Please excuse me for my language, but 2024 has been the worst year of my life.
I have some hope that things are settling down now, but I need to get some stuff off my chest. One of the reasons I've been so quiet is because of all this horrible shit that has just been happening to me and my family one after another. It just wore me down so much that I have no energy, no motivation to do anything, and I just want this spell of bad shit to be over.
I am going to lay out all the shit that has happened to me and my family since around April or so.
April
- My father got in to a minor collision with some young 19 year old dickbag who got in his face, and shoved him. The kid backed up in to our car, and then started screaming at us, and threatening to sue. There wasn't even any visible damage to his vehicle. Just some paint on the bumper. That ran our insurance up, because he filed this huge claim. But thankfully we had pictures and videos of both vehicles, and the insurance company sided with us on the claim. He claimed that we basically totaled his car. Because it was his fathers car, and he didn't want to get in trouble, and probably wanted some money. I almost broke his fucking face.
May
- I learned that I would need braces to walk, or even stand. Or go shopping. (And then my podiatrist basically bunked out and took a job two states over and didn't tell anybody. So I had to wait for seven months to get them, and play phone tag with a dozen different places.)
- I learned that the cartilaginous lining of my ankles is almost completely gone. Even though I'm only in my 30s, I have more damage and lack of motion than someone in their 70s, and that I've been walking bone-on-bone, and the uric acid in my joints is turning my bones in to mashed potatoes.
- I was denied a third time for my disability benefits, even after contacting a lawyer because I had already been denied twice.
- The stress and anxiety coupled with lack of activity lead to an extremely bad flare up in my knee that lasted four and a half weeks. And I couldn't walk or sleep because of the tremendous pain.
June...
- June was easily the worst month of the year. It started out by getting my fathers biopsy on his lung. Which caused a collapse and they had to put in a chest tube to re-inflate his lung. He had some shadowing on a pet scan that his doctor didn't like, and they wanted to know what it was. The moronic technician doing the biopsy missed twice and had to stab him again, which resulted in a collapse.
- Fathers biopsy came back positive. Non-Small Cell Adenocarcinoma. A small tumor, approximately 3mm has formed in his left lung at the top. His options were to completely remove the top lobe of the lung, or undergo targeted radiation treatment.
- My brother got in to a massive fight with his neighbors at their apartment building in the next town over. They had been feuding with them for months. His hoor wife had been leading men on behind his back to pay for cigarettes and food, and it finally boiled over. (No one knew she was doing this. She made it seem like she and my brother were not doing well, and she was allowed to reach out to other men.)
- Child Protective Services were called when the altercation revealed to the neighbors the state of my brothers apartment. If you've ever watched that show Hoarders on TLC, think of the worst episode you can possibly imagine, and then double it. They had garbage stacked to the ceiling, the sink was full of dishes four feet high, covered in rotten food and maggots. Their dog was locked in a carrier crate, and starved to death, or died of sickness, and instead of just putting her in the ground, they piled more garbage on the crate and buried her. They were using the bathroom in five gallon buckets, because the toilet, and the bath tub, where all full and clogged with feces and urine. We learned all this through the police. We barely ever saw them, so we had no idea this was happening. We also learned they were doing meth, as well as other drugs we weren't told. And that my brothers wife had been stealing from Walmart for years, and they got her on camera at the self checkout taking hundreds of dollars of merchandise. Again, we had no idea this was happening. We would never had allowed this to go on like that.
- My brother and his wife fled to our home, where they spent a week hiding from CPS and the Police in a different state while my parents went on their anniversary camping trip.
- The day my parents came home, we were making dinner when the state troopers showed up looking for them. They immediately arrested my brother and his wife and took them in to the police cars. They were waiting on Child Protective Services to come in a van to take the kids away. But my father got in to a fight with the police, and I had to restrain him. After seeing that the kids were safe with us, and they were literally puking with fear of being taken away, the cops decided to leave the children with us, and just take my brother and his wife to jail.
July
- The Fourth of July was actually pretty good. We had a barbecue and watched the fireworks, and I discovered my love of Lofthouse Cookies.
- My eldest brother (different brother), who had recently moved here and was living with my sister for the last year and a half, asked if he could come live with us out of the blue. Since we live in a two bedroom single wide trailer, there is no room for him. So he has been living in a tent in my yard since July. In burning heat, and now freezing winter temperatures.
- We learned that my sisters husband was abusing her and their daughter while he was drunk, and they got in to a massive fight. And my eldest brother beat the fuck out of him. Bloodied his face and mouth and slammed him on the kitchen floor so bad he was unconscious for several minutes. This lead to several more fights where my sisters husband would just get drunk, and start picking more fights. My brother had to leave to prevent killing him. He wanted to take his gun and literally kill him, so he left.
- End of July we received full custody of the kids via a paper we got in the mail, and several home visits from CPS.
August
- The hectic lifestyle of suddenly taking on three children was a complete burden on my parents, who are in their 60s and barely surviving themselves. Let alone me also living here due to my medical disabilities and financial insecurity.
