I need to apologize to everyone for being so antisocial. Putting it bluntly, I have developed quite a lot of issues when it comes to dealing with others. Rather than recover from my injuries, I allowed my body to heal but kept obsessing over everything that I had lost and my social skills degenerated to being almost non-existent. Up until the first of this year, I was a shut-in and aside from my physical therapist and his boyfriend, I did not come in contact with other humans with any regularity. (If you are wondering, I am disabled and I work at home.)

My physical therapist convinced (as in begging, pleading, and luring my service dog into his car with a hamburger so I would follow) me to go to a New Years party being hosted by the Humanist group he belongs to. While it was only a small group of people, I discovered that actually enjoyed being around others and started being a regular at their bimonthly meetings. I even did something crazy and wound up at the local pub for their St Patty's day party. It is small steps, but it is something I desperately need to work on.

I will be attempting to make another foray into drawing again. Just to forewarn you, baring a medical miracle, there is no way that I will be able to come close to what I did before and everything from here on out will be in scraps.

Thank you for the favorites, the watches, the notes, and the comments; I greatly appreciate them. I am awful at responding, but I will try to work on that in the coming future.

Had I been taking the prescribed pain-killers, it would have gotten much worse. Shortly after smacking my arm, the pain 'felt different' and I started running a fever. Not one to tempt Fate, went to the emergency room. 3 hours later, found out I had the begnnings of a staph infection developing on one of my bone grafts.
Again, Lady Luck shows her love for me. The infected graft was jarred loose from the knock to the arm & the infection was relatively contained :) Couple of days worth of surgery to remove the infected bone & surrounding tissue, flush everything, and put in some new replacement parts (Im currently at 9 bone grafts, 5 metal plates, 2 rods and something like 23 screws) and its all better. Cant wait to go through airport security...

Other than that, Im just got home, things are going well. Lower arm is healing significantly faster than anticipated, and aside from the one graft everything else is patching up very well. I now have 3 weeks of bed rest, and a whole bunch of IV antibiotics (my choice on that, Im not squemish about needles.) I also can now see my arm as the old plaster cast has been replaced by a nice air cast.

As for the "Rubber Manatee' Im still stoned on hospital meds and for the past 45 minutes it has kept me amused.
http://rubbermanatee.ytmnd.com/

I blame it on the vicadin. The pain got really bad and I ran out of everything, so I took half a vicadin. Was knocked on my ass in a drug induced happy stupor. Spent the day listening to Grateful Dead music with a stupid grin & nearly got to the point I could have forgiven the drunk fuck (afraid of what I would have done with a full dose.) Fucking powerful painkillers, dont understand how anyone could take those things. Id rather feel a pain han have my head so thoroughly fucked up.

But, Im getting back to normal. Just having trouble holding the paper still (need my right fingers and that arm still hurts) so may not have any drawins for another day until the local pharmacy gets more Tylenol 1 (the stuff with a touch of codine.)

Already sent this to one person, but might as well put a journal about this as an FYI.

The bit about me: I male, a trained EMT & assistant coroner and nearing 30. You may fid this odd, but I am straight, and actually met the girl that could likely be 'the one for me' bout a month and a half ago. Enjoy reinactments: medeival, frontiersman, revolutionary war, and civil war and would up being an extra in a number of movies :)

Bit over 2 weeks back I was assaulted as I walked the 60 feet from my car to my apartment by a drunk wielding a tire iron. I was coming home from SCA heavy List practice (put on plate armor and beat each other with sticks.) Between an equipment malfunction & general laziness, I had worn the neck, torso, and abdomen components to my armor. It absorbed an impressibe amount of damage and kept me around long enough for my landlord/neighbor to come to my aid.
By all rights, it should have killed me but I got off with severe bruising, a bruised kidney, medium concussion, 4 cracked ribs, and 6 breaks in my right arm.

Currently, my arm is encased in a rather nasty look cast and I really cant do much for another 4 weeks at the minimum. Drunk is in jail awating trial and going to attempt an "Ive got a disease, blacked out, and not respnsible for my actions." But, the DA is a nice guy and is pressing 17 charges (including a count of attempted murder.)
My twisted artwork was suggest by my shrink as a way of getting back to my normally sunny disposition. Not sure how, but seemed to have developed a nasty paranoia & panic attacks, have problems sleeping and night terrors, etc. I dont find my artwork arousing, but it actually gets my mind off the pain, lessens the desire to shoot the fucker, and gets me back to my normal sunny dispostition.

I greatly appreciate the faves, comments, watches, etc. It brings a bit of happiness to my day. And, if you have any ideas on what to inflict on the dingo, please let me know. Im not squemish, I see pretty horrific things at work, but I know very little about actually inflicting pain. Thats the nurses' job :)

Thats it for me.
Cheers.