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Bear with me, okay? These past months have been more tangled than Your a** and Caitlyn in their preggie pic. xd Let me try to get out the facts in a sort of list, and hope I make some sense.
The timeline:
In mid-June, I had a scheduled semi-hiatus from Gaia. Ian was coming down from college (in Vermont, I'm in Ohio) for a month, after not seeing him for almost half a year. heart Love-buggie.
On June 20th, after nearly half a year of employment, my restaurant decided to shut down without notifying me. Ian found out the hard way several days later, when he went to get us lunch.
Now, our monthly expenses....that is, my aunt and I, I help her stay independent....are a little over $1700. Her disability pension is a little over $1200. We have the very low end of three digits in savings.
See the problem?
I qualified for unemployment due to lack of work, but unemployment paid about half of what I was earning. Things tightened down hard. And somewhere in there, my aunt stopped taking her medication in secret. Medication for things like blood pressure and fluid retention, as her arthritic leg has been known to swell to twice its size.
About a month later, I found a job at last. It was paying less than what I had been earning, but it was more than unemployment. It had no medical insurance, but I rarely get sick, anyway.
My aunt was still not taking her meds.
I got a call from her one day at work, frantic. She was having severe back pain, and was throwing up in the extreme. The doctor thought it might be back spasms of some kind, that Pepto Bismol might help ( eek ), but it didn't. We called an ambulance, and she went to the emergency room.
The doctors found four things. One, she had a staghorn kidney stone, bigger than a nickel, that was blocking some kidney functions. Two, since she'd not been taking her meds, she had gained nearly 30 pounds in what proved to be fluid retention. Three, she had a wound on her leg from the extra water, and it was infected. And four, like my father....she had developed diabetes.
Now, Fran is the only relative I have left. Our family was always small and close-knit.....and now, we're the last two. I've never been on my own before. I was taking care of my dad since high school, as diabetes slowly took him from me. He died Thanksgiving of 2001. Without Fran, I'm alone, blood-wise. Financially, I would be on the street. Our combined incomes make us middle-class, my monthly salary alone makes me a welfare case.
And did I mention I love her, very much?
My job at that time were merciless bastards about this. Asking to leave early received mutterings from coworkers of times THEY didn't get to go with their family to see a sick loved one. Just one catch. Fran is the only family I have left. She was alone and scared at the hospital....scared of just about everything, as you're about to read.
In the hospital, the doctors wanted to perform a surgery called a stint to remove the stone.
She refused. There were slight risks....her poor circulation, hypertension, weight, and now diabetes, but major enough for her. My aunt is also terrified of anasthetic. I knew that, she told me the harrowing tale of her getting her tonsils out in the 60s, fighting the mask going over her face.
But I didn't know this stint was considered by the doctors to be the only way to truly get that stone gone. She lied to me when I visited, said something called lipotricy (spelling?) could break it up without putting her under. Put her in a tub of water, zap her with soundwaves, stone breaks small enough to pass. It sounded right, at first. But when she came home, and was still a listless mess, throwing up most of her meals, and no concrete time for the procedure, I knew something wasn't right.
And so, I found out. In truth, the doctors had determined the stone was too big to pass, too big to likely break up with lipotricy. She would be risking kidney failure and nursing homes if it remained.
She still refused.
I lost control completely. I would cry at the slightest thing, and feel the urge every time I was confronted by even a minor problem to curl up under covers and hide. I was eventually prescribed sedatives....and you probably read the interesting effect those had.
Please understand this was an ongoing agony, day to day, week to week. It is still a blur to try to recall with any detail. Worry. Work I hated. Sickness for my aunt, sickness for myself. Rinse, repeat, hang my nerves out to dry. Argue, worry, worry, argue.
Internet was a vital link to Ian during that time, and other friends, on Gaia and off. Indeed, I posted on the forum, and indeed, I bought pets. It was a grasp for relief, something that required little effort for enjoyment than a pretty picture and the miracle pressed meat called lovely spam. It mystifies me that some now make a sinister connection between buying those pets and imagined scamming. I bought them knowing I had every intention of doing right by my GMFC patients. I knew somehow I would snap out of it. I just hadn't found the way how.
Baneful said it better than I could: pressuring PMs I didn't know how to answer. I thought I had proven my good faith with all the art I had cranked out in timely fashion before. Karma, who has been such a good friend through so much, became my buffer to the pressure, and I communicated my difficulty or such through her. She offered to color any sketches of appies I could do.
But I couldn't do them. I tried. The life was gone from them, and drawing happiness only brought me to tears. Like I said, I could fake a xd on posts. I can't with my art.
My aunt finally, reluctantly, with much frightened arguing, agreed to at least try this lipotricy, despite the fact it too involved anasthetic. It was the day before my aunt was to go in I made my last journal post, because if anything happened to her, threats of banning would be moot. I'd have nowhere to hook my computer without a home, and I doubt I would feel like drawing for who knows how long.
But, there is a happy turn to this part of the story, at least. The slight risks didn't happen. The crisis is good as literally flushed down the toilet. I joygasmed out five appie sketches in an hour that same day.
Now, to the recent events. Indeed, I chose to cease direct contact with Kamiki. All of what you read being reduced to "had a rough patch" frankly boggled and angered me. I felt progressively like getting art from me was all that mattered, despite just Kamiki moving had put GMFC on hiatus at one point, despite having seen apps take every bit as long or longer to produce. Perhaps I am still sensitive after this long ordeal, but if I did not respect her insistence I speak to her directly, she did not respect my wish for some peace. The lines of communication were never closed.....only sent through another party.
However, I never refused refunds. Only -FULL- refunds, as I have done a deal of art for the GMFC I consider to be the best of my ability. That she has twisted that into a lie to make herself a martyr speaks far more of herself than it does of me.
Caroline, Alatariel, Nio Love, and JadeEye all wanted to keep me as their artist, to finish what I started. I have yet to contact Your a** and Seeno, but Seeno was aware of the early stages of this RL explosion. They, who are the paying customers Kamiki swears in all caps not to disappoint. She refused them, instead threatening me with banishment from Gaia if I don't cough up that oh-so-precious pixel gold. It seems truly revenge is the thing here, not the disappointed customers.
I hope she NEVER goes through something like I did with one she loves....or if she does, she has far more support than she showed me.
If I am banned, I at least go knowing I had my priorities straight....despite bolded, all-caps, 24-point posts that say otherwise.
Oh, and Kamiki? Ironically, one of those pets I had made a co-own to surprise you. The Gambino Walrus Lurve.
Enjoy.
 Tara Jenkins · Sat Sep 17, 2005 @ 04:57am · 22 Comments |
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