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Been Volunteering - Dogs Available, Rescue in Need of Help
Posted 12 years agoI spent my Saturday volunteering at Real Rescue - a little-known but HUGE rescue out in the country on a farm. I'm hoping to make a regular Saturday furmeet there. They need help BADLY. While donations are great, what they really need most right now is simply more hands. There are only 3 men who live at the rescue full time (one being the owner, Chris). There are over 300 - THREE HUNDRED - animals on this farm. Over 140 of them are dogs, mostly large ones. Last headcount there were over 80 cats, and then they have almost 30 farm animals. Many of these animals are special needs pets and require even more care than average. Because these guys spend so much of their time just attending to these pets' basic needs, they never have a chance to go out and advertise them or take them places or generally advertise the rescue. They also never have time to fix up things that are breaking down. They need volunteers, and who better to go out and play with animals than furries?! Let's give them the support they need so they can get back on their feet! I'll even offer to make people dinner if they'll come out with us. AND - if you work at the rescue for a day and fall in love with a pet, Chris will GIVE IT TO YOU for FREE for helping out. That's right. He tends to waive the $50 adoption fee if he knows you've helped the rescue for more than a couple hours. They have strict adoption policies because these pets need specialized care, but since I know you guys and can vouch for you, you can bypass that process.
They have one paraplegic dog. This pet needs help! This is a farm with only dirt runs for the dogs. It's by woods and dogs regularly get attacked by copperheads. But one poor boy has no use of his back half - in fact, he doesn't appear to have bones in his back legs. He drags himself around after people looking for love, and his constant need to follow everyone around has led to his legs (which he apparently can't feel) being constantly raw, bloody, and dirty. This dog needs a wheelchair, amputation, and an indoor home! He's a sweet, fluffy, golden mutt. We're trying to get supplies and directions together on how to make the poor boy a wheelchair, but the rescue absolutely can't afford the needed amputation. His hind legs are mostly just weighing him down and in the way, and they're probably already infected, oozing, and rotting. They were covered in open sores (rug burn from the grassy field he stays in), and when he uses the bathroom he drags them through it. This guy needs serious help and FAST. I regret I don't have a picture of him.
Here are some dogs I saw that were still out there. These pictures are almost 4 years old, so keep in mind that all of these dogs haven't left in that time and are sweet, loving, awesome dogs.
Whitey the white German Shepherd
http://s286.photobucket.com/user/Sh.....rt=3&o=144
He's terribly shy and won't come out of his dogloo. We think he may have been abused. Very sweet, but very scared. Should probably be an only dog and needs a lot of attention and caring so he can get out of his shell.
Truman the Border Collie
http://s286.photobucket.com/user/Sh.....rt=3&o=129
This boy is a big ball of love. I just cut literal dread locks off his tail Saturday because he's been wagging it through the mud so much. Truman has a mate named Harriett, and they absolutely must go together or both will cry uncontrollably. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of her yet, but she's a chunky little short-haired yellow dog with some white. Both very sweet.
Vecca - small mutt
http://s286.photobucket.com/user/Sh.....rt=3&o=143
This little adorable ball of fluff is one of the most happy, excitable, loving dogs out there. Small dog that needs a big yard to burn off all that energy! Currently sharing a pen with Whitey.
Muffin - large mutt
http://s286.photobucket.com/user/Sh.....rt=3&o=100
This big girl is full of love, but hasn't gotten the attention she deserves. I noticed this weekend that she's considerably underweight. She needs to find a home and be on better food than the rescue's "whatever we get or can afford" brand.
Shy - the small, inbred lab who is always smiling like :P
http://s286.photobucket.com/user/Sh.....rt=3&o=115
This little girl was born at the rescue. Her mom was a wild dog who is still scared of humans after all these years. She's one of 3 pups, and only one found a home. Because she was conceived in a wild dog colony, her and her siblings were considerably inbred. All the puppies were born without half their teeth. That is why her tongue hangs out sideways pretty much all the time. She really needs to be on a soft-food diet. She need some special attention. She may be hard to train because she's likely mentally handicapped. This is what happens when people's dogs get loose and become feral. Get your pets fixed! No one ever expects pets to get lost, but it happens to 1 in 3.
Flip the Jack Russell mix
http://s286.photobucket.com/user/Sh.....ort=3&o=80
This little guy is getting to be a "gray muzzle." He's getting up their in years now, but he's still as hyper as ever. He LOVES squeaky toys and playing fetch and frisbees. He's probably destroyed dozens of them over the years. Sadly no one really has time to play with him like he wants. He needs an active owner who can take him out and play with him.
James the red and white pit bull
http://s286.photobucket.com/user/Sh.....ort=3&o=88
James was rescued from a fighting ring. He's a big, sweet boy with tons of energy. He loves people, but he has to be an only dog because he still has that training to attack them. When I say BIG, I mean BIG. This guy is over 100 pounds. He eats a lot, wants to play a lot, loves to give hugs, and needs someone willing to take care of him and keep him properly safe from hurting other dogs.
Mac the black and white Border Collie
http://s286.photobucket.com/user/Sh.....ort=3&o=94
There are more pictures of this lovable old guy, but none recent. He's really getting up their in years now. He's much too fluffy and old to tolerate being out in the heat like he is. He's spent his life at the rescue taking care of the special needs puppies (ie, Shy and her brother). He loves other dogs, especially puppies. He loves people and attention, and he really just needs a home where he can be loved and cared for the rest of his days instead of being stuffed in a little dirty, hot cage with two other pups...
Ol' Blue
http://s286.photobucket.com/user/Sh.....ort=3&o=64
This guy is getting very old and is VERY underweight. He's fluffy and not doing well. I believe they said he got bit by a copperhead at some point which is why his health has gone downhill. He used to be a hunting dog, but now all he hunts is table scraps. He needs a porch to lay around on and someone to sit with. Not much for playing and not good with other big dogs, but he tolerates small dogs and cats.
There are HUNDREDS of other dogs out there, so if you know anyone looking, even if they do or don't have a specific type of dog in mind, let me know.
TL;DR: Dogs need help. Rescue needs volunteers. Come with me Saturday to play with puppies.
They have one paraplegic dog. This pet needs help! This is a farm with only dirt runs for the dogs. It's by woods and dogs regularly get attacked by copperheads. But one poor boy has no use of his back half - in fact, he doesn't appear to have bones in his back legs. He drags himself around after people looking for love, and his constant need to follow everyone around has led to his legs (which he apparently can't feel) being constantly raw, bloody, and dirty. This dog needs a wheelchair, amputation, and an indoor home! He's a sweet, fluffy, golden mutt. We're trying to get supplies and directions together on how to make the poor boy a wheelchair, but the rescue absolutely can't afford the needed amputation. His hind legs are mostly just weighing him down and in the way, and they're probably already infected, oozing, and rotting. They were covered in open sores (rug burn from the grassy field he stays in), and when he uses the bathroom he drags them through it. This guy needs serious help and FAST. I regret I don't have a picture of him.
Here are some dogs I saw that were still out there. These pictures are almost 4 years old, so keep in mind that all of these dogs haven't left in that time and are sweet, loving, awesome dogs.
Whitey the white German Shepherd
http://s286.photobucket.com/user/Sh.....rt=3&o=144
He's terribly shy and won't come out of his dogloo. We think he may have been abused. Very sweet, but very scared. Should probably be an only dog and needs a lot of attention and caring so he can get out of his shell.
Truman the Border Collie
http://s286.photobucket.com/user/Sh.....rt=3&o=129
This boy is a big ball of love. I just cut literal dread locks off his tail Saturday because he's been wagging it through the mud so much. Truman has a mate named Harriett, and they absolutely must go together or both will cry uncontrollably. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of her yet, but she's a chunky little short-haired yellow dog with some white. Both very sweet.
Vecca - small mutt
http://s286.photobucket.com/user/Sh.....rt=3&o=143
This little adorable ball of fluff is one of the most happy, excitable, loving dogs out there. Small dog that needs a big yard to burn off all that energy! Currently sharing a pen with Whitey.
Muffin - large mutt
http://s286.photobucket.com/user/Sh.....rt=3&o=100
This big girl is full of love, but hasn't gotten the attention she deserves. I noticed this weekend that she's considerably underweight. She needs to find a home and be on better food than the rescue's "whatever we get or can afford" brand.
Shy - the small, inbred lab who is always smiling like :P
http://s286.photobucket.com/user/Sh.....rt=3&o=115
This little girl was born at the rescue. Her mom was a wild dog who is still scared of humans after all these years. She's one of 3 pups, and only one found a home. Because she was conceived in a wild dog colony, her and her siblings were considerably inbred. All the puppies were born without half their teeth. That is why her tongue hangs out sideways pretty much all the time. She really needs to be on a soft-food diet. She need some special attention. She may be hard to train because she's likely mentally handicapped. This is what happens when people's dogs get loose and become feral. Get your pets fixed! No one ever expects pets to get lost, but it happens to 1 in 3.
Flip the Jack Russell mix
http://s286.photobucket.com/user/Sh.....ort=3&o=80
This little guy is getting to be a "gray muzzle." He's getting up their in years now, but he's still as hyper as ever. He LOVES squeaky toys and playing fetch and frisbees. He's probably destroyed dozens of them over the years. Sadly no one really has time to play with him like he wants. He needs an active owner who can take him out and play with him.
James the red and white pit bull
http://s286.photobucket.com/user/Sh.....ort=3&o=88
James was rescued from a fighting ring. He's a big, sweet boy with tons of energy. He loves people, but he has to be an only dog because he still has that training to attack them. When I say BIG, I mean BIG. This guy is over 100 pounds. He eats a lot, wants to play a lot, loves to give hugs, and needs someone willing to take care of him and keep him properly safe from hurting other dogs.
Mac the black and white Border Collie
http://s286.photobucket.com/user/Sh.....ort=3&o=94
There are more pictures of this lovable old guy, but none recent. He's really getting up their in years now. He's much too fluffy and old to tolerate being out in the heat like he is. He's spent his life at the rescue taking care of the special needs puppies (ie, Shy and her brother). He loves other dogs, especially puppies. He loves people and attention, and he really just needs a home where he can be loved and cared for the rest of his days instead of being stuffed in a little dirty, hot cage with two other pups...
Ol' Blue
http://s286.photobucket.com/user/Sh.....ort=3&o=64
This guy is getting very old and is VERY underweight. He's fluffy and not doing well. I believe they said he got bit by a copperhead at some point which is why his health has gone downhill. He used to be a hunting dog, but now all he hunts is table scraps. He needs a porch to lay around on and someone to sit with. Not much for playing and not good with other big dogs, but he tolerates small dogs and cats.
There are HUNDREDS of other dogs out there, so if you know anyone looking, even if they do or don't have a specific type of dog in mind, let me know.
TL;DR: Dogs need help. Rescue needs volunteers. Come with me Saturday to play with puppies.
Commissioners, Please Read - Commissions Closing
Posted 12 years agoI sincerely regret that life has been getting in the way of getting any art done recently. I apologize to those of you waiting on commissions and on my wait list. I've taken an unprofessionally long time to finish my commission queue, excuses or not. Those of you still waiting on work or edits may request a full or partial refund or you can continue to wait, and I will work on your commissions first whenever life sorts itself out and I can get back to work.
This includes
Guan, 
Charem, 
neweinstein, 
cornel, 
mullato, and even 
Tonza:
If you would rather have a refund than wait for your commissions, that option is available. Otherwise, please note that I am taking a personal leave from FA and commission work for a while to get things sorted.
As for
chakatsnowfire, 
andrekek, and 
dedragonlord2, I will keep your names in the positions they are in, and when I come back and am ready to take on commissions again, you will still have priority to get the commissions you wanted. Sadly, I don't know how long that will take, and I understand if you decide you don't want them anymore by the time I message you. No hard feelings.
To everyone else:
Life has been really kicking me while I'm down lately. I need to get away from the computer for a while, de-stress myself, get my new old house in order, work on getting over some of my mental problems, get my much-needed disability, and just generally relax and heal a while. Most days anymore I hurt too much to get anything done. I can hardly stand up or walk or type, let alone spend the needed hours concentrating and drawing. I don't expect my constant pain (aka fibromyalgia) will get any better before at least July 1st when I see my doctor again. IF he can then see that the new medicine I'm on doesn't help AND convince my insurance to help me get the medicine that DID help, then I -might- be better around then. However, that medicine also had severe side effects including blurred vision and dizziness, which make it harder for me to draw. I've had these bouts with depression before as well, and they usually clear up in three months or less. So I expect I'll be back to work before fall, but I just can't guarantee that right now. =(
To end on a positive note, our financial situation is looking up now that we have a few roommates and may be able to have our house paid off in the next year or so. That means I don't have to worry about forcing myself to do commissions to pay my bills, and I have the funds to offer refunds to anyone who understandably doesn't want to wait even more months for their works to be done. Just drop me a note, and we'll work out getting your money back. I am very sorry that life interrupted my work and I haven't gotten you people the works you deserve in a properly timely manner. v.=.v;
TL;DR: New commissions closed until further notice. Current commissions on hold with refunds available.
This includes
Guan, 
Charem, 
neweinstein, 
cornel, 
mullato, and even 
Tonza:If you would rather have a refund than wait for your commissions, that option is available. Otherwise, please note that I am taking a personal leave from FA and commission work for a while to get things sorted.
As for
chakatsnowfire, 
andrekek, and 
dedragonlord2, I will keep your names in the positions they are in, and when I come back and am ready to take on commissions again, you will still have priority to get the commissions you wanted. Sadly, I don't know how long that will take, and I understand if you decide you don't want them anymore by the time I message you. No hard feelings.To everyone else:
Life has been really kicking me while I'm down lately. I need to get away from the computer for a while, de-stress myself, get my new old house in order, work on getting over some of my mental problems, get my much-needed disability, and just generally relax and heal a while. Most days anymore I hurt too much to get anything done. I can hardly stand up or walk or type, let alone spend the needed hours concentrating and drawing. I don't expect my constant pain (aka fibromyalgia) will get any better before at least July 1st when I see my doctor again. IF he can then see that the new medicine I'm on doesn't help AND convince my insurance to help me get the medicine that DID help, then I -might- be better around then. However, that medicine also had severe side effects including blurred vision and dizziness, which make it harder for me to draw. I've had these bouts with depression before as well, and they usually clear up in three months or less. So I expect I'll be back to work before fall, but I just can't guarantee that right now. =(
To end on a positive note, our financial situation is looking up now that we have a few roommates and may be able to have our house paid off in the next year or so. That means I don't have to worry about forcing myself to do commissions to pay my bills, and I have the funds to offer refunds to anyone who understandably doesn't want to wait even more months for their works to be done. Just drop me a note, and we'll work out getting your money back. I am very sorry that life interrupted my work and I haven't gotten you people the works you deserve in a properly timely manner. v.=.v;
TL;DR: New commissions closed until further notice. Current commissions on hold with refunds available.
