Ups and Downs

If it isn't overly obvious, I haven't been drawing, coloring, or posting as often as I normally do.

It's been one of those weeks.

First and foremost, my girlfriend's...ummm...girlie doctor discovered a lump in one of her breast several weeks ago. After the standard battery of tests, several mammograms, and two weeks worth of waiting the doc concluded that she had nothing to worry about....that was Monday.

This past Wedsnesday, if the stress of waiting for test results to come back weren't enough, she fell at at work and broke her ankle. Not a normal break, but rather the zero weight-baring spiral fracture kind. So, she gets to look forward to six to twelve weeks of hydrocodone induced haze and endless wakeful hours of pure boredom and reruns. Personally, I've broken my ankle much more severely than her's (motorcycles and inattentive, cell phone-wielding soccer moms in minivans don't mix) and have a tolerance for pain that any Gitmo torturer would be proud of....errrr, I mean captured enemy combatant interviewer. She however, has zero tolerance for pain in any way, shape, or form....a stubbed toe will send her into agony and fits of wailing bloody murder.

Yesterday however, was the blind-siding bomb shell, so to speak. My father, now in his late sixties, had a minor stoke this time last year. It was so minor that, unless he pointed it out to you, one wouldn't be able to tell that he was effected in any degree. I however, noticed the slight (almost imperceptible) slur in his words and a little tremor in his hands right away....he is my dad after all. A stroke in any magnitude opens one up to other long-term neurological disorders such as early onset dementia and....Parkinson's Disease (PD). Yes, that would be the same disorder that Michael J. Fox suffers from. His doctor(s) diagnosed him with it Monday and had him on a medication that would reduce its effect the same day....the tremors in his hands went away almost instantly. Fortunately I suppose, they diagnosed it relatively early....a year would be a fairly short period of time considering that PD can take years and even decades for it's symptoms to become apparent.

Yeah, it's been a week of ups and downs.

As for deviantART and any hopes of my account being reinstated, DA seems to be (not surprisingly) dragging it's heels in passing the case review from one moderator to another....after calling one out as having a lack of business etiquette and objectivity. Given this past weeks events...DA, drawing, coloring, and bullshitting around on various art / toon related sites is on the back burner.