Journals182
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Updates!!
7 min read
So this probably the thirtieth time I've tried writing this and I'm not even sure if anybody is going to be reading whatever I post, but it's been more than a year since I posted an update and I think there are some things that I need to say. Before I begin, I'd like to make it very clear that a lot has changed since my last post and my situation has improved considerably, though there are some things that could get better.
As far as the situation with my dad is concerned, I was able to retrieve most of my personal belongings and my cat Bunny within a couple of weeks of posting my last update, and by last February we had fully reconciled. I did not move back in, however. It just wasn't safe with his psychopathic girlfriend still in the picture and I think he understood that. When everything went down, I don't think he was in a very sound state of mind. He just wasn't acting like he normally would and I remember his doctors telling him that his ammonia levels were high around that time, with his cirrhosis having de-compensated and all. His condition continued to worsen after I had left and by April we had learned that his cirrhosis had progressed to liver failure and that he would require a transplant to survive. Not even a week later he was hospitalized again, this time because he was encephalopathic and had had suffered a small stroke. In May I helped him move into a new apartment, since he never did move out like he said he would, but his condition had begun to decline more rapidly and it seemed like he was finding himself in and out of the hospital every other week. Between the effects of the stroke, the repeated bouts of encephalopathy, and his weakened state, he couldn't function anymore. When we saw him on his birthday in June, his condition had deteriorated to the point where he could barely remain lucid for more than a couple of minutes at a time and he literally had the appearance of a concentration camp victim. He had gotten to the point where he had become almost completely incoherent and not even two weeks after his birthday he was hospitalized again, this time for the final time. This time his kidneys had failed and he needed to be intubated in order to breath. When the doctors told him that the stroke made him ineligible for a life-saving transplant and that there was nothing they could do for him besides keep him alive artificially, he just wanted to go home and the call was made to put him into hospice care at the apartment. He died at home on June 26th, several days after being discharged, with the cause of death being listed as end stage liver disease, acute respiratory failure, and acute renal failure.
His death has been really hard on me since we were always very close and it was really painful to see his condition deteriorate as badly as it did. That being said, his girlfriend was always very abusive towards us both and did everything she could to drive a wedge between us and isolate him from his friends and family. She is literally the reason why he got so sick in the first place and under her care his condition deteriorated rapidly. And when she learned that his death was imminent, she also made every effort to clean him out through theft and fraud. After his death we learned that she attempted to use her power of attorney to declare herself as the beneficiary on his life insurance, which is considered insurance fraud, and that her power of attorney was never valid to begin with and that he never signed any such document, which also meant that she was making medical decisions on his behalf illegally. She also stole anything of value she could carry from his apartment, including our other cat, Moneypenny, and was withdrawing money from his bank account while he was on his deathbed and after he died, and was using his debit card to take herself out to eat and make purchases. She even interfered with his final arrangements, doing everything she could to prevent him from receiving a proper burial. With the help of a lawyer we were able to get most everything resolved, though we are still trying to get her to return the cat, the things she stole from his apartment, and the money she took out of his bank account. If we cannot get things settled amicably soon, we are prepared to take whatever legal action it takes.
Putting that aside, things have otherwise improved a lot for me over the past year, even if it did get off to a really rough start. I'm still living with opal-tea and I do not expect that to change anytime soon. Between my Asperger's and PTSD, it was really tough for me to adapt to my new environment, but I am now thriving. In July we visited my grandparents in Alabama, who I hadn't seen in nine years. Although we had a lot of fun while we were there, it was also a very stressful trip because of the timing and just the way my grandparents had been acting. Dealing with the fallout of my dad's death has been really stressful as well, I have a probate hearing this week actually, so things are still very much ongoing. However, we are reaching a point where we are mostly picking up lose ends. Hopefully everything will be over soon.
As for my art and writing, I am really coming out of a long drought and I am trying my best to get more productive again. Over the past few years my output has declined considerably since I've been under so much stress. I would simply start projects and never finish them. Another problem I had was that Copics had become so expensive that I could no longer afford to keep my art going and the elitist attitudes of other marker artists had really taken its toll on me, literally to the point where I didn't want to use them at all. I seriously owe it to the work of artists like Gambargin for inspiring me to draw again. Once I have a bit more time on my hands, I also think that I will be able to make some huge breakthroughs, especially with my writing. As for what I'm currently working on, I have a drawing of a Persian infantryman that I need to ink and a couple of older drawings that I'd like to revisit, and I'm making some progress on my stories, which intend to publish through print-on-demand sometime in the future. Right now it should still be a little while before I get anything new posted, but I'm definitely working on it. In the meantime, definitely check out opal-tea's gallery. She's posting a lot of really cool things right now, everything from pictures of our characters to Steven Universe fan art, and is currently working on an ambitious project that is going to absolutely blow Star vs. the Forces of Evil fans away.
Hopefully 2019 will be a year of healing, growth, and renewal for me!
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Emergency Hiatus
3 min read
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Eid Mubarak (late) and Updates
2 min read
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