The bird. in The Devil Beneath My Feet

Well it’s been a minute, let’s dive in.

My coworker put in for vacation time over Thanksgiving to travel to Texas and spend the holiday with family. She didn’t wind up going. Her husband complained of leg pain, so he saw his doctor who sent him to the ER, fearing a blood clot (he has COPD and when you have shit ass lungs I guess they don’t fuck around with blood clots). ER confirmed blood clot, sent him home with medication and instructions to rest.

Days later the pain had not subsided so they went back and did a little more thorough of a battery of tests - the results were extremely dismal. Blood clot in his leg, another in his arm, another in his lung, along with a mass on his lung. Further testing of course ensued and the results are bad. Metastatic lung cancer that has spread to his adrenal gland and spleen, the last I heard from my coworker they were doing a biopsy of a “suspicious looking” lymph node.

To quote my aunt, who’s been a nurse for about as long as I’ve been alive,

“Sounds like he’s got the bird.”

“The bird?”

“There are three kinds, for the most part. There’s the turtle - big, but slow. You can catch it pretty easily. The rabbit - moves very fast, but if you’re quick and smart, you can catch it, too. It’s uncommon, but it happens. And then there’s the bird. There’s no catching the bird. Just flies away further. It sounds like he’s got the bird.”

The bird indeed. So we don’t know when/if she’s coming back to work.

What else?

Drawing progress is painfully slow but an old artist friend reached out and basically said “it do be like that sometimes man, just gotta get your shit together and practice.” And honestly? That helped a little. So I’ve been plucking away. Practicing, here and there, for as long as my shit ass hands will allow. I’m not hugely unhappy with the results. I’m not happy with them, either, but they’re…getting better. Slowly. So very slowly. I know I’ll never be completely happy with any result but if I can make it back to “hey i don’t completely suck at this,” I’ll call it a W.

Work has been fucking bonkers, and exhausting.

My sister got her driver’s license! That was hugely exciting, she is thrilled.

Darby brought a whole ass fucking decaying deer leg out of the woods last night so that’s a fun thing decomposing in the dump trailer right now.

And that’s about all I have the capacity for right now. I’m gonna try and write more tomorrow because honestly - this shit is dumb but it does help keep my brain lower than it wants to be on the Scoville Scale so, that’s kinda nice.