Where I've Been and What I'm Doing... PTSD Recovery.
Posted 12 years agoI'm currently doing a new PTSD therapy that may be able to help me past my problems. It's a 12-week process (that I will have to repeat for each trauma, which are numerous), and this is week 3. This week is by far the hardest. The goal of this week is to look my past head on, accept that it happened, and realize that it's in the past.
I wrote out what I went through if anyone really wants to know, but I warn you, it's graphic and awful.
Warning - Content is NSFW and Not Safe For Life! Not for the faint of heart...
http://www.reddit.com/r/offmychest/.....rough_my_ptsd/
I wrote out what I went through if anyone really wants to know, but I warn you, it's graphic and awful.
Warning - Content is NSFW and Not Safe For Life! Not for the faint of heart...
http://www.reddit.com/r/offmychest/.....rough_my_ptsd/
I hate Del City...
Posted 12 years agoWell, today we got a notice that our yard is a "public nuisance" and that we have to have it cleaned up in nine days or they'll shut off our services and condemn the house. x.=.x I got the junk picked up that the estate sale people so nicely left all over our yard - nearly 200 pounds of miscellaneous metal, broken stuff, and soggy boxes they left out in the rain. We don't have anywhere to throw it all away, so I just tossed it in the shed for now. -.=.-; They also complained about our hedge being overgrown (have no electric tools - I've been trimming it back a little every day with hand shears), the tall weeds (which I've been chopping down as fast as I can with the same shears), and the yard not being mowed. We got a mower last Saturday, but it's rained every other day since. We also hadn't been able to mow because the yard was too tall when we got here for the mower. I borrowed a friend's weed whacker and chopped the yard down to a reasonable height for the mower just a few days ago. If they had been paying any attention they would know we have done a TON of work on this place, but all they saw was that there were still tall plants and stuff sitting around.
SO... I did WAY more than I should have today and nearly collapsed in a heat stroke, and I'll probably be doing it again tomorrow if I can borrow a neighbor's hedge trimmer or get the mower going (btw, I have asthma and allergies to grass and the pollen from said hedge). Before we got the notice, I had already done more work than I should have in a day clearing out the garage because we need to get everything inside so I can set up the garage as a room for Anu before Melissa moves in. x.=.x
I'm pretty certain the only reason they even came by is because the really old people who live behind us hate Fenris and look for ways to call the city on us. They've tried to file noise complaints because he barks at them during the daytime and threatened to have our dogs taken away because we had five at one point (and Del City only allows four). We told them they couldn't because the law also says you can keep a dog's puppies until they are six months, so we got rid of the fifth (Freya, Fenris' daughter) when she turned six months. They're scared of Fenris, who is a total goof and sweetheart, because they think he looks dangerous and are scared of shepherds. But they're okay with our chihuahua who actually sent the guy to the hospital for stitches when he idiotically put his hand over the fence to pet Spike while he was jumping and barking at him.
I'm very tempted to get a pit bull and foster it from the shelter I work with just so we can really piss them off and they can't do anything about it. I also briefly contemplated chaining up their house and setting it on fire. >.=.<
If anyone wants to come over and help me do yard work, I'd appreciate it. x.=.x
SO... I did WAY more than I should have today and nearly collapsed in a heat stroke, and I'll probably be doing it again tomorrow if I can borrow a neighbor's hedge trimmer or get the mower going (btw, I have asthma and allergies to grass and the pollen from said hedge). Before we got the notice, I had already done more work than I should have in a day clearing out the garage because we need to get everything inside so I can set up the garage as a room for Anu before Melissa moves in. x.=.x
I'm pretty certain the only reason they even came by is because the really old people who live behind us hate Fenris and look for ways to call the city on us. They've tried to file noise complaints because he barks at them during the daytime and threatened to have our dogs taken away because we had five at one point (and Del City only allows four). We told them they couldn't because the law also says you can keep a dog's puppies until they are six months, so we got rid of the fifth (Freya, Fenris' daughter) when she turned six months. They're scared of Fenris, who is a total goof and sweetheart, because they think he looks dangerous and are scared of shepherds. But they're okay with our chihuahua who actually sent the guy to the hospital for stitches when he idiotically put his hand over the fence to pet Spike while he was jumping and barking at him.
I'm very tempted to get a pit bull and foster it from the shelter I work with just so we can really piss them off and they can't do anything about it. I also briefly contemplated chaining up their house and setting it on fire. >.=.<
If anyone wants to come over and help me do yard work, I'd appreciate it. x.=.x
Oklahoma Furs Helping Furs/ Furs Lost and Found!
Posted 12 years agoAs everyone should know by now, Oklahoma was just hit hard with the worst tornado in history. Moore was completely wiped off the map. Since I haven't seen this posted anywhere yet, I'm going to use this journal to keep tabs on what we know and who has been contacted and we know are alright and who needs what kind of help or what help is offered. Comment and I'll add you to the appropriate list!
Notes: I know there are more
OklahomaFurs not listed, but this is who I have contact info for.
I also called the animal rescue I volunteer/volunteered at, and both locations are fine. He actually SAW the tornado up north form, but it thankfully missed them. The rescue is just a few miles from "Pops" in Arcadia, and they have over 300 animals in outdoor shelters. Glad they're safe.
If anyone needs a place to stay temporarily or more long term because of the storm, we have room for people to stay with us here in Del City until they can find a place. Our house is open if people need it as a shelter, especially for fellow furs and even a few animals if need be.
Furs in need of help:
-
Misora lost her home in the tornado, but was at work and is fine.
- Zephyr - has no water or power, but okay
Furs I know are alright: (Usernames in parenthesis so the missing ones will be linked)
- Myself and family
- Dobie (Doberman_Guard)
- Torn (tornwulf)
- Salty
- Shadow (SirYiffington)
- Purity (PurityTehWuff)
- Dax (DaxterDot)
- Serena (Serena_Chaotica) and Melissa
- Seagull (SeagullProphet), Windpaw, Kaden, and Karja
- Winder
- Skylor (SkylorForscythe)
- Nate (nateday)
- Baral (Baralheia)
- Dizzy (MintBear) and Kabal (KabalRaven)
- Drazil (Drazil)
- Kit/Cloud (kitblufox) and Cynder
- Scorpiious
- Tak (RedDragonTak)
- Toby (Cassandrus_Blackclaw)
- Oki (Okidoki)
- Bluefyre (BluefyreA.Wolf)
- Alpha
- Kaije and family (was sent a message from a different number, so they're probably elsewhere)
- Rex
- DMG (DMG_Drevik) and Erin
- LiGryph
- Clayton (Claytonthebear), with Pras and Brayden
- Hollyfox
- Prime (WolfoxStudios)
- Nayru (NayruHatake)
- Atticus
- Tanooki
- Seffy (Seffywuff)
- Wolfie (wolfiehowler)
- Garrus, Jen, and TamaraRose
- Kat
- Zeek, Blaze, and the other Tuttle furs
- Anu - found living in her car! She's fine and may be coming to stay with us if I can convince her to. ;3
Have not been able to contact:
-All furs I have non-FA contacts for have been located! If you know a fur not listed above that lives in Oklahoma, comment so we can add them to the appropriate list!
Notes: I know there are more
OklahomaFurs not listed, but this is who I have contact info for.I also called the animal rescue I volunteer/volunteered at, and both locations are fine. He actually SAW the tornado up north form, but it thankfully missed them. The rescue is just a few miles from "Pops" in Arcadia, and they have over 300 animals in outdoor shelters. Glad they're safe.
If anyone needs a place to stay temporarily or more long term because of the storm, we have room for people to stay with us here in Del City until they can find a place. Our house is open if people need it as a shelter, especially for fellow furs and even a few animals if need be.
Furs in need of help:
-
Misora lost her home in the tornado, but was at work and is fine.- Zephyr - has no water or power, but okay
Furs I know are alright: (Usernames in parenthesis so the missing ones will be linked)
- Myself and family
- Dobie (Doberman_Guard)
- Torn (tornwulf)
- Salty
- Shadow (SirYiffington)
- Purity (PurityTehWuff)
- Dax (DaxterDot)
- Serena (Serena_Chaotica) and Melissa
- Seagull (SeagullProphet), Windpaw, Kaden, and Karja
- Winder
- Skylor (SkylorForscythe)
- Nate (nateday)
- Baral (Baralheia)
- Dizzy (MintBear) and Kabal (KabalRaven)
- Drazil (Drazil)
- Kit/Cloud (kitblufox) and Cynder
- Scorpiious
- Tak (RedDragonTak)
- Toby (Cassandrus_Blackclaw)
- Oki (Okidoki)
- Bluefyre (BluefyreA.Wolf)
- Alpha
- Kaije and family (was sent a message from a different number, so they're probably elsewhere)
- Rex
- DMG (DMG_Drevik) and Erin
- LiGryph
- Clayton (Claytonthebear), with Pras and Brayden
- Hollyfox
- Prime (WolfoxStudios)
- Nayru (NayruHatake)
- Atticus
- Tanooki
- Seffy (Seffywuff)
- Wolfie (wolfiehowler)
- Garrus, Jen, and TamaraRose
- Kat
- Zeek, Blaze, and the other Tuttle furs
- Anu - found living in her car! She's fine and may be coming to stay with us if I can convince her to. ;3
Have not been able to contact:
-All furs I have non-FA contacts for have been located! If you know a fur not listed above that lives in Oklahoma, comment so we can add them to the appropriate list!
Update and -Need Help Moving!-
Posted 12 years agoSo we did end up getting the house. We're moving in on Sunday. We already have a few friends, a trailer, and a truck. But we need people to help load and unload stuff. Those that do come and help, I will have food and drinks and alcohol for afterwards. =D You can even crash at our new place if you want to drink yourself silly. We just need more hands to move stuff around. ^.=.^
In other news, Wild Nights was awesome. Saw a lot of familiar faces. May have found a new roommate or two. I got sick the first night, and then Ragnar got WAY too drunk Saturday night. After chasing him around for 3 hours, I had to sit down. I was hurting so badly that my lower body locked up, I was shaking, and I started puking from pain. Not fun. Erin helped me out by getting me some bread to nom on and then Ty helped me back to the tent and watched Ragnar for me to keep his drunk butt from doing something -too- stupid. Sunday I was moving slow, but we made it back in one piece. Today I stepped on a toy car and punched a hole in my foot. x.=.x Ow. Limping again.
For the most part we've been doing alright. Some bumps and bruises along the way, but I think things should be looking up soon. I'm officially a homeowner, we'll live right next to Dobie and Torn, and we should have a roommate to help pay rent - which is already cheaper than our current apartment. =3 I used our tax return to get me out of debt, so now I don't have to worry about paying bills with my commissions and can use that money to pay for current things. ^.=.^
We still have a long way to go though. The house we're moving into needs a LOT of work. We won't get the money from Dad's estate until after taxes are paid next year, so for this year we'll just have to save up money to fix things as we can. The yard has to be resodded before the dogs can go in it (it has whip worms, which no legal poison will kill), we need to replace the carpets, the plumbing in the back bathroom is messed up and leaking, the main bathroom needs to be re-tiled, and the wiring is outdated and two-prong. x.=.x Lots of work. Also going to redo the backyard after get it sodded. Going to rip out the old porch and make it a nice flagstone and concrete patio with a roof instead and add some other things to the yard including a vegetable garden. =3 Lots of work and lots of money, but we can do it over time.
TL;DR: Looking up, out of debt, but need money for future projects to improve our new house and people to help us move stuff Sunday. Party for those who help. =3
In other news, Wild Nights was awesome. Saw a lot of familiar faces. May have found a new roommate or two. I got sick the first night, and then Ragnar got WAY too drunk Saturday night. After chasing him around for 3 hours, I had to sit down. I was hurting so badly that my lower body locked up, I was shaking, and I started puking from pain. Not fun. Erin helped me out by getting me some bread to nom on and then Ty helped me back to the tent and watched Ragnar for me to keep his drunk butt from doing something -too- stupid. Sunday I was moving slow, but we made it back in one piece. Today I stepped on a toy car and punched a hole in my foot. x.=.x Ow. Limping again.
For the most part we've been doing alright. Some bumps and bruises along the way, but I think things should be looking up soon. I'm officially a homeowner, we'll live right next to Dobie and Torn, and we should have a roommate to help pay rent - which is already cheaper than our current apartment. =3 I used our tax return to get me out of debt, so now I don't have to worry about paying bills with my commissions and can use that money to pay for current things. ^.=.^
We still have a long way to go though. The house we're moving into needs a LOT of work. We won't get the money from Dad's estate until after taxes are paid next year, so for this year we'll just have to save up money to fix things as we can. The yard has to be resodded before the dogs can go in it (it has whip worms, which no legal poison will kill), we need to replace the carpets, the plumbing in the back bathroom is messed up and leaking, the main bathroom needs to be re-tiled, and the wiring is outdated and two-prong. x.=.x Lots of work. Also going to redo the backyard after get it sodded. Going to rip out the old porch and make it a nice flagstone and concrete patio with a roof instead and add some other things to the yard including a vegetable garden. =3 Lots of work and lots of money, but we can do it over time.
TL;DR: Looking up, out of debt, but need money for future projects to improve our new house and people to help us move stuff Sunday. Party for those who help. =3
Off To Wild Nights!
