There's a lot to write here really, but it needs done. Things have been, by anyone's standards, weird, probably even shitty for that matter, but at least for me, myself, I have been pretty much okay. Maybe even better than that really, since my depression is nothing like it used to be a few years ago, and this is without medication too, go figure. Just gotta remember to be true to yourself and it seems to help on that front a lot.

The weird, bad stuff though, involves my family and friends, which if anyone knows me, pretty much knows I'm pretty tight knit. We'll start with family. First thing is my sister, most people already know but a few months ago she was pregnant again but with a girl this time, however she lost the baby on the 19th week from a miscarriage. She also can't get rid of the deadbeat asshole who got her pregnant in the first place. She's tried, but he keeps coming back and won't stay away for long, and the police are no help. They can't or won't even serve him with a restraining order she attempted to get because he's never in one place long enough. It's just one big mess, but leave that one to her making lots of bad choices, especially with people. Some will never learn. She's still my sister though, meh.

Then there's my step-dad, who ended up with a foot infection around the same time as the miscarriage, that he left untreated for almost two weeks until he got sick enough that he HAD to go to the hospital. He ended up having infection in both feet and from being untreated enough, lost a toe on each one. All in all bad but not all that bad as much of a stubborn goat as he is.

Then last month my mom noticed a small cut on her foot from either stepping on something or just naturally developing from dry skin, we don't know, but the very next day she noticed a small infection starting so she immediately goes to express care. She gets some antibiotics and takes them, but 2 days later the infection is still growing, so she goes to the ER. Hospital admits her and starts giving her IV antibiotics. They end up running the entire gamut on her, but after 5 more days, the infection was STILL spreading and had reached her ankle. They tried every medicine they had available but the bacteria was just not stopping, they said it was a combination of normal Staph, and E.Coli, but they had to amputate her leg from below the knee down, the same way a friend of mine had to have hers done last year when she lost a long fought war with an infection in her foot that wouldn't go completely away after a year plus of treatment. Mom is in recovery at a nursing home right now still, but there's an extreme likelihood that she will be moving in here soon, for no idea how long.

Then to said friend with the missing leg, she had a heart attack almost two months ago and just got out of the hospital again from it, but that's been slow recovery. It hit out of nowhere, less than a year ago she had tests done while in recovery of her amputation, and they were clear. She started having some crazy back pain and went to the ER over it and end up finding blockage in all 4 chambers, some worse than others, so she ends up with an open heart quadruple bypass. To make matters worse, her Boxer gets stolen out of her friend's yard while she's stuck in the hospital. It's the second time that has happened to her, and both dogs were micro-chipped and still haven't been found. It's some pretty low scum to steal a person's dog.

Lastly, there's my girlfriend of 3 years. In the whole time I've known her, she's been fighting a constantly returning MRSA infection. She had even had part of her stomach cut away before, that kept constantly being reinfected, and it didn't stop it. In the last year she's had almost near monthly trips to the hospital with infection flareup, at lest 7 or 8, plus another trip last month from pneumonia. She also lost her mother during surgery to try to clear blood clots in her main arteries that caused a stroke a couple months ago, which we had to make trips to Pittsburgh to tend to her in the hospital there. All of this though, going on while she's been trying to prepare for upcoming gastric bypass surgery to lose weight, because she's scared of not being around for her daughter and hoping the weight loss will allow for getting rid of all the scar tissue on her belly that's believed to be hiding the MRSA that won't go away.

Her surgery is set for the 18th, and I'll be with her for that in Columbus for it and a few days for recovery, then I'll be staying with her for at least a week afterwards to help her recovery, through Christmas and most likely my birthday on New Year's too. Don't know for sure, but it's definitely going to be a true test of everything. I'm a little scared too, if only because of all the bad happening, I don't want any complications arising with her, plus I'm going to be way out of my comfort zone for a long while.

I'm kind of a sponge in a couple ways, I'm an emotional sponge and a luck sponge, it seems. My luck is rarely every average, it's all in extremes and I can never really manipulate it, it's either godly or god awful. Emotionally I'm almost a total Empath, whatever my loved ones are feeling is what I'm usually feeling. Empathy's a real bitch most of the time. This all leads me to wondering about karma. Knowing I feel for everyone like I do and all the crap happening with them, did I somehow piss off a karmic god to have all of this happen, or am I just having an extremely unlucky patch I'm passing on to everyone? I wonder sometimes, I really do. Guaranteed to be one hell of an end of year and beginning of the next, though.

And me? I'm still the same. I am a rock, and I'm fine with that, as long as erosion doesn't get the best of me.