So ... it's been a while.
Quite a bit has happened.
A brief synopsis.
I've been struggling with depression and anxiety for a long time now, about seven years ago I quit deluding myself that I'd deal with it, went to my doctor and asked for help.
I wound up getting counseling at the local surgery, that helped immensely. I got out of a toxic relationship, moved into my own place and started getting my shit together.
Then the Conservatard budget cuts axed the local mental health system and counseling was cut off.
Thanks a bunch you anti-human, pig-f***ing Tory scum. We still know how to make guillotines, your time will come.
I muddled through, fighting a constant uphill battle as more cuts slashed health & welfare systems down to the bone.
In April 2018 my mother died, rather suddenly.
Shortly after my own health started deteriorating.
In early May, right after mums funeral, I went to the doctors again.
Spent the next three weeks in the Turner ward of Torbay hospital, being turned into a human pincushion.
Plus x-rays, EKGs, CT scans and being injected with radiation & shoved in a high energy scanner (didn't activate my latent X-gene. Still pissed about that)
6th June 2018 I was officially diagnosed with stage 3(b) classical Hodgkins Lymphoma.
8th June I started ABVD regime chemotherapy.
Six months of total suck. All my hair fell out. Head hair, facial hair, eyebrows. Even bum hair. All of it.
Skin went tissue thin and extremely sensitive. Thankfully no nausea, it would appear that I have cast iron guts.
Don't get me started on the constipation. It was like crapping a family size can of deodorant coated in concrete & broken glass. Blunt end first.
Every. Single. Day. (They don't mention that in the information booklets the hospital gives you)
Much pain. On a good day it would feel like I'd been run over by a car and then the bastard had backed up. On a bad day it felt like they'd used a bus.
15th Jan 2019 my last PET scan - more injected radiation & high energy scanning (Still no X-gene activation mutter grumble)
25th Jan phone call from my consultant. She's reviewed the results of my scan and there is no trace of cancer anywhere in my body.
I'd been given a 50-60% chance of remission, and I'd done it. Total metabolic remission.
That called for a cuppa, stiff upper lip and all that :D
Next came a year of healing up the damage that chemo had done and regrowing all the muscle mass that cancer had burned away.
Not my idea of fun, but along the way I learned to use Sketchup, Blender & Daz Studio to keep myself within shouting distance of sane.
One year of post-cancer checkups, still cancer free, I start looking for full time employment and getting my art groove back on ...
... and the world decides to start a live action re-enactment of Steven Kings The Stand.
Seriously?
tl,dr - shit happened, I didn't die because I'm too gorram pretty, I hate right wing asshats with a burning passion.