I am still alive!
I know I dropped off the face of the earth for awhile. I was honestly quite surprised to see I'm still getting faves and watches.
After a 20+ year long struggle, I finally got a diagnosis for my "mystery illness" which is NOT in my head.
I have celiac disease, which means if I eat wheat protein my immune system freaks out and attacks my intestines.
Within a week, I could walk again and in like 3 months I'd gotten a job doing gig work at a night club a few times a week. Now I'm working like 25 hrs a week at a chill restaurant run by a friend, and am related to most of my coworkers. And it's a tex-mex place so has plenty of gluten-free options.
I still have some back issues from injuries but those are slowly getting better with PT.
I've been taking photos, I'll post some here. I wasn't drawing or painting regularly for a long time but I've started up again.
Most of what I have right now are pages from my sketchbooks. I keep those by the bed and just slowly add stuff to the picture until the page is full, so they're kind of surreal/ADD-as-art. But they do include characters and places/elements from the sci-fi story I've been picking at for years.
I don't know if I have a tablet that works right now. So it'll be trad art/photos for awhile. And maybe some stories.
If you bothered to read this- thank you.
Be safe
--Ej
Moar Spike
Spike getting petted, running around his tank, and harassing one of my cats.
Spike
...
www.fanfiction.net/s/12707220/…
In other news-
The church across the street from my house refused to stop services, the minister was in the ICU on a ventilator last I heard. Lovely.
My name...is The Plague.
I am currently fine, though suffering from mild allergies. I have underlying heart and lung problems, so as much as I would love to be out taking photos and video to document what's going on around here, that's a super bad idea. Luckily we already had a pack of face masks. They aren't rated to stop viruses, but they will help keep me from spreading it if I'm infected and don't know it, and it keeps me from touching my face.
I am in one of the areas with a fairly high number of people have been exposed. Some hospitals have run through six months of supplies in the last week. They are starting to turn to volunteers to sew face masks. The ICUs in the two I normally use are already full. They are primarily getting patients in their 20s and 30s who are in critical condition. Patients who are experiencing symptoms are instructed to call their doctor or one of their local hospitals, and to stay at home unless 'you become so short of breath you cannot finish a sentence'.
All schools are closed. Many of the national chain stores are still open, but the smaller businesses are either closed or doing drive-through/curbside pickup of food, supplies, etc. Public gatherings are limited to ten people or less.
We had to go out yesterday. At the gas station, the guy at the pump next to us was wearing latex gloves and talking on his cell phone. I didn't hear most of the conversation, just the part where he said 'I've been out all day, I work for the Department of Health'. He replaced the pump nozzle, then rubbed his gloved hand all over his bare face. I wanted to scream.