JOURNAL

Well. I haven't updated anything other than pixel clubs for far too long so I'm not really sure where to begin on this update.

My youngest moved out again, against my strong suggestion not to. But they're 20 years old. There's not anything I can do. Except be there for them and hope for the best. My heart hurts again. I love being dad. I know I'm still dad, but not the same kind of dad as when they live with me. Fingers crossed it goes better this time.

I've been in and out of the ER twice this month. I took a couple of pretty heavy falls while out on my daily walks. Really jammed up my wrist on one of the falls, which led to the first ER visit. I totally thought I broke something in one of my wrists or hands. I didn't, thankfully. But it's still sore and has put a damper on a lot of my activities and past times and passions. I couldn't type, let alone draw, for a few days. It's better, but not 100%. I can do all my usual things but just not for very long or without some level of pain after doing anything fine motor skill related for any real length of time. I smacked my head on concrete on both falls, on the cheek bone area, and have had on and off again headaches ever since. The doctors are convinced there's no concussion associated with either fall. I tend to agree, based on what I know to expect from a concussion. But the headaches suck. At least they're not migraines, I suppose. Been a while since I had one of those. Thank the Qulipta gods for that, I suppose. The second fall just made me sort of sore and achey in a lot of places but didn't require me to make a visit to the ER. Some hot showers and good doses of ibuprofem and heating pads helped get over that one. Second visit to the ER was just a week ago today. I woke up at like 3am and I couldn't catch my breath, my chest and back hurt like hell - especially when trying to take a deep breath or cough or anything like that - and the pain shot down my arm. I thought I was having a heart attack. Called 911, did the whole ambulance ride and better part of a whole day at the ER trying to figure out what was going on. At the end of it all, diagnosis was Inflamed Pleurisy, which is basically inflamed layers of tissues around the lungs between the organs and ribs which causes severe pain when trying to breathe. I'm more or less better. More than less, for sure. But it is not 100%. I have figured out a way to position myself when I know I need to take an extra deep breath or cough or blow my nose or something like that so that the pain is less than when any of those things comes on unexpectedly and I'm not able to position myself to lessen it. It really sucks and I wish it would hurry up and go away.

Covid came through the house over the Thanksgiving Holiday, as well, and I was way sicker the second time around than the first. And, oddly enough, the Inflamed Pleurisy is linked, in part, to having recently had Covid as well as taking a couple good stumbles around the same period of time, according to the doctor. The first time with Covid I was sick for about a week and it really sucked. A day and a half or so during it I wished someone would put me out of my misery, but then I healed up pretty quickly afterward. This time around, I was sick as fuck for a good two weeks. The last week being the worst of the two. And frankly, I'm still not entirely over it. I'm no longer testing positive, haven't tested positive in some time now, but I still have a lingering cough, my bowels and bowel movements have been wonky ever since, and the brainfog is unbelievably real. I think the brainfog is partly why I've not been able to get much done, have much interest in a lot of things for eny length of time - this site included. It's like... 40ish minutes of doing any task and then I basically lose grip on what I was doing, step out to smoke or do something else, come back to what I was working on and just be sort of lost where to pick things back up and keep moving forward. It's like ADD on steroids or something. It's the worst. I have another week to reach the four week mark before doctors will start talking about being diagnosed with Long Covid, but I feel like it's a very real possibility for me.

My mom's dog is potentially on her last legs and that sucks to see and deal with. My issues with my mom aside, her dog is incredible. Literally the best dog ever. I know everyone says that, but my mom's dog is something special and rare. If she makes the transition I feel like that'll be the end for my mom, as well. And I'm not ready for that mess.

On the upside, as a whole, I've been able to draw and work on music and shit again since my last update after far too long, so that's really nice. The pixel art thing satisifed the creative outlet I needed to a degree but didn't tap into the pen & paper and music production side of my passions enough. So that's been pretty rad to get back into again. I have one fully completed track and three more to come. Hoping to have them ready for release by years end and confident that it'll happen.

And! I've once again been asked to partner with 32-Bit Cafe via my Lave Lounge pixel club for a holiday event and I'm well chuffed about that. Basically the same rundown as the Halloween event, but this time it's for the end of year holidays and such. Hopefully I can get my ass in gear and participate like I did for Halloween. Either way, hopefully the response will be as cool as it was for Halloween.

Start a new job tomorrow and I don't want to. But need to. And I'm broke, as usual.

I guess that's about it lol.