today I saw a balloon

@vividaway​ Randall Munroe is an internet cartoonist who runs the ‘xkcd’ online comic series, which has run from 2006 up to today, with new comics every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Xkcd isn’t an ongoing story, just a series of funny, wholesome, depressing, or oddly scientifically informative comics.

In 2010, Randall’s fiance was diagnosed with stage III breast cancer. He didn’t share too many details at first, but things tended to bleed into his comics: sometimes funny, sometimes sad.

Often in this time, other cartoonists would write in guest comics for Randall, or he’d put in short filler pieces, to try and fill space while nonstop cancer treatments took up most of his time.

In 2012, he posted a comic called ‘Two Years’, about the time since the diagnosis. It’s the one that hasn’t yet been posted here (although parts of it are included in the other comics), and it commemorates some of the things that had happened in the two years since the diagnosis.

There are representations of Randall and his fiance being together for her treatment, worrying together, traveling the world, and getting married. It’s still depressing, but it’s a lot more hopeful, showing how they’ve still managed to have happy moments together, and things will still get better.

Themes of cancer continued in xkcd, but they increasingly became less about fear and nihilism, and more about hope, or just cool facts related to cancer.

At the top of this post is the comic posted in 2017: Seven Years. In it, Randall and his wife are traveling more, trying to have fun and continue old and new hobbies, with cancer ever-present in the background of it all. At the end, the two of them observe the 2017 solar eclipse, and despite all the uncertainty that comes with the thought of another seven years, agree to watch the 2024 eclipse together too.

There are just about no cancer comics between that one and the most recent comic, the one I posted: Ten Years, written in 2020. It’s by far the most hopeful of the three in the little series: the two of them are happy, they’re playing with rabbits and riding on handcarts and going out hiking and stargazing, together. At the end, Ten Years breaks the format with a conversation in which they talk about how unbelievable it is that it’s been so long, and share their worries as well as their hopes. It even ends on a much more lighthearted joke about immortality.

It’s a good comic. Definitely in my top two comics wherein internet cartoonists express emotions about an illness suffered by their wife.

Bloody Kiss - Submitted by @liquid-void

I had these as sketches just sittin' for a lil bit. Decided to finish them~ :3

-client with tiny yorkie tucked IN HER BRA and his foot got stuck and she absolutely could not get him out and he was scratching her and she started crying so yeah...I unhooked the dog's hock from her bra

-my tech was holding a big somewhat aggressive rottie who was, unfortunately, only actually handleable if the client was holding her head. client proceeded to fart. in my tech's face. I felt so bad

-too many cats that velcro onto their human or the tech when you try to examine them so you have to either examine them with their tiny needle claws dug into the human's shoulder (inevitably copping a feel) or having to peel the poor kitty off the person while getting in REAL close and often pulling clothing in very awkward ways

then there's the unfortunate times you need to provide canine sex ed to clients who are not breeders, have no interest in breeding, and had no idea that their neutered dogs could still have sexual reactions. this means I've had to:

-inform one client that his dog was, in fact, sucking himself off (I said it nicer than that; the client's response was, "Oh. oh I'm rather proud of him actually.");

-another that yes, prostate stimulation will cause erections when I was doing a rectal exam and she was really confused about that and then had the revelation about how anal penetration works for men in real time in the exam room;

-and just today, that yes, neutered male dogs will still hump other dogs and can in fact get erections and sometimes you need to lube those penises up and stuff them back in if they won't fix themselves or your dog needs to come in for urgent care. she sighed, looked at her husband, and said, "well, I guess we need to go buy some KY."

Which she did! She did do that, but with one hand and the other was more on his flank. Which was against my chest. And she was rubbing her fingers up and down his side to calm him so I got a very gentle, accidental tit massage.

"Ma'am? That's my arm. That's my arm? You have my arm? Can you let go that's my arm?"

Hey husband had to tell her that she had me and not the dog and she was so embarrassed but good natured about it.