Posted 12 years agoWe're going to Wild Nights this weekend, and we'll be leaving soon. So, sorry everyone. I'll be MIA until Monday if you're not going to be at the con. There's no internet or cell reception all the way out there in the woods, so I'm afraid I'll be unreachable. I'll do my best to answer all my messages when I return. ^.=.^ Hope everyone has an enjoyable time and we don't get flooded out again this year like we did the first. We're in a tent and we have found out the hard way that it is very much NOT water proof. x.=.x It's old and has holes, and the first Wild Nights we went to it rained all night. There was literally a river through our tent. I'm surprised no one got pneumonia. >.=.>; Let's hope that doesn't happen again. >.=.<
Adoptables for Sale! Some as low as $5!
Posted 12 years agoThat's right. In case you missed it, I am now selling some lovely female adoptables and customs. =3 This first batch are some basic elemental wyrm ladies and are on sale for just $5! That's a steal for these cuties. Get them while they're cheap. The next ones will cost twice that, but you'll see the difference in the quality of the designs. ~.=.^ Get them while they're hot! Well, they'll always be hot. ;3 Keep an eye out for even more adoptables coming soon as I have free time to work on them. ^.=.^
No, really. Buy them. I need the money. x.=.x The bank decided we -can- keep the house, but we're going to have to pay rent and a mortgage payment next month. And then we need to save up to do work the house needs - expensive work. The yard needs to be resodded (there's no grass in part of the back yard, and the whole yard is infested with whipworms, and the only way to get rid of them so the dogs can go out in the yard again is to rip up the top six inches of soil and replace it. x.=.x), the carpet needs replacing (it's urine and poo stained from Dad's incontinent Pomeranian and the mice), it needs to be fumigated (there's mice everywhere!), and we're going to have to replace any appliances sold in the estate sale this weekend (ie, washer and dryer, fridge, and a bed)... We thankfully got a sizable tax return which will get us through the minimum, but we really need to get the rest of that done and soon. Help us out. Buy some sexy arts. =3 Win, win.
Current sexy wyrm adoptables:
https://www.furaffinity.net/full/10425387/
Older adoptables in Scraps - Price Reduced!
Other Digital Adopts:
$20 - Roone (tribal kangaroo): https://www.furaffinity.net/view/9155661/
$5 - Macaw: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/9151491/
Older, traditionally drawn, one-of-a-kind adoptables:
$5 - Fox Balloon: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/8181409/
$20 - Strawberry Cheescake Siamese: (NSFW version) https://www.furaffinity.net/full/6857738/ / (SFW version) https://www.furaffinity.net/full/8149288/
--SOLD-- Double dog adoptables - https://www.furaffinity.net/full/7937700/
$15 - Green Skunk - https://www.furaffinity.net/view/6869279/
$15 - Nightmare Fox - https://www.furaffinity.net/full/6852054/
$15 - Kickboxer Roo - https://www.furaffinity.net/full/6819549/
$15 - Fruit Bat - https://www.furaffinity.net/full/6811290/
$10 - Vampiress Fennec - https://www.furaffinity.net/full/6796429/
$10 - Witch Bunny - https://www.furaffinity.net/full/6788570/
$10 - Raver Umbreon doing Poi - https://www.furaffinity.net/full/6780107/
Please note: All prices are for the character copyrights only. If you want the original of a traditional adoptable mailed to you, please add $5 and let me know. Thanks. =3
More available in scraps!
No, really. Buy them. I need the money. x.=.x The bank decided we -can- keep the house, but we're going to have to pay rent and a mortgage payment next month. And then we need to save up to do work the house needs - expensive work. The yard needs to be resodded (there's no grass in part of the back yard, and the whole yard is infested with whipworms, and the only way to get rid of them so the dogs can go out in the yard again is to rip up the top six inches of soil and replace it. x.=.x), the carpet needs replacing (it's urine and poo stained from Dad's incontinent Pomeranian and the mice), it needs to be fumigated (there's mice everywhere!), and we're going to have to replace any appliances sold in the estate sale this weekend (ie, washer and dryer, fridge, and a bed)... We thankfully got a sizable tax return which will get us through the minimum, but we really need to get the rest of that done and soon. Help us out. Buy some sexy arts. =3 Win, win.
Current sexy wyrm adoptables:
https://www.furaffinity.net/full/10425387/
Older adoptables in Scraps - Price Reduced!
Other Digital Adopts:
$20 - Roone (tribal kangaroo): https://www.furaffinity.net/view/9155661/
$5 - Macaw: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/9151491/
Older, traditionally drawn, one-of-a-kind adoptables:
$5 - Fox Balloon: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/8181409/
$20 - Strawberry Cheescake Siamese: (NSFW version) https://www.furaffinity.net/full/6857738/ / (SFW version) https://www.furaffinity.net/full/8149288/
--SOLD-- Double dog adoptables - https://www.furaffinity.net/full/7937700/
$15 - Green Skunk - https://www.furaffinity.net/view/6869279/
$15 - Nightmare Fox - https://www.furaffinity.net/full/6852054/
$15 - Kickboxer Roo - https://www.furaffinity.net/full/6819549/
$15 - Fruit Bat - https://www.furaffinity.net/full/6811290/
$10 - Vampiress Fennec - https://www.furaffinity.net/full/6796429/
$10 - Witch Bunny - https://www.furaffinity.net/full/6788570/
$10 - Raver Umbreon doing Poi - https://www.furaffinity.net/full/6780107/
Please note: All prices are for the character copyrights only. If you want the original of a traditional adoptable mailed to you, please add $5 and let me know. Thanks. =3
More available in scraps!
For Better or Worse...
Posted 12 years agoWell, I saw my doctor Monday. He agreed with my therapist that I appear to have Fibromyalgia. He didn't test me for it (he's not a rheumatologist and not capable of that), but he did give me medicine for it to see if it would help. It certainly has. Within the first day, my pain was practically gone (except for the unrelated arthritis pain, which was lessened but still there). So I'm not in constant pain anymore thanks to taking Cymbalta and Flexeril, but both these medicines make me extremely dizzy and tired. So while I'm able to walk around mostly again, I'm still walking with a cane, stumbling around like a drunk, and can't focus my eyes properly. I also keep falling asleep every time I sit still to work on something. x.=.x I'm hoping after a few days of much-needed rest and catching up on sleep, my body will adjust and I'll be able to get back to doing art. Right now, it's hard just to type because everything looks like it's floating around like I'm underwater or something. Hard to explain, but the gist is I don't even want to try drawing until this calms down. >.=.<
To make things so much better, I wasn't sure if I could drive like this. I'm not sure it's safe. I keep falling asleep after a few seconds of closing my eyes (ie, like I might at a stop light). I'm dizzy and disoriented and keep blanking and spacing out for long periods of time. It's like when I -would- be sad, my brain just says "Nope. Nothing." Cymbalta is also an anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medicine, so it should help my mental state as well. I'm just having trouble adjusting these first few days. I'm sure it'll even out soon...
I had an appointment with my therapist yesterday and I decided I would try to drive. Obviously I shouldn't drive - when I got in the car, it refused to start. It worked just fine the last time I drove it (ie, home from the doctor appointment Monday), but when I got back in it Wednesday, nothing. It just clicks repeatedly when I try to start it and won't actually turn over or even crank up. We're hoping it's just the battery, but we can't afford to fix even that right now. >.=.<; If anyone knows how to work on cars and thinks they can fix it for cheap, it would help a lot. But then again, I probably shouldn't be driving anyway. I just want it to be drivable if we need it. x.=.x
So, as I mentioned, we can't afford very much right now. Apparently because we had a kid and whatnot, our taxes are no longer a "simple" form and will cost nearly $200 to have done. D= Dad always did my taxes before, so I don't know how to do them myself and they're due soon. x.=.x As it stands, we have no money at all until my husband gets his bonus around the 7th. Just have to hope it's a good one. In the meantime, we'll be eating a lot of tuna sandwiches and Ramen. =(
On a positive note, my husband's boss told him he was trying to get him approved for a raise. Normally they take tests to get raises, but he's already passed them all. So there isn't currently a way for him to get another raise. But his boss said he was doing such a magnificent job that he deserved to be making more. How cool is that? No idea how long it will take, but if he gets this raise, it would help us a TON. It'd be another $1/hour. $160 a month may not be a lot to some people, but for us, it's the difference in being able to buy food or not the first week of the month. Rent is almost his entire paycheck, so the first week of the month is rough. The first half of the month is rough if he doesn't get a good bonus (but he's made a pretty decent one consistently because he always has the highest stats there).
We were supposed to be working on emptying Dad's house as we could, but when we met the estate sale people there this past Saturday they demanded that we be DONE by that Monday. They started cleaning where I was finished with, but they also kept going into other rooms and moving stuff. They got mad that I took some stuff they had already cleaned, even though none of it was particularly valuable and they had taken it out of places I told them I wasn't done with. I didn't sign their damn contract, my sister did. She told them I was almost done after I told her I wasn't. They yelled and snapped at me repeatedly, telling me to keep my kid quiet, to stay out of the way, not to bring anything back after I sorted what I took because "we don't need anymore CRAP," and basically told me to gtfo my own house. I don't like them, I don't trust them, and they threw away a full truck-load of things I would have rather kept than had them throw out - things that could have been sold, but they weren't interested in. They threw away anything that wasn't worth more than like $20. Sure, all that stuff might have only been worth a dollar or two, but it adds up. I 'm pissed with them and don't want to speak with them anymore. But I'm also very upset that I may never see any of that stuff or the house I lived in for a decade again. =< It was rough, but we managed to make 4 trips this weekend and finish clearing out our stuff from Dad's house. However, because we spent so much on gas, we now have no money for groceries, and it's their fault entirely. We have a strict budget, and $80 of gas wasn't part of it. >.=.<
Lastly, I'm still trying to get my old email back. I managed to find my Dad's passwords on his old laptop, so I managed to log into his email, let his friends know of his passing, and re-enable my email again. However, it appears my account was compromised and someone changed the password on it. The automated system to reset passwords is down, so I still can't fix the password and log in yet. Hopefully it will be back up and running soon so I can get back on my YIM account and talk to people. x.=.x It's lonely without a chat program. >.=.>
So, in summary...
TL;DRI have fibromyalgia. I'm on new meds that help but make me dizzy, nauseous, and tired. I need a few days to adjust before I get back to art. We're poor again, but my husband should be getting a raise soon. The car won't start. Need to file taxes, but don't have $200. Should have my email/YIM back soon. My sister is a bitch and so are the estate sale people working on Dad's house.
To make things so much better, I wasn't sure if I could drive like this. I'm not sure it's safe. I keep falling asleep after a few seconds of closing my eyes (ie, like I might at a stop light). I'm dizzy and disoriented and keep blanking and spacing out for long periods of time. It's like when I -would- be sad, my brain just says "Nope. Nothing." Cymbalta is also an anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medicine, so it should help my mental state as well. I'm just having trouble adjusting these first few days. I'm sure it'll even out soon...
I had an appointment with my therapist yesterday and I decided I would try to drive. Obviously I shouldn't drive - when I got in the car, it refused to start. It worked just fine the last time I drove it (ie, home from the doctor appointment Monday), but when I got back in it Wednesday, nothing. It just clicks repeatedly when I try to start it and won't actually turn over or even crank up. We're hoping it's just the battery, but we can't afford to fix even that right now. >.=.<; If anyone knows how to work on cars and thinks they can fix it for cheap, it would help a lot. But then again, I probably shouldn't be driving anyway. I just want it to be drivable if we need it. x.=.x
So, as I mentioned, we can't afford very much right now. Apparently because we had a kid and whatnot, our taxes are no longer a "simple" form and will cost nearly $200 to have done. D= Dad always did my taxes before, so I don't know how to do them myself and they're due soon. x.=.x As it stands, we have no money at all until my husband gets his bonus around the 7th. Just have to hope it's a good one. In the meantime, we'll be eating a lot of tuna sandwiches and Ramen. =(
On a positive note, my husband's boss told him he was trying to get him approved for a raise. Normally they take tests to get raises, but he's already passed them all. So there isn't currently a way for him to get another raise. But his boss said he was doing such a magnificent job that he deserved to be making more. How cool is that? No idea how long it will take, but if he gets this raise, it would help us a TON. It'd be another $1/hour. $160 a month may not be a lot to some people, but for us, it's the difference in being able to buy food or not the first week of the month. Rent is almost his entire paycheck, so the first week of the month is rough. The first half of the month is rough if he doesn't get a good bonus (but he's made a pretty decent one consistently because he always has the highest stats there).
We were supposed to be working on emptying Dad's house as we could, but when we met the estate sale people there this past Saturday they demanded that we be DONE by that Monday. They started cleaning where I was finished with, but they also kept going into other rooms and moving stuff. They got mad that I took some stuff they had already cleaned, even though none of it was particularly valuable and they had taken it out of places I told them I wasn't done with. I didn't sign their damn contract, my sister did. She told them I was almost done after I told her I wasn't. They yelled and snapped at me repeatedly, telling me to keep my kid quiet, to stay out of the way, not to bring anything back after I sorted what I took because "we don't need anymore CRAP," and basically told me to gtfo my own house. I don't like them, I don't trust them, and they threw away a full truck-load of things I would have rather kept than had them throw out - things that could have been sold, but they weren't interested in. They threw away anything that wasn't worth more than like $20. Sure, all that stuff might have only been worth a dollar or two, but it adds up. I 'm pissed with them and don't want to speak with them anymore. But I'm also very upset that I may never see any of that stuff or the house I lived in for a decade again. =< It was rough, but we managed to make 4 trips this weekend and finish clearing out our stuff from Dad's house. However, because we spent so much on gas, we now have no money for groceries, and it's their fault entirely. We have a strict budget, and $80 of gas wasn't part of it. >.=.<
Lastly, I'm still trying to get my old email back. I managed to find my Dad's passwords on his old laptop, so I managed to log into his email, let his friends know of his passing, and re-enable my email again. However, it appears my account was compromised and someone changed the password on it. The automated system to reset passwords is down, so I still can't fix the password and log in yet. Hopefully it will be back up and running soon so I can get back on my YIM account and talk to people. x.=.x It's lonely without a chat program. >.=.>
So, in summary...
