===tldr - my mate has stage 4 cancer that has notably reached his brain and bones, i am a full-time caretaker for him and neglected my own health leading to loss of treatment for my own disability for a while which got pretty severe but everything is finally getting back on track. HOW ARE YOU?===

So, about a year ago I "came back" to FA and posted several journals and did a couple drawings and hung out for a while. I updated that my mate had a tiny bit of lung cancer, but had a wedge removed and they said they got it all and he was in remission and would be fine. Then I kinda quickly disappeared again. Many things have happened.

Well, the cancer has advanced even though they told him he was doing great after having the lung wedge removal. It had spread into his blood and is everywhere now. We found out when he started having stroke-like symptoms and lost his ability to speak properly (aphasia). I took him to the emergency room and they did a scan and found several lesions in his brain... some more tests later, we find they are cancer tumors. He since has had the worst of those removed and regained most of his speech ability (though he speaks very slowly now and stumbles over words sometimes, he can still communicate, which he unable to do when we first found the brain tumors).

The cancer has also been found in many other organs, importantly his bones, which is causing him to be very weak. He now needs a wheelchair. Also he is on the oxygen permanently now, though mostly just because it is comforting to him (he's able to maintain an 'acceptable' blood oxygen level at rest around 91%) though when we go out he has to take portable tanks or be hooked up to the hospital oxygen (hospital is the only place he really gets to go anymore, though I did take him out to dinner for his birthday last week; he is 75 years old now).

So yeah. The cancer is bad. He had radiation and was a good candidate for immunotherapy without chemotherapy, so we're doing Keytruda every 3 weeks to basically buy him more time and comfort before his passing (also doing regular bone treatments so his bones can stay as strong as possible). He also is in therapy now though he has only gone to one session, and he is on some light SSRIs for his mental health which is deteriorating as well. As with many people with brain tumors, his personality is changing somewhat, and it's been very heartbreaking to watch him change from the jovial and supportive and always-happy man I have always known into a depressed and irritable mess.

So what about me? Right around the time we found out about the invasive stage 4, I lost access to the clinic I had been going to for my behavioral heath, and my therapist (the one who I said told me to get more into furry) quit on me (he wanted to focus fully on his private practice and not at the clinic where he was treating me, where he was able to take my insurance. For those of you who don't know, I am disabled from severe bipolar, depression, and anxiety, and am AuDHD to boot. Not having access to health treatment is very hard. This was ultimately my fault though -- with all the stressful stuff going on, I neglected my treatments for too long and they closed my chart. Part of the reason I was neglecting the treatments though was because with my mate now disabled and unable to drive, I had to ride to the clinic, which was 40 minutes away.

Well, for maybe 8 months or so I had no therapy and over time ran out of medication. Because of all the stress and taking my mate to the hospital and stuff regularly -- I can drive but not long distances and thankfully his hospital is literally 2 blocks away -- I continued to neglect getting myself back into treatment. For a while, he was having severe reactions to the radiation treatments and we were pretty much living at the hospital. They wanted to put him in a rehab facility but he refused, and they wanted him to have in-home care, but he refused, so now I'm taking care of this guy on my own, when I can barely take care of myself lmfao.

Well, about 3 months ago, I finally ran out of medication and things got bad for me. I was physically ill from the withdrawal from the medication and got severely depressed. I was not doing anything at all but basically sleeping and scrolling reddit in a strangely addicted and obsessive manner (sometimes I wouldn't even read, just scroll really fast lol). I bathed maybe once every two weeks. I neglected taking care of the house and it got very dirty. I mostly ate delivery pizza because neither of us wanted to cook. My mate was depressed too and it was a whole mess. I did manage to keep taking him to immunotherapy appointments and other appointments but like that took ALL of my energy and all my days were basically just spent in anxiety of the next upcoming appointment. RARELY I did get little bursts of motivation and would play a game or something (one night I played Kirby's Dream Land which was really cool).

Good news, though, I did manage to get myself back into treatment. I got a new PCP at the hospital down the street, and she set me up with a social worker to help me get into behavioral health services. She also was able to contact my old psychiatrist and get me 3 months worth of medication. I did try taking them but stupid me took a full dose and got very ill after not having them for 3 months lol. So I decided to wait and try taking them again after advice from the new psychiatrist whom I will see in a few weeks.

I did have a meeting with a new therapist for the first time today. He is young and has a mustache (!) and was very nice. I have good feelings about him. We talked about all kinds of things and I mentioned the fandom again and it made me think about how it could be a good outlet for me again, like the old therapist suggested. Problem is I can't really draw anymore -- my carpal tunnel has gotten so bad I can't use a pen for more than 5 minutes without my entire hand going numb. It's only drawing though, I can still use a game controller (yay). Computer mouse is a little weird... a little numbness and some pain. Even just at rest I have pain in my wrist and joints but that might be developing arthritis...? As I actually have pain in other joints as well.

But yeah. Dealing with this has been VERY HARD. The stress of seeing him go through this, having to help him with everything, witnessing his personality changing, and of course dealing with the concept of his death being a more concrete near future thing (they haven't given us a strict timeline, but say if the immunotherapy is very successful he could still live for a couple more years, though without it they had given him 4-6 months)... it's absolutely horrible. And doing all this while not properly caring for myself and not being treated for my disabling mental health conditions? It's just... wow. This past year has really felt surreal to say the least. Nothing prepares you for this...

But yeah. I don't have much of a support system IRL as I'm estranged from like everyone I used to know anymore (just from me being a negligent friend pretty much lol) and I don't even really have many online friends anymore. So this is really a post more about me getting all this off my chest lol. Though I am able to do that in therapy too, sometimes you just want to vent into the void without someone trying to help you and find solutions and stuff because therapy these days seems to be all about the Treatment Plan and setting goals and working toward things and like... sometimes you just want to pity party and whine about life lol.

I don't really have a lot of ambition or motivation right now, but for the past week I have broken away from Reddit addiction (though I just moved on to UmaMusume addiction lol, though I just quit that game yesterday). Right now I'm feeling a little more positive as I feel like I'm getting things back on track, and outside of taking care of my mate and the house chores and everything, I feel like I want to get back into 'something' like playing a (real) game. Oh I also started watching WWE again, which is cool because I was literally showing 0 interest in ANYTHING so that also feels good. Without my meds concentrating on things is really hard though; I tried to watch some TV shows but I couldn't follow what was going on and felt so lost. I feel like what I need at this point is a good ol' fashioned hyperfixation lmao.

I have 2000+ submissions to check. So many. If anyone has drawn anything mustachey, let me know! I will likely miss it! Also 171 journals to read... it's hard to weed through those so I'll probably nuke them after a glance... sorry... feel free to comment here and let me know what you've all been up to (no need to make comments about me and my situation, though of course appreciated, I also genuinely would love to hear how everyone else has been as well so don't feel like it's inappropriate to talk about yourselves).