What would Returning to Tumblr be without a brief recap of my woes? I wanna sleep not mull over things so here we are.
When I dropped off I was working at an art gallery, a job I really loved but the irregular schedule was wrecking havoc combined with the 25 hour weeks. But I got through it despite being exhausted when the contract ended in the previous year' May. After that I was unemployed for four months before getting a 10 month job at my city's main library. Another job I really loved! The work was pleasant, co-workers wonderful, and the schedule was set which helped a lot. But it was 35h per week which was far, far too many hours despite actually working a good bit less than that in practice.
Which is how I ended up being on sick leave for 5 weeks total out of those 10 months because of bipolar fatigue. All of it was also held within this year as two separate leaves 🥲 I actually got so burnt out that I've been on official sick leave since August despite being unemployed. Hopefully I'll get it renewed by January 14th when it ends since I need it. Within the past 6 months I've also broken a rib and twisted my left ankle for the 3rd time.
But the biggest woe is that my dad was diagnosed with cancer (which might actually be two different kinds) about two months ago. It came as a total surprise since while he has had health issues since spring he's in good shape and the problems didn't seem that serious, just persistent which is why they kept doing tests. We still don't know what stage or how aggressive it is since there's been some issues with testing which is Not Fun. Can't stop bracing for future news and contemplating the worst case scenarios. A lot is being done tho so despite some hiccups his treatment is progressing, him having at least once a week doctor's appointment, sometimes several.
He also has surgery tomorrow for removing one of his kidneys which is what's keeping me up currently instead of sleeping. I know one kidney is enough to live normally but it's still really scary. Thankfully the removal will also take care of a big chunk of the cancerous cells so there's a possibility the rest can be treated with meds without needing chemo. But it's a maybe since so much is still unknown.
Anyway, this has not been my year.