TL;DRI have fibromyalgia. I'm on new meds that help but make me dizzy, nauseous, and tired. I need a few days to adjust before I get back to art. We're poor again, but my husband should be getting a raise soon. The car won't start. Need to file taxes, but don't have $200. Should have my email/YIM back soon. My sister is a bitch and so are the estate sale people working on Dad's house.
Happy April!
Posted 12 years agoHey, guess what? I'm perfectly fine, we have lots of money, and I feel great.
Not. Obligatory April fools day joke, sorry. I saw my doctor today. He agreed I probably have fibromyalgia and gave me Cymbalta to help. It's both used for fibro and depression/anxiety, so he thinks it should help all of it together. I'm also now taking a muscle relaxer to help ease some pain but it will also probably make me very sleepy, so I have to take it right before bed. Maybe I can finally get some sleep. He's calling a gastroenterologist to see what he thinks about scheduling me a colonoscopy and setting me up to have them routinely to make sure I don't get what Dad had. Joy.
I talked to the estate sale lady several times today. I am steadily more not trusting them. They locked us out of the house and left the door to the fridge open after they put their drinks in it, and now it makes all kinds of racket. They also said the grey cat we found living in the shed when we were there Saturday was back and asked if it was ours. She said she could take it to the humane society to get it fixed for free, but when I asked her to she said she wouldn't because it could be someone's pet and she'd be responsible for it. Great. Anyone want a super-sweet gray tabby boy?
I did a big thing for me. I went to Walmart and got my medicines. I had to wait for 30 minutes, so I got some 50% off chocolate. >.=.> All told, between all the meds and appointment and candy, I spent almost $100 today. ;.=.; ...and I still have more appointments to go to. He didn't send me to a rheumatologist yet. He told me to come back in 3 months so he can see if the medicine has been working well or not. If it works, I obviously have fibromyalgia and am being properly treated. If not, then I may or may not have it, and he'll probably send me to a rheumatologist to see if they can help get me properly diagnosed and helped. x.=.x
Not. Obligatory April fools day joke, sorry. I saw my doctor today. He agreed I probably have fibromyalgia and gave me Cymbalta to help. It's both used for fibro and depression/anxiety, so he thinks it should help all of it together. I'm also now taking a muscle relaxer to help ease some pain but it will also probably make me very sleepy, so I have to take it right before bed. Maybe I can finally get some sleep. He's calling a gastroenterologist to see what he thinks about scheduling me a colonoscopy and setting me up to have them routinely to make sure I don't get what Dad had. Joy.
I talked to the estate sale lady several times today. I am steadily more not trusting them. They locked us out of the house and left the door to the fridge open after they put their drinks in it, and now it makes all kinds of racket. They also said the grey cat we found living in the shed when we were there Saturday was back and asked if it was ours. She said she could take it to the humane society to get it fixed for free, but when I asked her to she said she wouldn't because it could be someone's pet and she'd be responsible for it. Great. Anyone want a super-sweet gray tabby boy?
I did a big thing for me. I went to Walmart and got my medicines. I had to wait for 30 minutes, so I got some 50% off chocolate. >.=.> All told, between all the meds and appointment and candy, I spent almost $100 today. ;.=.; ...and I still have more appointments to go to. He didn't send me to a rheumatologist yet. He told me to come back in 3 months so he can see if the medicine has been working well or not. If it works, I obviously have fibromyalgia and am being properly treated. If not, then I may or may not have it, and he'll probably send me to a rheumatologist to see if they can help get me properly diagnosed and helped. x.=.x
Ugh...
Posted 12 years agoI've successfully worked myself sick again. x.=.x I can't sleep properly, I've been depressed to the point of saying repeatedly "I wish I were dead," I cry over everything, and I have stressed myself out so badly I couldn't even make a phone call. I've had a mild fever off and on, my skin hurts (random places randomly coming and going, no rash or anything like that - just painful to anything touching it, including clothes, blankets, and moving air), I've been so cold I've been hiding under a blanket - and will still be cold even though it's 73 in here, my muscles ache, and I can barely stay awake. I barely slept last night, my tooth is killing me again, and I woke up having heart palpitations. Joy. Oh, and last night I dreamed Dad came back and said he wasn't dead. That they just thought he was, but he managed to wake up and get their attention before they buried his coffin. Ha... Ha ha... I cried hardcore when I woke up. Then I dreamed his Pomeranian Mandy was still alive and we had to go rescue her from the house. I miss her too. ;.=.; I had a few other dreams I don't remember. I think I woke up every half hour last night, and a few times it took me hours to go back to sleep. -.=.-; Am so completely exhausted, and I don't have time to rest and can't sleep at night. x.=.x
I see the doctor on Monday to recheck my arthritis and whatnot. I have a huge list of things to talk to him about, but I'm afraid if I take a list in he'll say I'm just crazy like the last doctor did. But if I don't take a list, I'll forget something important. I have memory problems, and I hate talking about my issues. Besides that, I tend to get carried away talking about one issue and forget about something more important. =< What to do? I see my therapist today. Maybe she can give me some advice. x.=.x
Also, I finally got logged out of InkBunny. That account is inactive and inaccessible until I -hopefully- get my email back. I went to the ATT store who said they couldn't do anything and gave me a phone number to call. He straight up told me I would be on the phone for hours and would have to scream at them for them to do anything at all to fix it. I don't feel like it and making phone calls in general upsets me. So I haven't done it yet. I hope to feel good enough to call them tomorrow. x.=.x
TL;DR: No art today, guys. Sorry. I'm sick again. x.=.x Maybe I'll be better tomorrow. Gotta spend all afternoon finishing clearing out the bedrooms at Dad's house. -.=.-;
I see the doctor on Monday to recheck my arthritis and whatnot. I have a huge list of things to talk to him about, but I'm afraid if I take a list in he'll say I'm just crazy like the last doctor did. But if I don't take a list, I'll forget something important. I have memory problems, and I hate talking about my issues. Besides that, I tend to get carried away talking about one issue and forget about something more important. =< What to do? I see my therapist today. Maybe she can give me some advice. x.=.x
Also, I finally got logged out of InkBunny. That account is inactive and inaccessible until I -hopefully- get my email back. I went to the ATT store who said they couldn't do anything and gave me a phone number to call. He straight up told me I would be on the phone for hours and would have to scream at them for them to do anything at all to fix it. I don't feel like it and making phone calls in general upsets me. So I haven't done it yet. I hope to feel good enough to call them tomorrow. x.=.x
TL;DR: No art today, guys. Sorry. I'm sick again. x.=.x Maybe I'll be better tomorrow. Gotta spend all afternoon finishing clearing out the bedrooms at Dad's house. -.=.-;
Shayla Where Have You Been?!
Posted 12 years agoI'm sorry! We all had a stomach flu! D=
I'm still not entirely up to par, but at least I can get up and do a few things now. I'm going to be working at Dad's place today, but I'll -try- to get back to work on my art and streaming tomorrow. X.=.x
Also, once I eventually get all these commissions cleared out, I'm thinking of doing an iron artist thing - only take commissions under $20 (meaning NO large digital pieces that take me forever) and then push myself to get one done a day... or at least one every other day since there are some days I just can't do it because my hands hurt. =/ Would anyone be interested in something like that? At those prices, they'd get done fast but it could only be chibis, traditional one-character full color pieces, badges, digital badges, sketches, inks, etc. I think it'd work out better for everyone, and it'd push me to get more art out faster. >.=.> And getting them done faster is something I've really got to work on. =/ I'm just not very fast at digital. x.=.x
Admittedly, I've been a little distracted and overwhelmed right now. I'm working on dealing with Dad's stuff, being sick, disability, taking care of Eevee and the dogs, etc. all on basically no solid sleep, very little to eat, and being sore all the time. I've started randomly falling asleep and/or blacking out. I avoid driving when I can.
Oh, and disability denied me as per 90% of first-time claims. Got a lawyer to appeal it. She agrees I have an excellent case and doesn't think I'll even have to go to the "hearing" stage. She thinks she can get it approved just in the appeal. That'd be nice. I'm totally useless in a courtroom setting. >.=.<
I'm still not entirely up to par, but at least I can get up and do a few things now. I'm going to be working at Dad's place today, but I'll -try- to get back to work on my art and streaming tomorrow. X.=.x
Also, once I eventually get all these commissions cleared out, I'm thinking of doing an iron artist thing - only take commissions under $20 (meaning NO large digital pieces that take me forever) and then push myself to get one done a day... or at least one every other day since there are some days I just can't do it because my hands hurt. =/ Would anyone be interested in something like that? At those prices, they'd get done fast but it could only be chibis, traditional one-character full color pieces, badges, digital badges, sketches, inks, etc. I think it'd work out better for everyone, and it'd push me to get more art out faster. >.=.> And getting them done faster is something I've really got to work on. =/ I'm just not very fast at digital. x.=.x
Admittedly, I've been a little distracted and overwhelmed right now. I'm working on dealing with Dad's stuff, being sick, disability, taking care of Eevee and the dogs, etc. all on basically no solid sleep, very little to eat, and being sore all the time. I've started randomly falling asleep and/or blacking out. I avoid driving when I can.
Oh, and disability denied me as per 90% of first-time claims. Got a lawyer to appeal it. She agrees I have an excellent case and doesn't think I'll even have to go to the "hearing" stage. She thinks she can get it approved just in the appeal. That'd be nice. I'm totally useless in a courtroom setting. >.=.<
-eye twitch- Important Contact Info Change...
Posted 12 years agoFrom now on, do not send me email to "shayla1@sbcglobal.net." ATT are assholes and decided to delete my email without warning. From now on, my email will be "Shayla.Furykin@gmail.com" and I will be changing my other accounts over ASAP.
Unfortunately, this also means they deleted my YIM account. I will send out PM's to people I regularly contact there, but until this is resolved or I make a new Yahoo account, my YIM is out of commission. I'll try to do streams at least every other day, so people can always chat with me through the stream chat.
I'm highly irritated. That email is the only one I have used for over a decade. There are YEARS of my life saved on that email - all my photos, all my contacts, my only means of contacting MANY people, not to mention the literally thousands of saved emails with all my information on every online account I've ever made, my Yahoo groups, my calendar, my saved emails from Dad, EVERYTHING IS GONE.
Apparently, ATT are just jerks and have decided to delete old email accounts that use the old endings like "sbcglobal" or "southernbell" and so on. It's not just me; it's literally millions of email accounts they're closing. If you have one, save all your info elsewhere NOW. They gave me NO warning at all, they have hundreds of phone numbers for help but NONE for email help, and the old addresses like mine are not able to remade because the extensions have been closed.
I just lost a ton of my life history, and I'm really hoping if I can ever FIND these people's phone number that they can restore it or at least move everything to a different email. As it stands, I just lost ALL my contact information for everyone unless I happen to have your phone number. ;.=.; It also means no one can contact me. I gave that email to Social Security, my bank, my PayPal, all my friends, every other site I've ever joined, WIC, all my rewards cards, all the people I've been in contact with about Dad, the estate sale, selling his house, selling the RV, craigslist, my doctors' offices, and probably a hundred other places... Now I will get NONE of those emails, and they have no forwarding email address...
I don't know what to do... I'm just... In shock... -sobs- ;.=.;
Unfortunately, this also means they deleted my YIM account. I will send out PM's to people I regularly contact there, but until this is resolved or I make a new Yahoo account, my YIM is out of commission. I'll try to do streams at least every other day, so people can always chat with me through the stream chat.
I'm highly irritated. That email is the only one I have used for over a decade. There are YEARS of my life saved on that email - all my photos, all my contacts, my only means of contacting MANY people, not to mention the literally thousands of saved emails with all my information on every online account I've ever made, my Yahoo groups, my calendar, my saved emails from Dad, EVERYTHING IS GONE.
Apparently, ATT are just jerks and have decided to delete old email accounts that use the old endings like "sbcglobal" or "southernbell" and so on. It's not just me; it's literally millions of email accounts they're closing. If you have one, save all your info elsewhere NOW. They gave me NO warning at all, they have hundreds of phone numbers for help but NONE for email help, and the old addresses like mine are not able to remade because the extensions have been closed.
I just lost a ton of my life history, and I'm really hoping if I can ever FIND these people's phone number that they can restore it or at least move everything to a different email. As it stands, I just lost ALL my contact information for everyone unless I happen to have your phone number. ;.=.; It also means no one can contact me. I gave that email to Social Security, my bank, my PayPal, all my friends, every other site I've ever joined, WIC, all my rewards cards, all the people I've been in contact with about Dad, the estate sale, selling his house, selling the RV, craigslist, my doctors' offices, and probably a hundred other places... Now I will get NONE of those emails, and they have no forwarding email address...
I don't know what to do... I'm just... In shock... -sobs- ;.=.;
Dammit Ebay... (Random rants and update...)
Posted 12 years agoWhy you tease me? Why did I open this?! Gah. I made the mistake of going to Ebay only to find tons of cheap Pokemon stuff I want and cannot afford. >.=.< Bah. But... But... Full set of Eevee-lutions toys! ;.=.; -pout- I love Eevees a little bit too much for my own good.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Total-8.....D1%26asc%3D14640%26meid%3D5984589879976177203%26pid%3D100010%26prg%3D1076%26rk%3D11%26sd%3D380557502376%26
Also, Cox decided to charge us an extra $25 and not tell us. Awesome. Jerks. But on the plus side, my disability stuff is getting done fast. I got a message from them saying they've set me up an appointment with a psychiatrist. >.=.> I'm nervous as can be and literally made myself sick stressing about it. I can't take Eevee, I can't take anyone with me, and it's a new person and new place where I'm going to talk about my problems. Did they even read what I sent them about being terrified of ALL of that? ;.=.;
We'll be moving furniture out of Dad's house all day if anyone wants to come over and help. The end result is that we can take what we want, the rest will go to an estate sale, and then the house is being given back to the bank since it isn't worth what's owed on it. While that sucks, it does mean the estate should be mostly closed in a matter of months and we don't have to worry about paying the debt or selling it. We might just auction the other house and RV and be done with it. Idk. Is up to my sister who is finally leaving me out of all of it. >.=.< I don't really care about the details. Just get it done and give me whatever is owed to me. -sigh- At least we have real furniture now, but our bills have gone up.
