hey ahit community ily guys <3

A little story about sadness, loss and ictus

Ok, I’ve decided to tell you this partly as a warning, to keep an eye on the people around you, and partly as an explanation for the groups I’m doing redraws for about my delay in doing the things I was asked for. It’s just a sad story but it may help. I’m with the flu, bored in bed (great Three Wise Men Day present from my sis...), so it’s a great time to talk about sickness. That’s why I’ll put it under a “keep reading” in case you don’t wanna read anything sad.

Let me take a look at the past first, cause it’s related to those last months of 2018.

In November 2001 one of my aunt’s on my dad’s side died suddenly. She went to the doctor and they prescribed her the wrong medicines which ended her life. I didn’t go to the funeral, I was in my exams period, but I clearly remember the face my dad wore when he came back. He was devastated, pale, he really looked as if he was somewhere else.

About a month later, I woke up to go to high school and he woke up at the same time, as he did every day. I noticed that he was still a bit unfocused and his face looked a bit weird, but gave it no importance, so we chatted and I left to pick the bus. When I came back, not my dad nor my mother were at home, but there was a note on the table saying that they left for the hospital. So I waited for my big sister to come back and we left. My mom told me that, as soon as I left the house that morning, my dad lost the ability to speak and to move the left side of his body. He suffered a cerebral ictus, a brain stroke, luckily a weak one. He couldn’t speak and for months he had to re-train his brain to be able to. Looking back on that, I think I should have dedicated more of my time to him, but I was a stupid teenager and had no time for others than myself.

In November 2002 my dad had a second ictus. My mom screaming his name woke me up. This one hit stronger. He lost his speaking again and couldn’t move at all. It exploded his femoral vein as well, so he was alive for as long as his organs received the rest of the blood and the hole in his vein expelled all that blood out of it. The most terrifying and long 10 minutes of my life. When the ambulance came, it was too late. I don’t remember much from the next days aside from one of my aunts on my mom’s side telling me I was cold and heartless as I didn’t cry. She couldn’t see I couldn’t do it cause I was in shock and not believing what was happening (I felt I was gonna see my dad on the couch when we went back home). Whatever, she has never liked me much.

Why did I tell this tale of woe? Well, history tends to repeat itself. My uncle on my mom’s side died in November 2018. He was diagnosed with cancer one month before that, it was a fast one. While it was eating his body for 4 years apparently, no doctor ever saw it. Here comes my first warning: My uncle had a lot of cancer precedents in the family, his father (who died of brain cancer), a brother and a sister (who were diagnosed at the right time and are now in constant checkups and free of it) and several cousins. Cancer has killed a lot of men in my mom’s side. In fact, her doctor always checks her cancer markers via blood tests due to this precedents. My uncle never had this tests done. 4 years ago he couldn’t breathe and he was diagnosed with pneumonia. That was apparently the first sign of the cancer. But no doctor took a moment to make a simple blood test to check his cancer markers. If you have ancestors with cancer, take a blood test with cancer markers, tell your doctor to do it, it may save your life.

So when my aunt called and said that he was already on morphine, we took a bus and left for Asturias, in the north of Spain, where they live. My big bro, sster-in-law and nephew live there as well, so we stayed with them for about 2 weeks. I spent a day in bed cause I get really carsick while my mom visited him to say goodbye and spend his last moments together, I went a few days after. My cousin Elena, who is the same age as me and was one of my great childhood friends, asked me how could I recover from my dad’s death. I said “You don’t, you learn to live with it. It will hurt you like hell today and be a distant pain tomorrow. At least you have time to say goodbye and tell him how much you love him, so do it as much as you can”. The hug she gave me still hurts.

We took a bus back on a Sunday, my mom was planning to go back for Christmas to be with him for as long as she could. The next Tuesday, my aunt called to say that he paseed away. Once more, my mom’s screams woke me up. She was obviously devastated. We started calling my aunts and uncles to plan how we were going to travel to Asturias. I got carsick again (this time was worse cause I was vomiting the whole funeral and my dear aunt criticized me for it). The family went back to Madrid the next morning, while we stayed a few more days so that I could recover.

One month later, I was in the kitchen when my mom entered saying that she felt weird. I asked her what was wrong and she said “Nothing, it’s gone now, I’m fine”. She picked the phone and called my sis while I was still asking her what was she feeling. Seeing as she didn’t answer me. I yelled at my sister saying “Try to make mom tell you what is going on with her, cause she won’t tell me”. And then all the alarms went on. She couldn’t speak properly. It wasn’t like my dad, she could speak, but she couldn’t finish some words, she stuttered a lot. So off to the hospital we went while she was in the car saying how exagerated we were and that it’ll be nothing and she’ll hit us for that. As I was in the waiting room (my sis went in with her cause she’s a nurse) I started thinking that it was history repeating itself: My aunt died in November, my dad had an ictus in December; my uncle died in November, my mom has an ictus in December. That got me worried sick and thinking (me being the negative person I am) that she only has a year left. I’ve never been in the best terms with my mom, but that doesn’t mean that I want something bad to happen to her.

