Hello everyone! I've been absent online for a chunk of time, and I'm ready to give out an update.

Warning for mentions of Covid and needles

So I had to take a bit of an unplanned leave for a couple weeks, which put my streaming and commission work to a halt. As some of you know, around mid-April I was down with what I thought was the flu, but a couple days into feeling ill, it was confirmed to be Covid after all. I won't go into detail, but I got pretty damn sick. Fortunately, I did not need hospitalization, and after a lot of rest and care, I am mostly back to normal. My sense of taste and smell are a little altered, but not terribly, and I have a lingering cough. These lasting symptoms are still in the range of normal for the timeline of when I was sick, so it may still pass entirely. My fingers are crossed that I don't end up living with my sense of taste altered forever.

Due to this extended leave, I am now distressingly short on funds, since I am self-employed doing art full time. I am displeased to say I will need to take more commissions for my queue than I would otherwise be comfortable with, in order to make ends meet. I will be planning out my work week very carefully, and will try to push through and get back to a normal queue size as soon as possible. My estimate is that I should be back to a normal, smaller queue in 3 months. I am sorry to be "that artist", who ends up taking on more projects when there are still projects being worked on, but I can assure you this will not be a norm for me. Thank you for your understanding.

This does mean that I now have to wait until mid-August to get my vaccine, which is frustrating. That leads to my other reason for being scarce online; the vaccine. For my whole life I have had trypanophobia, a severe fear of needles. Yes, I know "nobody likes needles", but this isn't a simple case of disliking them. I have a very extreme reaction to seeing injections performed, talking about them too long, etc. My reaction is called vasovagal syncope; my body overreacts to a trigger (needles) and my heart rate and blood pressure drop suddenly, I faint, go into a seizure-like fit (it's not an actual seizure, but it's visually similar), I wake up with short-term memory loss for about a minute, vomit, and then have to stay laying down for at least 30 minutes, often much longer, otherwise I am often likely to have a repeat of the attack. It's incredibly unpleasant, painful, and disruptive. All this to say, because of this stupidly intense reaction to even talk and pictures of needles, being online right now has been hellish. Everyone is talking about getting vaccinated, showing pictures of of their bandages, and showing ads with injections being performed. I have had to limit my interactions with most online social settings, and I have to be very conscious of any monitors in stores or offices I visit (everywhere seems to love showing the actual injection process).

Just to be clear, I am absolutely not anti-vaccine. Vaccines are so vital and I sincerely hope each one of you that is able is getting yours done as soon as possible. Even with my severe reaction, I will be getting mine once I'm safely able to do so. The people around you are counting on you to get this important injection, for their safety and yours. Do it.

I think that's just about everything regarding what I wanted to update with for now. Once again, thank you all for being understanding. I am excited to be healthy and safe again, and to get back to my normal art routine!