Death in the Family (Patreon)

Hello everyone, I take no joy in posting this update, but I feel you all have a right to know. TW - Extreme injury - skip to the TL;DR at the end if you want the jist of this update.

What Happened

On Christmas day, just four days ago, everything was going well until we got a call from my little sister in Hawaii. She was in tears, hysterical. Her husband, Jimmy, who she had just married in September, got tumbled around wrong in a wave and was knocked unconscious. He was in cardiac arrest when they pulled him out of the water, and although the ambulance arrived within five minutes, delivered CPR, and eventually got him breathing with a heartbeat via CPR and machinery, it wasn't looking good.

Every update we got after that was worse than the last. It took days for news to trickle in. Stabilized and unconscious at the hospital, kept alive with machines, it took hours upon hours for the doctors to assess the damage. Over the course of multiple days, we learned that he had a C2 neck fracture, which is the worst possible break you can possibly experience in the neck -- save for a C1 fracture... which we eventually learned is what he actually had. 

A C1 fracture means your neck broke at the highest possible point on your spine. His spinal cord was completely severed. In the best-case scenario, should he ever wake up, he would be paralyzed from the mouth down. It was unclear to the doctors whether he'd even be able to breathe or swallow on his own. 

It was only up until yesterday where we finally got "good" news. After the swelling went away, it became evident to the doctors that he died on impact, and the machines keeping him "alive" were doing little more than providing a heartbeat to a corpse. This came as a relief to us, because his condition was so awful that death would have been a mercy, especially for him, who lived one of the most active and adventurous lifestyles I had ever seen. But that doesn't change the fact that our beloved Jimmy was now dead, stolen from us in the most cruel and abrupt way. 

This has been extremely hard on me. Although they were only recently married, Jimmy has been a part of our family for several years now and him and my sister were experiencing their best days when this awful tragedy happened. I was looking forward to making countless new memories with him, and now he's gone, and I'm left feeling empty, sorrowful for both his passing, and the indescribable grief my sister is experiencing right now.

What This Means for My Art

For obvious reasons, my art has come to a standstill this month. Due to a difficult month where I was unmedicated for weeks (due to national shortages), and experienced multiple visits from out-of-state friends and family, I wasn't able to get a lot of art done and I was planning on finishing most of my Patreon content in the last week of the month. But with Jimmy's passing, that's just not happening anymore. It's been difficult finding the will to work, and besides that, I've been spending the majority of my time with family during this difficult period.

I would like to provide December Patrons with at least one new drawing (Gwen), but it will likely be delivered at an undetermined point next month. If you feel like unsubbing due to lack of content, I wouldn't blame you, but I am DEEPLY grateful to any of you who choose to support me despite that. 

January should be much better. My medication has been refilled and updated to a higher dose (after being on the same dosage for 15+ years), and now that the holidays are over, I expect to have a ton of work time. Although I will be grieving for Jimmy, I plan to start working again once the new year rolls around. In any case, I thank you all for your patience during this trying time.

tl;dr: my brother-in-law passed away in an unexpected accident at the beach on Christmas, so December rewards will be minimized to one new drawing, and likely delivered at some point next month. I deeply appreciate your love and patience as my family and I pass through this difficult period.