In other news, I am very proud of my husband,
thebigkitty. He made Employee of the Month this month! ^.=.^
We're busy today. Streaming should resume tomorrow, possibly tonight if I'm up to it. I have tons more comic work to do (most of it adult) and some adoptables in mind to make. ^.=.^
http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Total-8.....D1%26asc%3D146
Also, Cox decided to charge us an extra $25 and not tell us. Awesome. Jerks. But on the plus side, my disability stuff is getting done fast. I got a message from them saying they've set me up an appointment with a psychiatrist. >.=.> I'm nervous as can be and literally made myself sick stressing about it. I can't take Eevee, I can't take anyone with me, and it's a new person and new place where I'm going to talk about my problems. Did they even read what I sent them about being terrified of ALL of that? ;.=.;
We'll be moving furniture out of Dad's house all day if anyone wants to come over and help. The end result is that we can take what we want, the rest will go to an estate sale, and then the house is being given back to the bank since it isn't worth what's owed on it. While that sucks, it does mean the estate should be mostly closed in a matter of months and we don't have to worry about paying the debt or selling it. We might just auction the other house and RV and be done with it. Idk. Is up to my sister who is finally leaving me out of all of it. >.=.< I don't really care about the details. Just get it done and give me whatever is owed to me. -sigh- At least we have real furniture now, but our bills have gone up.
In other news, I am very proud of my husband,
thebigkitty. He made Employee of the Month this month! ^.=.^We're busy today. Streaming should resume tomorrow, possibly tonight if I'm up to it. I have tons more comic work to do (most of it adult) and some adoptables in mind to make. ^.=.^
Page Reworked - Adoptables, YCH, etc. available!
Posted 12 years agoYep. I've reworked my entire FA page so that my sketches are in my gallery, many are gone, and all my items for sale are in my scraps. I have LOTS of adoptables available, most of them hand drawn and quite unique. I don't do auctions, or at least I haven't. No worries there. But I do have adoptables and YCH's. The adoptables are all first come, first serve and have prices listed. They will be updated and marked once sold. The YCH's are reusable, so you don't have to be in any rush to buy them. What's the point of having a premade sketch of positions if you're only going to use them once? D= They're basically $5 cheaper because I've drawn them before. I'm willing to do the same with the poses in any of artwork you see in my gallery, really. Anyway, I have all kinds of arts and crafts for sale, so go take a peek and message me or reply to them if you're interested!
Also, I may set up an Etsy shop to sell some of these things too. Thoughts? My only complaint is that it costs me money whether they sell or not. =/ It's not a lot, but I'm not fond of being charged to not sell stuff. >.=.<
Also, I may set up an Etsy shop to sell some of these things too. Thoughts? My only complaint is that it costs me money whether they sell or not. =/ It's not a lot, but I'm not fond of being charged to not sell stuff. >.=.<
Page Cleanup - Clearing Scraps
Posted 12 years agoI'm going to be deleting most of the items in my scraps. All items without favorites are being deleted today. If you faved one of my scraps, which are mostly unfinished sketches, you might want to save them somewhere. I'll have the original copies if I delete one someone actually wants. In the meantime, I reorganized my home page and am cleaning up my Scraps folder so I can use it for selling things. ~.=.^ Thanks.
Health Rant... Sorry. Um... My B-day is tomorrow. ^_^;;
Posted 12 years agoCopypasta from my reddit /r/offmychest post today. >.=.> Long rant about health problems you probably don't want to read. You've been warned.
October 1st we had $1.94 between us to last 2 weeks. That was on payday after we paid rent. Have you ever been that poor? It's really stressful.
I've been in therapy for four years. I was doing the best I'd done in a long, long time, and then Dad got sick and died. Now I'm right back where I started - crying, miserable, alone, and wishing I didn't exist. I don't care about all this stuff... I just wish I could have my daddy back. Preferably both parents, but I'd settle for one. I hadn't fully mentally accepted Mom dying yet. She's still in a lot of my dreams. I wake up crying after I tell her in my dream that she's dead. That I saw her dead. That I went to her funeral...
If I had no hope of getting better, I would have stabbed myself at 15 like I wanted to and been done with it. I was mildly schizophrenic for almost a decade and no one did anything for me until I was in college and someone said I should see a doctor for depression. Until then... Until it had gotten so bad that on that day I was seeing myself in 3rd person... I had no idea it wasn't normal to hear God physically speaking to you or see demons or hear voices that weren't there or to be sad and scared all the time and so on. I have gotten a lot better.
I know I haven't elaborated on most of my problems to anyone outside of my therapist and my husband. Maybe it will help me if I do. For starters, I hate talking on the phone. I would much rather you email or text me. Because of having stress problems and difficulty being around other people socially as well as my horrible experiences answering phones at my first job, I really hate having to make or answer phone calls. Unless I'm feeling really good, I usually don't answer and make excuses for it later.
My birth mom and I aren't that close (I was adopted at 3), and maybe I shouldn't be telling her problems, but they're the same as some of mine. I've had PTSD realistically since I was 3. When I was adopted. Want to know why I was adopted? What happened? It defined my life. My birth mom's Mom and Dad went on a cruise and left my mother, Melinda, home alone for several days with me. Melinda invited a bunch of strangers over to "party." I watched as they drugged and gang raped her and saw her break someone's nose and throw her then boyfriend across a room and put his head through a wall before passing out in a pool of blood. I sat there alone for what felt like hours until the cops showed up after everyone else had left. The neighbor called them. I sat in stunned silence in a police car thinking my mother was dead on the floor. I went to a foster home and didn't speak for three days other than to quietly ask for "Bob" (my grandfather who adopted me and recently passed away). I never liked cops, black guys, needles, guns, or taking pills after that day. It's not a racist thing, I just can't be alone with black guys because I start thinking of that night and panicking. PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder (what soldiers often have on returning from war), was my first and still largest problem.
I shrugged it off and pushed it back for over a decade until we were moving across the country. I never fit in at school and didn't know why, but I figured I was just a nerd and moved on. Turns out I just was messed up in the head and have a very twisted sense of humor. But when we were preparing to move out here, when I was saying goodbye to all my friends and everything I had ever known, I couldn't just go through the motions anymore. I remember standing there ready to leave my school for the last time and exactly where I was when I felt something in my brain "snap." It was after my best friend said she'd call me every day and never forget me. My brain broke, and my answer was truer than anything I had felt before. I told her, "No you won't. You'll call for a few days, then every other day, then once a week, and in a few months you'll have all but forgotten me." Twelve years of suppressing it all, and in that one statement my world and my brain broke permanently.
After we moved out here, I started hearing voices again. It had happened before, but it was only when Mom was in the hospital and I thought she was dying. I was 14. I remember because the voices told me that she'd be fine and it didn't matter because in 15 years I wouldn't care. They were right. I took it to mean I was going to die in 15 years. When I was 29. Given all my other problems, that might be accurate.
This time the voices were visible. They were demons, angels, ghosts, etc. Once I physically "heard God" tell me that I was supposed to fall in love with one of my friends and started stalking him and telling him every chance I could how we were "supposed to be together" and how much I loved him even though I barely knew him. Even now, as much as I tell myself it's all in my head and I made it up, if I saw him again and he said he wanted me to, I would drop my entire life and go right back there and listen to and follow that "voice" that gave me direction while driving me crazy.
I went through college with multiple personalities that were fractured and broken. They were so different they had their own names and histories and voices. They were aware of each other and I would have physical, loud arguments with myself as my "sides" discussed what to do about things. Broken.
Eventually, when Mom died, my brain just gave up. I couldn't even handle having one personality. I stopped doing anything. I just sat there, staring blankly at the wall. My then boyfriend told me I needed to get professional help or he needed to call an ambulance. I wouldn't eat, sleep, move, and I told him how I could see myself in 3rd person and felt like I was dead and floating above my own body. I could literally "see" myself from above instead of seeing out of my own eyes. It was like a dream where I was floating and watching myself go through the day. That was when I finally agreed to go to therapy. That was what it took for me to see that something was wrong. All I knew was that I was upset and wanted to talk to someone about Mom dying...
Unfortunately, mental problems aren't something you can just "get over." I came to realize the reason the voices were telling me to stab myself at 15 was because I was suicidally, chronically depressed. Even then though, I was smart enough to know I shouldn't kill myself and that I wanted to get better so I could get back to my family and friends in Georgia and have my once-happy not-broken life back. Actually, the only reason I didn't was because my decade of Bible training had told me that if I killed myself, I'd go to hell. Life was already so scary, I figured hell must be unimaginably worse. As it turns out, my daily life is what a lot of people would have called "hell," something I no longer really believe in unless we're already in it.
As I got better mentally and accepted who I was and the problems I had, my brain couldn't handle the change. Instead of being better, it just changed direction. Now instead of being numb to the world and following the orders of the voices in my head, I'm left directionless and scared. I'm terrified all the time and have a chronic stress disorder. I get so terrified around certain PTSD triggers that I can't speak, I shake violently, and I feel like I'm having a heart attack. If I don't get 8 hours of sleep regularly, it stresses me so bad physically that I have heart palpitations and trouble breathing.
My stress problem caused me to lose both the two jobs I have ever had and has prevented me from even being able to think about looking for a job for over a year. I'm currently trying to get my disability application approved, which is hard when I won't go to meet anyone including a lawyer. At both places I worked at I started having severe panic attacks daily that would last for hours at a time. I'd hide in the back of the store unable to talk to anyone, crying until it hurt, and then run away home as soon as I could. I couldn't handle talking on the phone, dealing with customers, or even the slightest amount of criticism. I only made it as long as I did at my two jobs because at the vet I could play with puppies and delivering pizza I could hide in my car alone most of the day.
The reason I've always had a lot of pets is because pets are calming and help keep me from getting upset. I once moved and had a letter from my therapist saying that I needed to move so I could have Timmy and Little Bitt as my "help cats" because they kept me calm. Giving them up for my husband who is allergic to cats was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I gave them to my dad, but now that he's dead, we have to give them away or keep them. I really love my husband for doing his best to tolerate Timmy, even if we have to keep him in a different room. But having two cats would suffocate him, and I'm torn apart to have to get rid of my girl kitty to a stranger.
I am no longer mentally capable of being alone in public. I'm only comfortable going out if I have my husband with me because I feel like he can protect me and knows how to cover up my social ineptitude. I hate talking on phones or anything else that requires dealing with people in person and avoid it all costs. I won't go to the store or get food on my own. The only times I leave my apartment without him are to walk my chihuahua a few feet into the grass and to go to my or my daughter's appointments. I have panic attacks even with him there if I see cops, guns, needles, black guys, knives not meant for cooking, some cooking knives, blood, and many other things or if I hear yelling, particularly if it's aimed at me. After one of my exes yelled at me and walked out, I laid in the floor in a ball crying, drooling, shaking, and muttering incoherently for two hours until he came back and made me get off the floor.
That's just a long-winded explanation of my mental problems. I also have dozens of physical problems. I have arthritis. That's the most recent. The Aleve I was told to take hurts my stomach and only dulls the pain. Sometimes it makes me vomit acid. I hate taking pills and avoid it when I can, but this is a necessary evil. I've been told more than once NOT to take medicines if I can help it because they inevitably cause other problems or make one of my existing problems worse. In this case, it severely irritates my acid reflux that gave me a pre-ulcer at 13.
It hurts to walk, stand, move, not move for a long time, write, draw (my only income anymore is from doing online art commissions), and most anything. When I wake up in the morning or at night, I feel like I'm on fire. My joints burn, ache, and are physically hot and swollen. I'm stiff and often pop or feel and hear my bones grinding when I move. They don't know what caused it, but it could be a lot of things. They were hoping it was Rheumatoid arthritis, but that test came back negative. It still could be, and I'm supposed to go back soon to take the test again. Something like 50% of cases show up negative the first time. Over 20% never show positive even if you have it. It could also be because I have bad, infected gums (thanks Dad) or because I had leukemia when I seven.
Yes, I had leukemia at 7... I was in the hospital for 4 days and then it "miraculously" disappeared. I'm scared every time I get sick that it'll come back. That's a lot worse now that Dad just died of a cancer he supposedly got rid of 8 years ago. I had a fever of 105 for days. I was delusional and said I saw angels and that God told me I would be alright.
That high of a fever starts destroying your body. I most likely have brain damage from it. I know it burnt off a lot of my nerve endings. I have almost no physical sensation in the area of my genitals and am unable to "feel" having an orgasm. It just makes me twitch. I can feel the disconnect in my spinal cord from the spinal tap I had in the hospital. I've gotten sick far more than average since then as well, since my immune system was also likely damaged.
The hole they put in my spine to test for leukemia has hurt ever since. It made my spine bend at a 90 degree angle and made me unable to hold my back straight while doing push-ups. I was made fun of all through school because I couldn't even do one. By high school I had trained enough to build muscles there to compensate, but I still shake violently from the strain on my spine when I attempt to do a push-up and turn red in the face, presumably because it cuts off circulation. I cannot lift my own weight or even 100 pounds. I do well to lift 50 pounds. It doesn't help my pain in walking either.
My birth mom and I are both genetically 1/4 deaf. I have the same hearing she had at my age. I am low-tone deaf on the right side and cannot hear male passengers in my car while driving. That's when it's most notable. It's also a reason I hate talking on the phone. I have to ask people to repeat themselves because I have mental problems and can't hear or understand speech well.
I should be wearing glasses. I used to wear them. I haven't worn them in years, but it's not because I don't need to. I just don't like them because they're annoying, uncomfortable, don't fit right, and are the wrong prescription. I can't afford to get them updated even though we have vision insurance. I have an extra growth of bone behind my right ear that makes it hard to wear glasses. I refuse to wear contacts. My eyes are sensitive and thinking of it gives me the creeps. It reminds me of how I screamed and ran away from Dad when I had to have eye drops as a kid. It burned like hell and I would rather be visually impaired than add that to my stress.
