Well, all right.

I'll be the first to say I have absolutely no clue how to start this. Or continue it, or end it. I'm fumbling in the dark. Haha..

And you guys are largely to blame. (This isn't a bad thing.)





A little over a month or so ago I suffered a rather vicious attack in the middle of the night that kept me up until early morning hours, and did not really let up over the course of the weekend. After much urging from friends, I went to my doctor to have him check out what could have caused this attack, and he promptly told me I needed to go to an ER to have my abdomen examined. I did so. After a day in the hospital I was pegged with having diverticulitis.

Now, this wouldn't be SO bad, initially, had I not won the lucky lotto for diseases. Diverticulitis is a common digestive disease, with a series of uncommon possibilities that make it progressively more and more serious. The main one being, normally, folks should not get this sort of thing until they're like seventy, meaning the case is already, by default, serious enough to merit surgical removal of the infected area.

(TMI yet? Just you wait.)

Next, cases of diverticulitis can normally be fought back down with a series of medication, which I was on for a good while, except the problem was, the issue at hand was not getting any better. In fact it was getting much worse, without me realizing it.
The most extreme cases of the disease result in abscesses, internal bleeding, and perforations of the colon itself, which as you might imagine, leaks all kinds of rainbow goodness into the rest of your body, and well, as a sum of many troubling parts, can kill you. Yeehaw. :3

..Guess what kind of case I had? XD

No, I did not explode any given parts of my body, luckily, prior to the surgery. But one thing the doctor told me afterwards, in a sigh of relief, was that they did in fact, on top of the already serious conditions of the disease itself, find a rather large hole inside, which, had I not had this surgery, would have.. well yeah. You get the point. End would be ded. But End is not ded now.

Long story short, End had a bad, bad part inside, and the doc took it out. (And proceeded to tell End just how bad it was, because I think he wanted me to full well realize how much he pulled my neck out of a lurch. XD Or just scare me sh*tless.)


(..GET IT? COLON HUMOR.)



I digress.

After a hellish week in the hospital, and an even more hellish week out of it, I'm well enough now to be sitting here, typing up this journal to let you guys know I'm going to be fine, and also, one other thing.


WTFBBQOMGWTHAREYOUGAIZSRSWTFISTHISHUHHHHHHHHHHHH????

I'm talking about this.. this unprecedented.. astounding.. absolutely mindblowing undertaking that has been going on while I've been 'out and about'. These donation commissions?


Aaahhaarrrrgh.. you guuuuuuuys.. ahahahah..

Seriously, what the hell am I supposed to say? My god. Part of me wants to tell each and every one of you to line up so I can kiss your feet individually, one after the other, in a show of pathetically zealous gratitude.. and the other part feels like an absolute DOUCHEBAG for being on my scarred up staple-bellied ass for the past some weeks while you guys were all working your tails off for my sake!

I feel like I can't even joke around about it, but I don't know what else to do. I'm floored. My mind is blown. This is above, beyond, completely overtaking the call of duty, here. To the folks who have donated, to the folks who have held auctions, to the folks who have done commissions in order to help with the medical bills (which honestly I won't even bring up here because I don't feel like bringing anyone down, including myself), to the folks who just put the word out in their journals..

I am going to find you. And I am going to hug you. No, seriously. I am. Once I am able to walk more than a few feet without having to sit down, so help me, you are getting squeezed with love in a way your mind will never allow you to erase.

I've been in shock ever since first being able to see *Zombiesmile's journal, in which what, more than eighty some artists banded together in an effort to help. Some people I knew, some people I didn't.
Then I looked at my mail. Bursting to the seams with letters, notes, well-wishing. People who introduced themselves as having never spoken to me once, but followed my art for a long time.. saying flat out they know I said I didn't really truck with the idea of donations but they felt compelled to do so, to help out. They told me I was an inspiration to them, that they've followed my art and sought to improve their own because of me. Or whatever reason. No matter what it was, it was touching. It was unbelievably touching. Every single mail.
There were folks who couldn't send anything, and for goodness sakes, you people had better not feel bad. It was enough just to see so many people expressing a desire to see me back home in safe and secure health.

To anyone who would say the DA community isn't something worth appreciating, I would then have to introduce a lincoln log to your nethers.
There isn't a damn thing I've done for this community except share my artwork with you, an effort which I already see as a rather paltry endeavor to begin with, but a ton of people seem to disagree with me. But the point is, you have given back so much more. So, so much. Monetarily is one thing, and christ, you guys, take a break, you have outdone yourselves in that regard, and I will be okay.. haha. But more than that? Spiritually? You know. That big mushy sense of do-goodery, of helping your fellow man (or End, as it were), of just pulling together in a time of need for a single person.. awgh.. I have never been so moved at a given point in my life.

When I first caught wind of all this, I was like. "WELL F*** THIS, COLON. YOU JUST GOT PWNED. ARRRRARRARARARARARR I'M OUTTA HERE. DIVERTICULITIS GOT NOTHING ON ME CUZ IMMA SHAAAARK." I didn't make it very far out of the hospital before the orderlies threatened me with a sedative catheter, but the POINT IS. I was just gunning to get better. I couldn't sit for a moment and let the worst of the disease days get me down.

And it's been horribly difficult, believe me. Shaking off depression has been an incredible effort throughout this. You get that way when you're living day to day in varying stages of pain (Have you ever sneezed after having major surgery to your abdomen? It's like inserting a ripe circle of hell into your belly through every orifice, simultaneously.), discomfort and (thanks to the uber meds) hysterically persistent dimentia.
But guess what ultimately blew all that out of the water? Yeah, you guys, again.

I'm going in circles. I just look at this journal, then other journals. All the people who spread the word. The efforts in the good 'ol SDL. (Thank you Ronin.) The incredibly well intentioned but somewhat unnecessary 'EndMedical' project. (Thank you you-know-who-you-are, haha, I appreciate it, but you guys can relax, there comes a point where I'm going to have to handle this business on my own. But thank you. :3) The calls I've gotten from my friends that I was never able to answer either because I was asleep, too out of it to notice my phone was ringing, or didn't want to talk to anyone for fear of them picking up the receiver and just hearing "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHH." coming from my end.

I've never once felt so helpless in my life, and at the same time, so supported. During the acute part of the illness, *Zombiesmile came over to the states to stay with me an entire month as I went through the initial procedural steps, the medications, the mood swings. She is a saint, by the way. There's no one person I should probably be thanking more than her, and I know it, and she hears it, believe me.
My folks came in shifts, my dad the first week then my mom the second, once I had my surgery, to help hoist me around and make sure I didn't have to haul my stitched up carcass everywhere to get everything.. which I really couldn't, to be honest. Kudos to them for being the best parents on the face of the planet, a fact they remind me of on a regular basis.
Thanks to my friends who did call, and did visit, to Liz, Tess, Cor, Dave, Mary (not to mention for playing Warhammer Online with me in those brief sessions of not-so-excruciating-pain), and my extended family who I constantly keep in the dark about my condition until they bust down my door demanding to know what's going on.

There's more to say. And there's so much to do. And there's no amount of words I can shovel at you guys to express my sincere gratitude for being a part of this community you have welcomed me into, and the love, decency and care you've shown me. Now I've got to live to at least 90, because that's all the time I'm going to need to make it all up to you guys.


Haha.. yeah. Damn straight there's more to say. But I need to lie down now. It's aggravating but there's a lot more recuperation time to get through from here on in. Think I got a might bit worked up and my body is letting me know it. I'm out, for now.

Love you guys. Take care. And yeah, again. Thank you.