Hey everyone,

A few of you may have seen my twitter feed the past day or two and know what's going on...

Basically, over the weekend or so, I started having some pain in my stomach. I thought it was maybe just a small issue with my crohn's that would go away. Over the next days, the pain got worse - and normally when this happens, it seems to move around a little bit or pass within a day or two, so on Monday when the pain was not getting better... I went to the hospital. One of the decisions for going in was also based upon where the pain was going from. Initially, when they were doing the examination they started to believe it was actually my gallbladder. The pain was coming from the upper right area of my stomach, exactly where my gallbladder was. They ordered some anti-nausea and pain meds, along with a slew of blood tests to see if they could confirm anything. They also ordered an ultrasound scan of my stomach region to see if my gallbladder was swollen or had stones.

The good news is - my gallbladder looks fine, my liver is functioning normally, my kidney levels are normal.
The bad news is ( sort of ) - they found something else.

My right kidney is atrophied - but since my levels are normal and the size and shape is actually very similar to previous scans they took from me via crohn's related scans, they believe it to be congenital. Basically, I was born with 1 functional kidney. The other MAY be doing SOME work, but most likely not the correct amount of work - possibly no work at all. And since another member of my family has a rather similar issue, there's no immediate danger of me getting sick or needing further medical attention. ( hence the sort of bit :P )

It does mean that I will be needing to sit down with my primary and discuss what I will need to do going forward. And to be honest, it does feel weird knowing you only have one of what you thought you had two of...

tldr; I should be fine. My stomach is still hurting and I will probably be sore for the next few days. I'll need to spend time healing up.

As for life related things, Aerak and I have had an awfully difficult time this year. Our apartment has continually raised our rent, the last one almost a $100 difference. We gave the garage back just to try to keep things stable-ish. I've had my health care removed due to stupidity from social worker non-sense ( changing my case file without telling me - you have to pay using your case file... ). We've been desperately just trying to make each month's bills and just barely succeeding :/

This month has been the worst though...

In order to try and make things a bit easier on our household, I've had to step back a little and pursue web and design - based contracts. I can make a lot of money off of them if I can get them for the right lengths IE: 3-6 months. Problem is, I keep being told the contract is 6 months, for example, but it ends up being like... two weeks. And then, nothing afterwards. Or I get on-site and find out the job is not actually what was being told by the management company I work with. Earlier this month, I had a "working interview". It was a little weird...never tried something like this before, but I thought - hey, If I can land a 6 to 12 month contract, that'd be awesome. Plus - I my understanding was that I was to be paid for the day, since I was "working". Right? Wrong...apparently... The management company stated that the place I worked for had not given me "billable" hours. For those who don't know, billable hours refer to time that can be billed directly to a client are working for. I just told the management company that I didn't feel it was fair to not be paid for the tasks the interviewing group decided I should do for the day - which, btw, they didn't have lined up for me when I was there >.>. The recruiter I'm with is pretty cool and agreed I should be paid. I was told I would be getting a "bonus" but that money won't come through like a normal direct deposit. Sooooo... some money is coming my way, but don't know exactly when other than "probably about a week or two". I've also not been getting paid timely for some of the other contract work I have done ( time has to be authorized by the company you do contract work with, not the management / recruiter company. )

As some of you may have noticed, I have picked up doing my art again. A part of this has to do with the aforementioned contract BS. Aerak is tied up with making sure fursuits are being made, and I do help out when needed, but I need to make sure the bills get paid. Since my contracts aren’t working out too well, I need to fill my “down time” with a way to make money.

Unfortunately, earlier this month my main hard drive failed so badly, it is totally unreadable. Somehow, in the process of the m.2 drive failing, my USB devices have also managed to become non-functional. I traced the issue to what I believe is the motherboard itself. It’s sooooo outdated that I cannot purchase a replacement board, so moving forward...it’s time for a new build.

 flyingfire was kind enough to get an updated tablet for me, but with the usb ports on the computer connecting and disconnecting every few seconds… my computer is pretty much useless. I’m moving over to my laptop since it seems to be running properly, aside from the darn drivers not working right ( going to be doing a full OS refresh after I am done writing this journal ).

I generally don’t like asking for help. With the disease I have and all the issues I go through, I really feel like it’s important to push myself to have a more...normal life and life expectations. But, at current stance, I have a bank balance of literally $0.00. And rent, at the latest, is due next week at the latest on the 5th. Aerak and I have had a few weeks this month where we only had one meal a day while having to do fursuit con rushes or going out for contracts and not eating during the day. ( The stress from which was probably what triggered my recent pain episode… )

If you’d like to help, please spread this journal around. Advice / suggestions are welcome. I have commissions open, which you can find here: http://spacerabbitcreations.com/com.....n-information/

Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/alkora
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/alkoratherabbit
My open YCH’s: https://www.furaffinity.net/gallery.....11001/YCH-Open

And now, I need to try and refresh my laptop’s install to try to get the tablet’s pen pressure to work… *crosses fluffy fingers* I really really appreciate everyone who manages to read all this. I’m going to continue to march forward and try to be positive, and look forward to the art I will be doing in the coming weeks ( personal, commission or other )