Did you know I cannot wear most shoes? I only ever wear my one pair of boots. Before that, I would only wear high-top tennis shoes. I had to get a note to let me wear them to school out here. I saw a podiatrist who prescribed that I only wear shoes with ankle and arch support such as those because I have bone spurs in my feet and ankles. I have little extra calcium deposits that grow in my feet and stab my muscles making it hurt that much more to walk or stand. I haven't been able to run since junior high, and not just because I have asthma. I had an X-ray that showed they were inside my ankle, in my heel, against my Achilles tendon, and even on the arch of my foot. Eventually I may not be able to walk at all. I was told to do nothing about them until then because the surgery to remove them is literally fileting my foot and grinding them off. I would be in a wheelchair for 6 months.
My Mom was probably killed by her own medicine. They thought she was having a heart attack but then saw she wasn't. Turns out those are the same symptoms as a sulfa allergy. She was taking a sulfate antibiotic for a bladder infection and eating breakfast - likely a diet soda and something with eggs, both high in sulfates. It's a genetic allergy that is unlike other allergies. I found out a year later that I had it when I was given a similar medicine and it put me in the ER. I am allergic to all sulfates and sulfides - some antibiotics, diet drinks, diet foods, eggs, onions, and much more. Fake eggs are even worse, and they once put me into shock.
I have a lot more smaller problems, but I think you get the point. I will never be "okay." I will probably never even be "alright." But at least I can attempt to be without pain and relatively calm. For that, I need to do what I'm doing - lay on the couch alone being still and quiet and away from anything stressful. I don't need more medicines and doctors. I know what's wrong. There is no fixing most of it. I can accept that. But my level of "normal" is not the same as everyone else. I can't keep running around doing stuff to get Dad's estate settled. I need to be still and calm and away from this mess just to maintain my "normal" level of sanity.
I'm going to miss Little Bitt greatly. I wish I could find a friend here to take her. That way I would at least have the comfort that I could see her once in a while. I bought that cat right before Mom had her stroke... She helped me deal with a lot and was my "help cat." If I didn't think it would suffocate my husband, I'd just bring her here with Timmy and hide her from the apartment complex... Did that with my chihuahua for a year at our last apartment. No one ever asked about it...
Anyway, my day has sucked. My birthday is tomorrow, and for the first time in my soon-to-be 25 years, I won't get my usual phone call, visit, card, and dinner with my dad. I won't have any family here. They're all 1000 miles away. I doubt they'll even call or send me cards. They usually don't. This is the worst I've felt since I was suicidal. I am alone far away from my family, and I don't think I'll be getting anything at all for my birthday. We're flat broke from the cost of driving back to Georgia for Dad's funeral there a few weeks ago. I miss my parents, my family. I know I'm going to have the worst birthday ever, and that's including how everyone FORGOT my 16th birthday. I remember reminding my parents. They felt bad and gave me $100. My brother got me some watch off Ebay a few days later. All my friends were on a field trip that day. Tomorrow will undoubtedly be worse. I don't foresee anything being able to break me out of the funk of losing my parents, and I doubt I'll even have a cake because I don't feel like baking one myself. ;-;
I'll just go back to being curled up crying on the couch now. Thanks for listening. -_-;
October 1st we had $1.94 between us to last 2 weeks. That was on payday after we paid rent. Have you ever been that poor? It's really stressful.
I've been in therapy for four years. I was doing the best I'd done in a long, long time, and then Dad got sick and died. Now I'm right back where I started - crying, miserable, alone, and wishing I didn't exist. I don't care about all this stuff... I just wish I could have my daddy back. Preferably both parents, but I'd settle for one. I hadn't fully mentally accepted Mom dying yet. She's still in a lot of my dreams. I wake up crying after I tell her in my dream that she's dead. That I saw her dead. That I went to her funeral...
If I had no hope of getting better, I would have stabbed myself at 15 like I wanted to and been done with it. I was mildly schizophrenic for almost a decade and no one did anything for me until I was in college and someone said I should see a doctor for depression. Until then... Until it had gotten so bad that on that day I was seeing myself in 3rd person... I had no idea it wasn't normal to hear God physically speaking to you or see demons or hear voices that weren't there or to be sad and scared all the time and so on. I have gotten a lot better.
I know I haven't elaborated on most of my problems to anyone outside of my therapist and my husband. Maybe it will help me if I do. For starters, I hate talking on the phone. I would much rather you email or text me. Because of having stress problems and difficulty being around other people socially as well as my horrible experiences answering phones at my first job, I really hate having to make or answer phone calls. Unless I'm feeling really good, I usually don't answer and make excuses for it later.
My birth mom and I aren't that close (I was adopted at 3), and maybe I shouldn't be telling her problems, but they're the same as some of mine. I've had PTSD realistically since I was 3. When I was adopted. Want to know why I was adopted? What happened? It defined my life. My birth mom's Mom and Dad went on a cruise and left my mother, Melinda, home alone for several days with me. Melinda invited a bunch of strangers over to "party." I watched as they drugged and gang raped her and saw her break someone's nose and throw her then boyfriend across a room and put his head through a wall before passing out in a pool of blood. I sat there alone for what felt like hours until the cops showed up after everyone else had left. The neighbor called them. I sat in stunned silence in a police car thinking my mother was dead on the floor. I went to a foster home and didn't speak for three days other than to quietly ask for "Bob" (my grandfather who adopted me and recently passed away). I never liked cops, black guys, needles, guns, or taking pills after that day. It's not a racist thing, I just can't be alone with black guys because I start thinking of that night and panicking. PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder (what soldiers often have on returning from war), was my first and still largest problem.
I shrugged it off and pushed it back for over a decade until we were moving across the country. I never fit in at school and didn't know why, but I figured I was just a nerd and moved on. Turns out I just was messed up in the head and have a very twisted sense of humor. But when we were preparing to move out here, when I was saying goodbye to all my friends and everything I had ever known, I couldn't just go through the motions anymore. I remember standing there ready to leave my school for the last time and exactly where I was when I felt something in my brain "snap." It was after my best friend said she'd call me every day and never forget me. My brain broke, and my answer was truer than anything I had felt before. I told her, "No you won't. You'll call for a few days, then every other day, then once a week, and in a few months you'll have all but forgotten me." Twelve years of suppressing it all, and in that one statement my world and my brain broke permanently.
After we moved out here, I started hearing voices again. It had happened before, but it was only when Mom was in the hospital and I thought she was dying. I was 14. I remember because the voices told me that she'd be fine and it didn't matter because in 15 years I wouldn't care. They were right. I took it to mean I was going to die in 15 years. When I was 29. Given all my other problems, that might be accurate.
This time the voices were visible. They were demons, angels, ghosts, etc. Once I physically "heard God" tell me that I was supposed to fall in love with one of my friends and started stalking him and telling him every chance I could how we were "supposed to be together" and how much I loved him even though I barely knew him. Even now, as much as I tell myself it's all in my head and I made it up, if I saw him again and he said he wanted me to, I would drop my entire life and go right back there and listen to and follow that "voice" that gave me direction while driving me crazy.
I went through college with multiple personalities that were fractured and broken. They were so different they had their own names and histories and voices. They were aware of each other and I would have physical, loud arguments with myself as my "sides" discussed what to do about things. Broken.
Eventually, when Mom died, my brain just gave up. I couldn't even handle having one personality. I stopped doing anything. I just sat there, staring blankly at the wall. My then boyfriend told me I needed to get professional help or he needed to call an ambulance. I wouldn't eat, sleep, move, and I told him how I could see myself in 3rd person and felt like I was dead and floating above my own body. I could literally "see" myself from above instead of seeing out of my own eyes. It was like a dream where I was floating and watching myself go through the day. That was when I finally agreed to go to therapy. That was what it took for me to see that something was wrong. All I knew was that I was upset and wanted to talk to someone about Mom dying...
Unfortunately, mental problems aren't something you can just "get over." I came to realize the reason the voices were telling me to stab myself at 15 was because I was suicidally, chronically depressed. Even then though, I was smart enough to know I shouldn't kill myself and that I wanted to get better so I could get back to my family and friends in Georgia and have my once-happy not-broken life back. Actually, the only reason I didn't was because my decade of Bible training had told me that if I killed myself, I'd go to hell. Life was already so scary, I figured hell must be unimaginably worse. As it turns out, my daily life is what a lot of people would have called "hell," something I no longer really believe in unless we're already in it.
As I got better mentally and accepted who I was and the problems I had, my brain couldn't handle the change. Instead of being better, it just changed direction. Now instead of being numb to the world and following the orders of the voices in my head, I'm left directionless and scared. I'm terrified all the time and have a chronic stress disorder. I get so terrified around certain PTSD triggers that I can't speak, I shake violently, and I feel like I'm having a heart attack. If I don't get 8 hours of sleep regularly, it stresses me so bad physically that I have heart palpitations and trouble breathing.
My stress problem caused me to lose both the two jobs I have ever had and has prevented me from even being able to think about looking for a job for over a year. I'm currently trying to get my disability application approved, which is hard when I won't go to meet anyone including a lawyer. At both places I worked at I started having severe panic attacks daily that would last for hours at a time. I'd hide in the back of the store unable to talk to anyone, crying until it hurt, and then run away home as soon as I could. I couldn't handle talking on the phone, dealing with customers, or even the slightest amount of criticism. I only made it as long as I did at my two jobs because at the vet I could play with puppies and delivering pizza I could hide in my car alone most of the day.
The reason I've always had a lot of pets is because pets are calming and help keep me from getting upset. I once moved and had a letter from my therapist saying that I needed to move so I could have Timmy and Little Bitt as my "help cats" because they kept me calm. Giving them up for my husband who is allergic to cats was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I gave them to my dad, but now that he's dead, we have to give them away or keep them. I really love my husband for doing his best to tolerate Timmy, even if we have to keep him in a different room. But having two cats would suffocate him, and I'm torn apart to have to get rid of my girl kitty to a stranger.
I am no longer mentally capable of being alone in public. I'm only comfortable going out if I have my husband with me because I feel like he can protect me and knows how to cover up my social ineptitude. I hate talking on phones or anything else that requires dealing with people in person and avoid it all costs. I won't go to the store or get food on my own. The only times I leave my apartment without him are to walk my chihuahua a few feet into the grass and to go to my or my daughter's appointments. I have panic attacks even with him there if I see cops, guns, needles, black guys, knives not meant for cooking, some cooking knives, blood, and many other things or if I hear yelling, particularly if it's aimed at me. After one of my exes yelled at me and walked out, I laid in the floor in a ball crying, drooling, shaking, and muttering incoherently for two hours until he came back and made me get off the floor.
That's just a long-winded explanation of my mental problems. I also have dozens of physical problems. I have arthritis. That's the most recent. The Aleve I was told to take hurts my stomach and only dulls the pain. Sometimes it makes me vomit acid. I hate taking pills and avoid it when I can, but this is a necessary evil. I've been told more than once NOT to take medicines if I can help it because they inevitably cause other problems or make one of my existing problems worse. In this case, it severely irritates my acid reflux that gave me a pre-ulcer at 13.
It hurts to walk, stand, move, not move for a long time, write, draw (my only income anymore is from doing online art commissions), and most anything. When I wake up in the morning or at night, I feel like I'm on fire. My joints burn, ache, and are physically hot and swollen. I'm stiff and often pop or feel and hear my bones grinding when I move. They don't know what caused it, but it could be a lot of things. They were hoping it was Rheumatoid arthritis, but that test came back negative. It still could be, and I'm supposed to go back soon to take the test again. Something like 50% of cases show up negative the first time. Over 20% never show positive even if you have it. It could also be because I have bad, infected gums (thanks Dad) or because I had leukemia when I seven.
Yes, I had leukemia at 7... I was in the hospital for 4 days and then it "miraculously" disappeared. I'm scared every time I get sick that it'll come back. That's a lot worse now that Dad just died of a cancer he supposedly got rid of 8 years ago. I had a fever of 105 for days. I was delusional and said I saw angels and that God told me I would be alright.
That high of a fever starts destroying your body. I most likely have brain damage from it. I know it burnt off a lot of my nerve endings. I have almost no physical sensation in the area of my genitals and am unable to "feel" having an orgasm. It just makes me twitch. I can feel the disconnect in my spinal cord from the spinal tap I had in the hospital. I've gotten sick far more than average since then as well, since my immune system was also likely damaged.
The hole they put in my spine to test for leukemia has hurt ever since. It made my spine bend at a 90 degree angle and made me unable to hold my back straight while doing push-ups. I was made fun of all through school because I couldn't even do one. By high school I had trained enough to build muscles there to compensate, but I still shake violently from the strain on my spine when I attempt to do a push-up and turn red in the face, presumably because it cuts off circulation. I cannot lift my own weight or even 100 pounds. I do well to lift 50 pounds. It doesn't help my pain in walking either.
My birth mom and I are both genetically 1/4 deaf. I have the same hearing she had at my age. I am low-tone deaf on the right side and cannot hear male passengers in my car while driving. That's when it's most notable. It's also a reason I hate talking on the phone. I have to ask people to repeat themselves because I have mental problems and can't hear or understand speech well.
I should be wearing glasses. I used to wear them. I haven't worn them in years, but it's not because I don't need to. I just don't like them because they're annoying, uncomfortable, don't fit right, and are the wrong prescription. I can't afford to get them updated even though we have vision insurance. I have an extra growth of bone behind my right ear that makes it hard to wear glasses. I refuse to wear contacts. My eyes are sensitive and thinking of it gives me the creeps. It reminds me of how I screamed and ran away from Dad when I had to have eye drops as a kid. It burned like hell and I would rather be visually impaired than add that to my stress.
Did you know I cannot wear most shoes? I only ever wear my one pair of boots. Before that, I would only wear high-top tennis shoes. I had to get a note to let me wear them to school out here. I saw a podiatrist who prescribed that I only wear shoes with ankle and arch support such as those because I have bone spurs in my feet and ankles. I have little extra calcium deposits that grow in my feet and stab my muscles making it hurt that much more to walk or stand. I haven't been able to run since junior high, and not just because I have asthma. I had an X-ray that showed they were inside my ankle, in my heel, against my Achilles tendon, and even on the arch of my foot. Eventually I may not be able to walk at all. I was told to do nothing about them until then because the surgery to remove them is literally fileting my foot and grinding them off. I would be in a wheelchair for 6 months.
