The past... couple years have been inconceivably rough from a health standpoint. I got mono, had it for six months, and never really got better (even once I stopped getting fevers.) I was distressingly and increasingly tired and unable to think. I had trouble staying awake, much less do things like 'form multi-syllabic sentences' and 'draw'. And I had no idea why for the longest; it took a string of doctors and several blood tests (the last of which they took some ten vials of blood from me for) before we found literally anything.

Apparently I was living with untreated celiac disease? And had been for long enough that the intestinal inflammation meant my body wasn't able to absorb the vitamins it needed to make blood. (So I wasn't just anemic, I was low on literally everything.) Which explains a lot. And it's entirely possible that getting mono made a pre-existing wheat allergy either manifest or get worse, apparently, which also explains why I never really... got better after mono.

I've changed my diet as I was instructed to do, and while it's way more effort and way more expensive to eat gluten free, I feel a lot better. I can think again(!!!!!) and stay awake all day without needing to nap 2-3 times? Holy shit!

And drawing is faster, though I'm still slow from two years of barely being able to draw at all. But I've been able to draw better, faster, so I am hopeful that drawing with a functional brain will enable me to get faster still.

I feel like myself for the first time in years. It's a relief.