off can also be a great motivator and incentivize people to stay the course.

Those who've achieved their respective weight goals shared their experiences when Redditor apprenti8455 asked:

"People who lost a lot of weight, what surprises you the most now?"

Redditors didn't see these coming.

Shiver Me Timbers

"I’m always cold now!"

– Telrom_1

"I had a coworker lose over 130 pounds five or six years ago. I’ve never seen him without a jacket on since."

– r7ndom

"140 lbs lost here starting just before COVID, I feel like that little old lady that's always cold, damn this top comment was on point lmao."

– mr_remy

Drawing Concern

"I lost 100 pounds over a year and a half but since I’m old(70’s) it seems few people comment on it because (I think) they think I’m wasting away from some terminal illness."

– dee-fondy

"Congrats on the weight loss! It’s honestly a real accomplishment 🙂"

"Working in oncology, I can never comment on someone’s weight loss unless I specifically know it was on purpose, regardless of their age. I think it kind of ruffles feathers at times, but like I don’t want to congratulate someone for having cancer or something. It’s a weird place to be in."

– LizardofDeath

Unleashing Insults

"I remember when I lost the first big chunk of weight (around 50 lbs) it was like it gave some people license to talk sh*t about the 'old' me. Old coworkers, friends, made a lot of not just negative, but harsh comments about what I used to look like. One person I met after the big loss saw a picture of me prior and said, 'Wow, we wouldn’t even be friends!'”

"It wasn’t extremely common, but I was a little alarmed by some of the attention. My weight has been up and down since then, but every time I gain a little it gets me a little down thinking about those things people said."

– alanamablamaspama

Not Everything Goes After Losing Weight

"The loose skin is a bit unexpected."

– KeltarCentauri

"I haven’t experienced it myself, but surgery to remove skin takes a long time to recover. Longer than bariatric surgery and usually isn’t covered by insurance unless you have both."

– KatMagic1977

"It definitely does take a long time to recover. My Dad dropped a little over 200 pounds a few years back and decided to go through with skin removal surgery to deal with the excess. His procedure was extensive, as in he had skin taken from just about every part of his body excluding his head, and he went through hell for weeks in recovery, and he was bedridden for a lot of it."

– Jaew96

These Redditors shared their pleasantly surprising experiences.

Shopping

"I can buy clothes in any store I want."

– WaySavvyD

"When I lost weight I was dying to go find cute, smaller clothes and I really struggled. As someone who had always been restricted to one or two stores that catered to plus-sized clothing, a full mall of shops with items in my size was daunting. Too many options and not enough knowledge of brands that were good vs cheap. I usually went home pretty frustrated."

– ganache98012

No More Symptoms

"Lost about 80 pounds in the past year and a half, biggest thing that I’ve noticed that I haven’t seen mentioned on here yet is my acid reflux and heartburn are basically gone. I used to be popping tums every couple hours and now they just sit in the medicine cabinet collecting dust."

– colleennicole93

Expanding Capabilities

"I'm all for not judging people by their appearance and I recognise that there are unhealthy, unachievable beauty standards, but one thing that is undeniable is that I can just do stuff now. Just stamina and flexibility alone are worth it, appearance is tertiary at best."

– Ramblonius

People Change Their Tune

"How much nicer people are to you."

"My feet weren't 'wide' they were 'fat.'"

– LiZZygsu

"Have to agree. Lost 220 lbs, people make eye contact and hold open doors and stuff"

"And on the foot thing, I also lost a full shoe size numerically and also wear regular width now 😅"

– awholedamngarden

It's gonna take some getting used to.

Bones Everywhere

"Having bones. Collarbones, wrist bones, knee bones, hip bones, ribs. I have so many bones sticking out everywhere and it’s weird as hell."

– Princess-Pancake-97

"I noticed the shadow of my ribs the other day and it threw me, there’s a whole skeleton in here."

– bekastrange

Knee Pillow

"Right?! And they’re so … pointy! Now I get why people sleep with pillows between their legs - the knee bones laying on top of each other (side sleeper here) is weird and jarring."

– snic2030

"I lost only 40 pounds within the last year or so. I’m struggling to relate to most of these comments as I feel like I just 'slimmed down' rather than dropped a ton. But wow, the pillow between the knees at night. YES! I can relate to this. I think a lot of my weight was in my thighs. I never needed to do this up until recently."

– Strongbad23

More Mobility

"I’ve lost 100 lbs since 2020. It’s a collection of little things that surprise me. For at least 10 years I couldn’t put on socks, or tie my shoes. I couldn’t bend over and pick something up. I couldn’t climb a ladder to fix something. Simple things like that I can do now that fascinate me."

"Edit: Some additional little things are sitting in a chair with arms, sitting in a booth in a restaurant, being able to shop in a normal store AND not needing to buy the biggest size there, being able to easily wipe my butt, and looking down and being able to see my penis."

– dma1965

People making significant changes, whether for mental or physical health, can surely find a newfound perspective on life.

But they can also discover different issues they never saw coming.

That being said, overcoming any challenge in life is laudable, especially if it leads to gaining confidence and ditching insecurities.