My Mom was probably killed by her own medicine. They thought she was having a heart attack but then saw she wasn't. Turns out those are the same symptoms as a sulfa allergy. She was taking a sulfate antibiotic for a bladder infection and eating breakfast - likely a diet soda and something with eggs, both high in sulfates. It's a genetic allergy that is unlike other allergies. I found out a year later that I had it when I was given a similar medicine and it put me in the ER. I am allergic to all sulfates and sulfides - some antibiotics, diet drinks, diet foods, eggs, onions, and much more. Fake eggs are even worse, and they once put me into shock.
I have a lot more smaller problems, but I think you get the point. I will never be "okay." I will probably never even be "alright." But at least I can attempt to be without pain and relatively calm. For that, I need to do what I'm doing - lay on the couch alone being still and quiet and away from anything stressful. I don't need more medicines and doctors. I know what's wrong. There is no fixing most of it. I can accept that. But my level of "normal" is not the same as everyone else. I can't keep running around doing stuff to get Dad's estate settled. I need to be still and calm and away from this mess just to maintain my "normal" level of sanity.
I'm going to miss Little Bitt greatly. I wish I could find a friend here to take her. That way I would at least have the comfort that I could see her once in a while. I bought that cat right before Mom had her stroke... She helped me deal with a lot and was my "help cat." If I didn't think it would suffocate my husband, I'd just bring her here with Timmy and hide her from the apartment complex... Did that with my chihuahua for a year at our last apartment. No one ever asked about it...
Anyway, my day has sucked. My birthday is tomorrow, and for the first time in my soon-to-be 25 years, I won't get my usual phone call, visit, card, and dinner with my dad. I won't have any family here. They're all 1000 miles away. I doubt they'll even call or send me cards. They usually don't. This is the worst I've felt since I was suicidal. I am alone far away from my family, and I don't think I'll be getting anything at all for my birthday. We're flat broke from the cost of driving back to Georgia for Dad's funeral there a few weeks ago. I miss my parents, my family. I know I'm going to have the worst birthday ever, and that's including how everyone FORGOT my 16th birthday. I remember reminding my parents. They felt bad and gave me $100. My brother got me some watch off Ebay a few days later. All my friends were on a field trip that day. Tomorrow will undoubtedly be worse. I don't foresee anything being able to break me out of the funk of losing my parents, and I doubt I'll even have a cake because I don't feel like baking one myself. ;-;
I'll just go back to being curled up crying on the couch now. Thanks for listening. -_-;
Streaming Finally!
Posted 12 years agoAfter spending HOURS trying to get Livestream to work, I gave up and tried "Join Me." Really, people? Join me took 30 seconds - THIRTY SECONDS - to set up and has had no problems since. Screw LS. Join me!
https://join.me/299-648-832
Currently working on Andrekek's ref sheet (the SFW version, maybe the NSFW one later.).
https://join.me/299-648-832
Currently working on
Andrekek's ref sheet (the SFW version, maybe the NSFW one later.).What's going on?! ... Where we're at.
Posted 12 years agoI apologize if I've been slow to respond and haven't gotten any work done this week. We've been super busy with settling Dad's affairs. As it turns out, Dad owned two houses, an RV, 3 cars, and an annuity. He also had over $100k in debt we now have to get rid of. The RV was already up for sale, and the house in KY will be going up for sale soon. One car got sold, the other two are now ours (one already had my name on it).
Funny thing that. When we went to change the car insurance from Dad's name to ours, we found out it was CHEAPER to have two cars than one. Dad's old SUV is hardly worth more than it would be for parts at this point, so it has very bare minimum coverage. Apparently Allstate's "multi-car discount" is more than the cost of the insurance on the truck. Go figure. We didn't think we could afford two cars. Turns out, we can't afford one car. Even with the discount, our insurance went up by 50% without Dad, and we really couldn't afford it before. =(
My phone was also still on Dad's family plan which has been cancelled. I managed to keep my number by switching to Cricket before ATT cancelled the plan. But now my phone bill is $35/month higher as well. X.x
As a slight reprieve, the internet is now cheaper. We are done using the crappy Cricket dongle. We had Dad's internet moved here, and they gave us a special such that it's only $20/month for the first 3 months. So until that's up, our internet bill went down by $15. Every little bit helps. -am dying here-
Thankfully we already gave away most of Dad's pets. But we still have the two cats, Timmy and Little Bitt. Now, our apartment will allow us to have 3 pets (not include Jade, because birds and pets in cages apparently don't count and don't require a deposit). We have our two dogs, so we went ahead and brought Timmy here. So now we have a cat. Yay.
The reason we didn't want to do that and hadn't already done this is because Ragnar is very allergic to cats! He's been having trouble breathing ever since, and that's just with ONE cat. The cats at Dad's were mine, but I gave them to Dad when I first moved in with Travis because of his allergy. I bought Little Bitt and found Timmy. I love them both dearly and don't want to lose them. I think I've lost enough, goddammit. >.=.<
The big issue that is left now is the house. Dad's house is willed to me, but it hasn't been signed over to me yet. If it gets signed over to us, we're responsible for paying the $84,000 debt owed on it as well. If we keep the house, we can keep the cats, our stuff in the house, the furniture in the house, and our immobile assets in the yard (including a forge and table sander). We would be getting a $100k house for $80k, and most of that would be paid off up front with our share of Dad's inheritance whatnot. Sounds like a great deal, right?
Well, the problem with this great deal is that we can't get a mortgage even for the $20k difference. Ragnar's credit is horribly ruined from medical expenses he couldn't pay when he didn't have insurance, the biggest being when some idiot stabbed him in the chest over his last $20 right after he got home from the Army. When Ragnar literally beat the guy to a pulp, the guy's family tried to sue for "excessive force" which forced him to incur legal fees he obviously couldn't pay. The charges on both sides were dropped, but it left Ragnar with $70k in medical debt (from having his lung re-inflated) and then legal fee debt. He told both he would never be able to pay them and left it at that. That was over 6 years ago, but it will still be on his credit score for another year. That's right. In a YEAR Ragnar's credit would be good enough to get a $150k mortgage. WTF life?!
Another wonderful part of this is that I have great credit and could get the mortgage myself if I had a job. But wait - I'm disabled! And I'm still waiting to get a reply from the government on my disability application. Of course.
We really need to come up with at least $20k to save our house. Or we need to find someone to take Little Bitt. I love her to death, but we just can't have any more pets here. =( Besides, I'm pretty sure Ragnar would suffocate upon walking in the door if we had both cats here. x.=.x
All this. All this and more. All I can think to say to describe events right now is this...
FML.
Funny thing that. When we went to change the car insurance from Dad's name to ours, we found out it was CHEAPER to have two cars than one. Dad's old SUV is hardly worth more than it would be for parts at this point, so it has very bare minimum coverage. Apparently Allstate's "multi-car discount" is more than the cost of the insurance on the truck. Go figure. We didn't think we could afford two cars. Turns out, we can't afford one car. Even with the discount, our insurance went up by 50% without Dad, and we really couldn't afford it before. =(
My phone was also still on Dad's family plan which has been cancelled. I managed to keep my number by switching to Cricket before ATT cancelled the plan. But now my phone bill is $35/month higher as well. X.x
As a slight reprieve, the internet is now cheaper. We are done using the crappy Cricket dongle. We had Dad's internet moved here, and they gave us a special such that it's only $20/month for the first 3 months. So until that's up, our internet bill went down by $15. Every little bit helps. -am dying here-
Thankfully we already gave away most of Dad's pets. But we still have the two cats, Timmy and Little Bitt. Now, our apartment will allow us to have 3 pets (not include Jade, because birds and pets in cages apparently don't count and don't require a deposit). We have our two dogs, so we went ahead and brought Timmy here. So now we have a cat. Yay.
The reason we didn't want to do that and hadn't already done this is because Ragnar is very allergic to cats! He's been having trouble breathing ever since, and that's just with ONE cat. The cats at Dad's were mine, but I gave them to Dad when I first moved in with Travis because of his allergy. I bought Little Bitt and found Timmy. I love them both dearly and don't want to lose them. I think I've lost enough, goddammit. >.=.<
The big issue that is left now is the house. Dad's house is willed to me, but it hasn't been signed over to me yet. If it gets signed over to us, we're responsible for paying the $84,000 debt owed on it as well. If we keep the house, we can keep the cats, our stuff in the house, the furniture in the house, and our immobile assets in the yard (including a forge and table sander). We would be getting a $100k house for $80k, and most of that would be paid off up front with our share of Dad's inheritance whatnot. Sounds like a great deal, right?
Well, the problem with this great deal is that we can't get a mortgage even for the $20k difference. Ragnar's credit is horribly ruined from medical expenses he couldn't pay when he didn't have insurance, the biggest being when some idiot stabbed him in the chest over his last $20 right after he got home from the Army. When Ragnar literally beat the guy to a pulp, the guy's family tried to sue for "excessive force" which forced him to incur legal fees he obviously couldn't pay. The charges on both sides were dropped, but it left Ragnar with $70k in medical debt (from having his lung re-inflated) and then legal fee debt. He told both he would never be able to pay them and left it at that. That was over 6 years ago, but it will still be on his credit score for another year. That's right. In a YEAR Ragnar's credit would be good enough to get a $150k mortgage. WTF life?!
Another wonderful part of this is that I have great credit and could get the mortgage myself if I had a job. But wait - I'm disabled! And I'm still waiting to get a reply from the government on my disability application. Of course.
We really need to come up with at least $20k to save our house. Or we need to find someone to take Little Bitt. I love her to death, but we just can't have any more pets here. =( Besides, I'm pretty sure Ragnar would suffocate upon walking in the door if we had both cats here. x.=.x
All this. All this and more. All I can think to say to describe events right now is this...
FML.
How I feel after returning from my father's funeral...
Posted 12 years agoAm still... Out of it. Have gotten almost nothing done. Gotta do this paperwork I just got for disability benefits. Am still... in a daze, I guess. Still catching up on my messages... Nothing really important... I kinda blew a lot of them off. Kinda just want to... sleep... do nothing... idk... cry? Have been really angry today... It's how I cope with being sad. Idk what to do... We may or may not have a house soon. We'd have to take out a mortgage to pay off a house that was already willed to me because the debt on it has to be paid... My sister said we'd talk about the house tomorrow when she's home and settled... maybe she has some better ideas... I really don't know what's going on anymore... I just feel really sad and lonely and vulnerable without... without Dad there... -cries- We argued a lot, but he was always there when I needed something... always made me feel safe... like I'd have somewhere to go back to if anything bad happened... Even after Mom died almost exactly five years ago... I just... I feel like an orphan. ;-;
All this paperwork just reminds me how mentally deficient I am... and how much I need someone to care for me... If something happened to my husband right now, I'd have no home, no money, no income, no hope of income... and a baby and pets to take care of... I wouldn't eat, I wouldn't clean myself, I wouldn't leave the apartment... I'd just... sit here... and wait for someone to take me away... or... starve... or sleep until I don't wake up... I didn't just lose my father. I lost one of two people who could ever motivate me to care about myself... or anything, really... I feel a part of me died with him; a part that will never heal and never go away that will forever leave me feeling hollow inside... Like everything up to this point has somehow been a dream.
We are on the verge of a new beginning. But where is the line between remembering the past and clinging to it desperately as the last remaining lifeline? ... Where is the line you cross from moving on with your life to forgetting where you came from? How do I move forward when my footing has been removed and I feel as though I am falling through a bottomless abyss into nothingness?
If Dad were here... He'd know how to fix things... He always knew how to fix things... Everything is broken now without you here... I love you, Daddy... I will never stop missing you...
All this paperwork just reminds me how mentally deficient I am... and how much I need someone to care for me... If something happened to my husband right now, I'd have no home, no money, no income, no hope of income... and a baby and pets to take care of... I wouldn't eat, I wouldn't clean myself, I wouldn't leave the apartment... I'd just... sit here... and wait for someone to take me away... or... starve... or sleep until I don't wake up... I didn't just lose my father. I lost one of two people who could ever motivate me to care about myself... or anything, really... I feel a part of me died with him; a part that will never heal and never go away that will forever leave me feeling hollow inside... Like everything up to this point has somehow been a dream.
We are on the verge of a new beginning. But where is the line between remembering the past and clinging to it desperately as the last remaining lifeline? ... Where is the line you cross from moving on with your life to forgetting where you came from? How do I move forward when my footing has been removed and I feel as though I am falling through a bottomless abyss into nothingness?
If Dad were here... He'd know how to fix things... He always knew how to fix things... Everything is broken now without you here... I love you, Daddy... I will never stop missing you...
My father just died...
Posted 13 years agoAfter having a fever of 104 all day, my father finally passed just now with my sister there at his side. I will be gone or only online for a limited amount for the next week or so as we arrange and go to his funeral in Georgia. He'll have a viewing here in a day or two. Text me for details (or pm if you can't... but can't guarantee I'll check it...). Thank you to you all...
To end on a more positive note, we now own a home (once we figure out how to pay it off) and will be moving within the next month...
._.
To end on a more positive note, we now own a home (once we figure out how to pay it off) and will be moving within the next month...
._.
What a day...
Posted 13 years agoFor anyone who has been listening to all this, my father went into the ER last night. We waited for 4 hours to be called in, and then another 3 for him to be actually admitted to the hospital. x.=.x I got home and fell asleep about 1:30am. Thankfully my sister stayed with him and helped him get everything taken care of, because he wasn't in an actual room until 2am. Now, that's not usually /too/ late for me, but today was an exception. Today I had to be up at 6am to take my sister to the airport. She went back to Pennsylvania with no idea when/if she will be back. But, at least Dad has someone to care for him. This all started because Dad was so weak yesterday he could barely walk and had fallen several more times. My sister said she could not leave in good conscience knowing he'd be there alone. She did find a home for his small dog, Buddy, and I found someone to watch Baby and the cats for now (Thanks, Amanda! =,D). We still would like to find a home for at least Baby. There may be a shelter that will take her, but I'd have to drive her all the way to Shawnee, which we really can't afford. x.=.x
Moving to today, I took my sister to the airport, and the GPS got us lost twice. She barely made her flight, but she made it out (it got delayed). Then I had to drive /back/ to Del City (with Eevee, no less) to take care of Dad's pets and pick up stuff for Dad. I went to see Dad, stopped by to see Amanda and give her keys/details, went back to Dad's house to get more stuff, went back to see Dad, and I just now got home (roughly 5:30pm). That's not even the best part...