- What little food and supplies we were already rationing was stretched paper thin. My brother and his wife got foodstamps, but they wouldn't legally change over to us until we had full custody of the children.
- Due to an issue with insurance, and a big waiting list in a small town, my fathers radiation treatment was scheduled to begin in October. The fear and anxiety surrounding his diagnosis had everyone in a depressed mood. Mom would cry every day.
- One of the hottest days on record and the power goes out suddenly and without warning for several hours. We're locked in an aluminum trailer with nowhere to go, no money, and hardly any gas to drive anywhere in 100+ degree weather. The temperature in the trailer reaches over 114° Fahrenheit. (45.5c) Mom and I get violently sick just as the power comes back on around five o'clock.
September
- I don't remember much of September. It was all a blur at this point. I had another bad flare up in my knee and couldn't walk for several weeks. Crazy vivid nightmares almost every night.
- A bad wind storm destroyed our tent that my brother was living in, and I had to give out the money I was saving to buy another. $160. Not really a "bad" thing, but when you have literally nothing, it is a burden to give up your savings.
October
- My father begins his radiation therapy. It makes him very weak, and very sick. No hair loss thankfully because of the kind of treatment it is, but it did leave him feeling very sick at the end. He had five weeks of treatment, five days a week, with the weekends off to recover.
- Haunted House goes on as usual. It was a good year, lots of customers, lots of good reviews.
- Things are starting to settle down at this point. My brother and his wife call constantly from prison to cry about how bad it is and how much they want to get out. But their bail is like five grand total, and there's no way we'd ever come up with that money. And even if we did, I wouldn't bail their fucking asses out anyways.
November
- November was slow, money was extremely tight. We were food insecure now feeding four adults and three children on what little we had. But thankfully due to the kindness of others, we received several food baskets throughout the month and were able to have a nice Thanksgiving.
- A small fight broke out between my father and a man that was being lead to believe he was dating my brothers wife. (See above.) They just shouted at each other, but the man has been following my dad around every time he goes in to the store, and tries to talk to my niece, who is terrified of him.
- Found out from my doctors that my blood contains five times the normal amount of calcium it should have. And about eight times the normal amount of Uric Acid it should have. Which is leading to my back-to-back gout flare ups and kidney stones. Could be an autoimmune disease, but no one is telling me which one. I've been to half a dozen specialist so far.
- My doctor starts me on Calcitonin Salmon. A Nasal Spray that reduces the calcium in your blood. And it smells so fucking bad I almost puke taking it. It smells like old stagnant pool water, and a suede jacket that was in hanging in the closet for years. It smells like when you first take your shoes off after wearing them all day, even though you had clean socks, and boiled carrots. It made me sick as a fucking dog.
December
- The Calcitonin made me so absolutely sick I stopped taking it about 22 days in. It would give me such a horrible upset stomach. I always felt like I had to puke. I felt extremely weak and dizzy, and I could barely stand. And with my legs as bad as they were, that lead to me falling several times. I always had this odd cramping sensation in my abdomen. Like the muscles were just about to cramp, but never did. And my nose was full of rock hard black material that kept me congested all the time, and was painful. And I always had a slight headache. I am still recovering from what it did to me.
- Schedule for a CT Scan on my lungs, because the doctor wants to make sure I don't have Sarcoidosis. And could have granulomas on my lungs. The results came back clear, my lungs are healthy and there are no tumors thank god.
- Ultrasound on my thyroid and lymph nodes revealed that they are enlarged, but my blood TH panel came back completely normal. No one knows what the fuck is happening to me. So I'm going to go see an otolaryngologist in a few weeks when they call me for an appointment.
- Dads results came back AWESOME!! His oncologist says the cancer is dead. But the treatment left him with some minor scarring on his lungs. It may or may not heal in the next five months or so. He has to remain on supplemental oxygen if he wants it. (They gave him one of those portable electric oxygen concentrators to carry around.)
- Had a really nice Christmas actually. The oncology department that my dad got his treatment at learned of our story, and sponsored us as one of the families they help for Christmas. The kids got a ton of presents. Even I sold some private sketches on Discord so I could buy them some Temu and Five Below gifts. I got a sweet new Pokemon mousepad and Blanket, and some comfy slippers and a new set of polyhedral dice.
- New Years Eve was good. We had a feast. I made Crab Rangoon by hand. We had cheese dreams, crag rangoon, chicken taquitos, shrimp, pizza rolls, sweet and sour meatballs, and chicken wings. Plus a tray of assorted cheese and meats, and some chips and dip.
- My knee fucking flared up yesterday, though. So I'm back to hobbling around and in pain, and can't sleep. And I have some heartburn from eating so much junk food. lol
So yes. Fuck you 2024, get the fuck out of here. I'm not going to say that 2025 will by my year, but I am begging for some kind of improvement. And I hope you all had a good New Years. Thank you for listening to my rant.
~Love and Peace
- Mako
PS: When I feel stronger, I will definitely draw more.
