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Health Update - 12/21
4 years ago
Hey everyone!
Hope you are all doing well. If not well, then safe! The COVID-19 Omicron variant is here. It's unclear how widespread that variant will be. Hopefully it doesn't become a significant issue.
As some of you know, I've been battling health issues. It's not COVID-19 and it's not serious, but it continues to affect my creative and thought processes. While I'd love to vent about the medical issues, that won't change the circumstances. What I can say, however, is that I'm continuing to look for a specialist to provide care as opposed to everyone else I've seen this year who either dismissed me outright like, "I'm not going to even bother evaluating you, but will keep scheduling appointments in an infinite loop that accomplish nothing," or "You have [insert condition here]. We'll get you treated, but you're going to need to take antibiotics that only don't work, but also have bad side effects." The lack of quality medical care in my area is profound.
Should my condition not improve by the beginning of next year, I will retire from Crinkle Cat.
Fact of the matter is my condition started suddenly in January. I will have lived with it for a full year with no proven trajectory of progress. Haven't gotten significantly better, but I'm not doing worse. A couple of doctors said my condition would worsen, but that didn't happen. It's just there. It's static noise. I will have days when I struggle to communicate with anyone on any platform and people think, "He doesn't want to talk to me." I'm a social animal by nature, but I will have such a severe mental block that it's impossible for me to think before I write. And when I write something, I'm second-guessing my coherence. When I have moments of lucidity, I will put pen to paper and hit the ground running. I'm writing this journal because I found a brief respite.
But it's clear I can't keep doing this and continue providing the quality work I've been known to provide. Stories take longer to write. I keep missing my one story a month goal on Patreon, working to overcompensate the second month, and then I blow myself out. I have all these story ideas and characters swirling around in my head. But when I start writing, I keep wondering, "What am I doing? Did I mean what I wrote?" and I lose my place in the story. I've had stories with a lot of continuity issues that led me to rewrite a bunch of times. When people give me specific details for their commissions, I struggle to remember what those details are even when I've saved their comments for reference and know exactly where I've stored them.
Writing furry stories has always been a fun escape and distraction for me. Writing has also happened me flesh out my sexuality and appreciate my evolution of what I accept and what gets me going. Had a lot of fun making friends and followers for over a decade. It seems like yesterday when I first started uploading stories on Yiffstar, not expecting to generate the readership I have now. I feel more connected with the fandom that I've ever felt before. Ironically, I've never felt so disconnected from my work -- and it's not from not being able to enjoy it.
I'm hoping, really hoping, for my luck to change. Wish me luck. But after 12 years of writing furry stories, I am finally prepared to say goodbye if and when I need to.
CC
Hope you are all doing well. If not well, then safe! The COVID-19 Omicron variant is here. It's unclear how widespread that variant will be. Hopefully it doesn't become a significant issue.
As some of you know, I've been battling health issues. It's not COVID-19 and it's not serious, but it continues to affect my creative and thought processes. While I'd love to vent about the medical issues, that won't change the circumstances. What I can say, however, is that I'm continuing to look for a specialist to provide care as opposed to everyone else I've seen this year who either dismissed me outright like, "I'm not going to even bother evaluating you, but will keep scheduling appointments in an infinite loop that accomplish nothing," or "You have [insert condition here]. We'll get you treated, but you're going to need to take antibiotics that only don't work, but also have bad side effects." The lack of quality medical care in my area is profound.
Should my condition not improve by the beginning of next year, I will retire from Crinkle Cat.
Fact of the matter is my condition started suddenly in January. I will have lived with it for a full year with no proven trajectory of progress. Haven't gotten significantly better, but I'm not doing worse. A couple of doctors said my condition would worsen, but that didn't happen. It's just there. It's static noise. I will have days when I struggle to communicate with anyone on any platform and people think, "He doesn't want to talk to me." I'm a social animal by nature, but I will have such a severe mental block that it's impossible for me to think before I write. And when I write something, I'm second-guessing my coherence. When I have moments of lucidity, I will put pen to paper and hit the ground running. I'm writing this journal because I found a brief respite.
But it's clear I can't keep doing this and continue providing the quality work I've been known to provide. Stories take longer to write. I keep missing my one story a month goal on Patreon, working to overcompensate the second month, and then I blow myself out. I have all these story ideas and characters swirling around in my head. But when I start writing, I keep wondering, "What am I doing? Did I mean what I wrote?" and I lose my place in the story. I've had stories with a lot of continuity issues that led me to rewrite a bunch of times. When people give me specific details for their commissions, I struggle to remember what those details are even when I've saved their comments for reference and know exactly where I've stored them.
Writing furry stories has always been a fun escape and distraction for me. Writing has also happened me flesh out my sexuality and appreciate my evolution of what I accept and what gets me going. Had a lot of fun making friends and followers for over a decade. It seems like yesterday when I first started uploading stories on Yiffstar, not expecting to generate the readership I have now. I feel more connected with the fandom that I've ever felt before. Ironically, I've never felt so disconnected from my work -- and it's not from not being able to enjoy it.
I'm hoping, really hoping, for my luck to change. Wish me luck. But after 12 years of writing furry stories, I am finally prepared to say goodbye if and when I need to.
CC
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Xander the Dino
~kethos30
While I'd be sorry to see you go, your health comes first. If it comes to that, just remember that we'll be here for you when you come back. Take care of yourself first and foremost.