In the end, it wasn’t an ictus, it was a TIA (transient ischemic attack). She has hypertension and diabetes, two factors that can lead to this. It’s very similar to an ictus anyway, though weaker and reversible. She’ll get medicated and will have to follow a new diet to eliminate the cholesterol that’s clogging a part of the arteries in her neck. Though the doctor has to check her thorough this week and she’ll have to go through several more checkups in the next months.

What I wanted to say writing this, is that you should keep and eye in your family members, friends and loved ones once they lose someone important and dear to them. Stress and sadness can lead to really important health issues. Some of them can be easily seen from a blood test (like cancer) or by body signs (ictus make one side of the mouth fall). Make sure they eat well, sleep as good as they can and are entertained. Going on walks is a very good option. Don’t let them say it’s nothing. Do all you can before it’s too late.

i forgot the password for this blog so i didn’t use it for months and now i have to catch up on everything AAAAA. i won’t post everything i drew since i last posted regularly here, so here’s just a quick overview of everything i did in 2020

january- i can’t remember if there was much good artwork, but this is a(n admittedly unfinished) photostudy! look at me drawing something that’s NOT an oc portrait. 

february- clearly i learned nothing bc it’s straight back to oc art

march- started working on a picrew, never finished it, probably never will—but it was fun while it lasted

april- probably the peak of art here. a photostudy that i’m still v v proud of

may- finished my first-ever webcomic for my senior project! i’m too afraid of cringing to look back at it and read it again, but i remember being proud of it at the time, which is what matters

june- another comic! this was a short one-page character/story exploration that i never expanded on lmao

july- drew an oc’s bedroom. after taking a perspective class later in the year, i can look back and see all the flaws lmao...but it was good practice at the time. and not an oc portrait, thank god

august- another comic! this was Yet Another one page character exploration. rather than plan out the panels from the beginning, i started by drawing out specific imagery, then fit them together in ways that matched the vibe™. it was an interesting way of making a comic and i like the outcome even still, though i think that method of comic making works best for one shots like this. imagine trying to do that for a whole series...i’d die

september- back at it again with the oc art, but i used reference this time and drew a full body, so that’s a win!

october- more like OC-tober. i tried to draw an oc every day and only got like 5 days in </3

november- in the fall i took two online art classes, one of which was a perspective class. this was for an assignment; lots of work, but very rewarding! if i could redraw this again, i’d try to make the house look more crumbled, maybe have more fun; i was really hung up on getting the perspective right, but in the future i’d like to try and have more fun with line and shapes to really emphasize a certain look.

december- closing off the year with an oc portrait. around this time + for the next few months i got tired and burnt out on art, so i’d do oc paintings with the symmetry tool on, more to relax and practice painting/color than to focus on things like learning anatomy or interesting poses or composition. it’s what it is.

im posting this in june 2021, and since then i’ve honestly just been doing oc portraits mostly. L. maybe in the future i will have energy to work on art more?? i feel a little burnt out, trying to do my monotonous soul-crushing grocery store job + freelancing as a content writer which is also monotonous and soul-crushing in a way + trying to work on writing projects of my own with absolutely no success. aaaahhh. life is so much. maybe i’ll never be a Good artist, or a professional artist, or maybe i’ll never finish any creative project and maybe i’ll never make it as a creator. maybe i’ll just work retail or become a housewife or be a poorly-paid content marketing writer for big corporations forever, and creativity will be my little escape, my fun hobby. and that’s all it will be, and that’s ok. or maybe i’ll move on to other things, change careers, stop thinking so much about my ocs because they’re a stand-in for friends more than anything, and when i'm living a busy life and getting out in the world i’ll have no need to live vicariously through these ocs and maybe then i’ll stop writing and drawing. and that’ll be ok too, right? i like writing and drawing now. even if i’m not good, if my work doesn’t mean anything or say anything, it’s something i enjoy for me. if that’s all it ever is—frivolous, self-centered, something that one day i might lay down forever and never come back to—then i’ll be glad for the time i spent drawing and writing and thinking of stories and so on, but it won’t be my whole life. and that’s ok; i’ll be ok. sorry to end this art overview with an existential crisis. i’m gonna go eat lunch. i hate spelling ok like ok and not like okay, but im too lazy to type those two extra letters. ok lunch time fr bye. also who wants to talk about my hero acedmia?? can we PLEASE talk about my hero academia. ok bye fr.