When I first got to the hospital to visit Dad, he had me sit right up next to him and held my hands. He started crying and told me his cancer doctor had been in that morning. They had done some tests, and the doctor said his liver was "eaten up with cancer" and had swollen to almost double its normal size. He told him he only had three to six months left to live, there was nothing they could do for him, and he would get progressively weaker until he "fell asleep" and didn't wake up. I reminded Dad that at least he would not be in too much pain, and he still has most of his mental capacities - unlike Mom by this point. I called and messaged several people. So far, it looks like the hospital can only keep him in hospice for a week and will then send him to a nursing home where hospice will come by once a day to check on him. Insurance does not cover this, and it will set him/us back nearly $5k a month. =,( To top that, his funeral will be in Georgia, so we'll have to take a week off work and figure out how to afford getting there. ;.=.;
If anyone wants a shepherd/husky mix or one of our two cats, PLEASE let me know. Travis is allergic to cats, and we can't have another pet here. I can't afford to keep going back and forth to take care of them, and I hate having to ask our friends to keep watching them for us. They need owners who can give them love and attention. If anyone is interested, here's some old pics I posted:
Little Bitt: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2463802/
Timmy: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2463765/
Baby: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1917625/
Little Bitt is mildly retarded. She doesn't like strangers and hid under my bed for a week when I bought her. Once she gets to know you though, she is very loving. In fact, she will bite you if you ignore her pleas for pets. She does not like being picked up. Both cats are indoors-only, declawed, and fixed. Timmy is our "stoner cat." He really doesn't care about much of anything. He does like to play with and steal hair ties, hide in boxes, and bury his face in anything with catnip. Baby is somewhere around 10 I think. Her eyes are bad because of a genetic problem similar to arthritis (her antibodies see her corneas as a virus and try to eat them). She has to have daily prescription steroid eye drops or her eyes get sore, red, and eventually cloudy white. She hates cats and other female dogs. She has always been fine around males. She is likewise fixed. She may have whipworms and needs to see a vet, but neither of us can afford that right now. x.=.x
I am absolutely exhausted... so is Eevee... but instead of sleeping, she is refusing to stop screaming. >.=.< I've had a chicken biscuit and a banana today... I'm gonna go eat and sleep now... I'll answer messages later/tomorrow... Goodnight...
TL;DR: Dad's doctor gave him 3-6 months. Been a long day. Someone take these pets! D=
Moving to today, I took my sister to the airport, and the GPS got us lost twice. She barely made her flight, but she made it out (it got delayed). Then I had to drive /back/ to Del City (with Eevee, no less) to take care of Dad's pets and pick up stuff for Dad. I went to see Dad, stopped by to see Amanda and give her keys/details, went back to Dad's house to get more stuff, went back to see Dad, and I just now got home (roughly 5:30pm). That's not even the best part...
When I first got to the hospital to visit Dad, he had me sit right up next to him and held my hands. He started crying and told me his cancer doctor had been in that morning. They had done some tests, and the doctor said his liver was "eaten up with cancer" and had swollen to almost double its normal size. He told him he only had three to six months left to live, there was nothing they could do for him, and he would get progressively weaker until he "fell asleep" and didn't wake up. I reminded Dad that at least he would not be in too much pain, and he still has most of his mental capacities - unlike Mom by this point. I called and messaged several people. So far, it looks like the hospital can only keep him in hospice for a week and will then send him to a nursing home where hospice will come by once a day to check on him. Insurance does not cover this, and it will set him/us back nearly $5k a month. =,( To top that, his funeral will be in Georgia, so we'll have to take a week off work and figure out how to afford getting there. ;.=.;
If anyone wants a shepherd/husky mix or one of our two cats, PLEASE let me know. Travis is allergic to cats, and we can't have another pet here. I can't afford to keep going back and forth to take care of them, and I hate having to ask our friends to keep watching them for us. They need owners who can give them love and attention. If anyone is interested, here's some old pics I posted:
Little Bitt: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2463802/
Timmy: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2463765/
Baby: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1917625/
Little Bitt is mildly retarded. She doesn't like strangers and hid under my bed for a week when I bought her. Once she gets to know you though, she is very loving. In fact, she will bite you if you ignore her pleas for pets. She does not like being picked up. Both cats are indoors-only, declawed, and fixed. Timmy is our "stoner cat." He really doesn't care about much of anything. He does like to play with and steal hair ties, hide in boxes, and bury his face in anything with catnip. Baby is somewhere around 10 I think. Her eyes are bad because of a genetic problem similar to arthritis (her antibodies see her corneas as a virus and try to eat them). She has to have daily prescription steroid eye drops or her eyes get sore, red, and eventually cloudy white. She hates cats and other female dogs. She has always been fine around males. She is likewise fixed. She may have whipworms and needs to see a vet, but neither of us can afford that right now. x.=.x
I am absolutely exhausted... so is Eevee... but instead of sleeping, she is refusing to stop screaming. >.=.< I've had a chicken biscuit and a banana today... I'm gonna go eat and sleep now... I'll answer messages later/tomorrow... Goodnight...
TL;DR: Dad's doctor gave him 3-6 months. Been a long day. Someone take these pets! D=
Dad's dying... Help?
Posted 13 years agoHe went to the oncologist today and just got back. He has a PET scan Friday to see how bad the cancer is, but his doctors have told him he is just too weak to survive surgery or chemo. He only had one gallstone, but that's enough to be horribly painful. The cancer is all over his liver and may be on his colon again as well. No telling where else it has spread to. I wish they would have just admitted him to the hospital. I don't have a car to get there until Ragnar is off, and we can't just up and leave anyway. We cannot currently afford the gas to drive there and back every day to get Ragnar to work, let alone feed and care for Dad. I hate being at his house, but we've got to take care of his animals too. I really need to find homes for them or at least find someone to babysit them. =( We can't have more animals here, but without them, maybe we could have Dad stay here a while (which I know Ragnar will protest, but my fucking siblings still won't come out to help).
TL;DR: Dad's dying of cancer, and there's nothing we can do. We need money for gas, food, and pet food for him. Free cats and dogs to good homes.
PayPal: shayla1[at]sbcglobal.net
I'm behind on my commissions as is, but we really do need all the help we can get. I can't promise to draw everyone art, but maybe you guys could spread this as a raffle and I'll at least pick a "winner" at random and draw them some art? =,(
EDIT: My sister is flying out tomorrow finally. That should help me a lot... So maybe we can do this now that she's helping. I just don't know if we can afford to fly to GA for his funeral. Maybe one of my siblings can help... x.=.x
TL;DR: Dad's dying of cancer, and there's nothing we can do. We need money for gas, food, and pet food for him. Free cats and dogs to good homes.
PayPal: shayla1[at]sbcglobal.net
I'm behind on my commissions as is, but we really do need all the help we can get. I can't promise to draw everyone art, but maybe you guys could spread this as a raffle and I'll at least pick a "winner" at random and draw them some art? =,(
EDIT: My sister is flying out tomorrow finally. That should help me a lot... So maybe we can do this now that she's helping. I just don't know if we can afford to fly to GA for his funeral. Maybe one of my siblings can help... x.=.x
Update on Dad...
Posted 13 years agoSo for those who are interested, here's a update on Dad's health and whatnot. He sees his cancer doctor tomorrow, so we may know more tomorrow afternoon. In the meantime, we do know Dad has cancer on his liver. He got his CAT scan results back Friday morning. It's been a long weekend. X.=.x
Dad's family doctor said it looks like the colon cancer he had in 2005 is back and has spread across his liver. His previous cancer was on his colon and attached to his intestine. It was the size of a softball when they removed it. Then he went through 12 rounds of chemo that made him lose sixty pounds, not want to eat, and generally feel like crap. Since defeating his cancer back then he has become severely diabetic. Severely. I mean three shots of insulin a day, one before every meal, and pills at night to help keep his blood sugar stable. Normal is 100. When he found out he was diabetic, he went to the ER at 1255! His blood was syrup. =/
Dad can barely get out of bed now. He doesn't do anything for himself or his animals. We need to find homes for two dogs and two cats, so PLEASE let me know if you or someone you know might be interested in them. We can't afford to drive up and down the road every day to care for his pets and ours. x.=.x
Dad called us at 3am on Friday to ask us to drive there and help him off the floor. He had fallen out of bed at 10pm, decided he was just too tired to get up, slept on the floor, and then woke up at 3. He called us then because he had to go to the bathroom. Not because, you know, he was stuck laying in the floor for hours, couldn't get up, and had bruises all down his arm. After keeping us up for an hour worrying, he managed to get the dog in the room so his friend Dan could get to him (scared of dogs...) and help him up. For the second night in a row, I got almost no sleep.
Saturday was Eevee's first birthday! We took her and Dad to Cici's for lunch to celebrate. That was fine until we went to leave. Dad could not get himself to his feet from sitting in the booth. Ragnar (my husband) tried to lift him up and couldn't. Anyone who knows Ragnar knows that is no small feat. We had to ask a cop who was there eating and walked up to help us get Dad up and to the car. Once Dad was standing, he could walk fine and walked on his own out to the car. He said he has trouble getting up and it makes his stomach hurt. He was actually pointing to his liver, so I'm fairly certain the cancer is affecting his ab muscles and preventing him from lifting himself to his feet. I don't know if it's because the cancer(s) are pushing on the muscles or if it's already spread to them, but he can't get up on his own once he is lower down than a high-sitting chair.
I have no idea what to do anymore. My family has outright refused to come out here and help us. Instead of rushing to this state to help their father when he's dying - and he has convinced himself rightly so that he is - they all told me to "deal with it." My sister's exact words were that I needed to "be involved." Involved? I've been driving 30 minutes each way every day to his house to feed and walk his dogs, feed and clean up after his cats, and make him whatever food we can scrape up. Dad was going to food pantries to get expired food to live off of, but now he can't get up long enough to do that. We can't afford to feed him or the gas to keep driving there every day. We could really use any help we can get at this point... -.=.-;;
Dad's family doctor said it looks like the colon cancer he had in 2005 is back and has spread across his liver. His previous cancer was on his colon and attached to his intestine. It was the size of a softball when they removed it. Then he went through 12 rounds of chemo that made him lose sixty pounds, not want to eat, and generally feel like crap. Since defeating his cancer back then he has become severely diabetic. Severely. I mean three shots of insulin a day, one before every meal, and pills at night to help keep his blood sugar stable. Normal is 100. When he found out he was diabetic, he went to the ER at 1255! His blood was syrup. =/
Dad can barely get out of bed now. He doesn't do anything for himself or his animals. We need to find homes for two dogs and two cats, so PLEASE let me know if you or someone you know might be interested in them. We can't afford to drive up and down the road every day to care for his pets and ours. x.=.x
Dad called us at 3am on Friday to ask us to drive there and help him off the floor. He had fallen out of bed at 10pm, decided he was just too tired to get up, slept on the floor, and then woke up at 3. He called us then because he had to go to the bathroom. Not because, you know, he was stuck laying in the floor for hours, couldn't get up, and had bruises all down his arm. After keeping us up for an hour worrying, he managed to get the dog in the room so his friend Dan could get to him (scared of dogs...) and help him up. For the second night in a row, I got almost no sleep.
Saturday was Eevee's first birthday! We took her and Dad to Cici's for lunch to celebrate. That was fine until we went to leave. Dad could not get himself to his feet from sitting in the booth. Ragnar (my husband) tried to lift him up and couldn't. Anyone who knows Ragnar knows that is no small feat. We had to ask a cop who was there eating and walked up to help us get Dad up and to the car. Once Dad was standing, he could walk fine and walked on his own out to the car. He said he has trouble getting up and it makes his stomach hurt. He was actually pointing to his liver, so I'm fairly certain the cancer is affecting his ab muscles and preventing him from lifting himself to his feet. I don't know if it's because the cancer(s) are pushing on the muscles or if it's already spread to them, but he can't get up on his own once he is lower down than a high-sitting chair.
I have no idea what to do anymore. My family has outright refused to come out here and help us. Instead of rushing to this state to help their father when he's dying - and he has convinced himself rightly so that he is - they all told me to "deal with it." My sister's exact words were that I needed to "be involved." Involved? I've been driving 30 minutes each way every day to his house to feed and walk his dogs, feed and clean up after his cats, and make him whatever food we can scrape up. Dad was going to food pantries to get expired food to live off of, but now he can't get up long enough to do that. We can't afford to feed him or the gas to keep driving there every day. We could really use any help we can get at this point... -.=.-;;
Some interesting test scores...
Posted 13 years agoCongratulations!
You scored a 74 on the Mensa Home Test.
Scores between 73 and 80 are above the 98th percentile and indicate an approximate IQ range between 132 and 151. This high score indicates a strong possibility that you may qualify for membership in Mensa!
Free this month, btw: http://joinmensa.org/mhto_form.cfm
I'm smart. Very smart. >.=.> And yet...
You scored a 38/50.
32 - 50 is very high (most people with Asperger Syndrome or high-functioning autism score about 35)
50 is maximum
Test: http://aq.server8.org/
The internet tells me I am a genius with Autism. My therapist has denied that I have Autism more than once, but I think I'll show her this. 6.=.6;; Maybe she doesn't know me as well as she thinks she does. X.=.x
You scored a 74 on the Mensa Home Test.
Scores between 73 and 80 are above the 98th percentile and indicate an approximate IQ range between 132 and 151. This high score indicates a strong possibility that you may qualify for membership in Mensa!
Free this month, btw: http://joinmensa.org/mhto_form.cfm
I'm smart. Very smart. >.=.> And yet...
You scored a 38/50.
32 - 50 is very high (most people with Asperger Syndrome or high-functioning autism score about 35)
50 is maximum
Test: http://aq.server8.org/
The internet tells me I am a genius with Autism. My therapist has denied that I have Autism more than once, but I think I'll show her this. 6.=.6;; Maybe she doesn't know me as well as she thinks she does. X.=.x
