State of the Skeleton 10/24 - PRGE, Surgery, and Mold Exposure

Hey Skele-fam,

It's been a wild few months for me, and I was waiting for things to settle (again). It's really been a rough few years but I'll get to that in a minute.

First - this past weekend I drove down with some friends to Oregon for the Portland Retro Gaming Expo! It was two years ago when we attempted 16-player Faceball 2000 for the Gameboy. It was a bust, unfortunately, but this is where our journey to achieve the worlds first 16-player game started! And we returned with results - 16 Gamecube running 16 GBA Players on 16 TV's for a 16-player GameBoy game made in 1991. PRGE put us on a stage and printed banners for us! It was so awesome and we only had a few hiccups with the custom-built hardware that made it possible. It went much smoother than our first public event at the Midwest Gaming Classic in April.

 
To be honest though, this trip had me a little nervous. You see, I've had a surgery planned for a few months now. I've mentioned this in posts earlier this year, but I spent most of the first half of this year battling multiple sinus infections, or what I think was actually one severe infection that didn't fully go away the first time. I went to see an Ear Nose and Throat doctor, something I'd been putting off for years honestly, and they told me I've basically never breathed a full breath through my nose. My upper sinuses are majorly stuffed up which makes me prone to colds and infections. The long term solution is to get in there and clear it all out - surgery.

But my doctor fell sick and my procedure had to be rescheduled from early August to a week after PRGE - this Friday. So I was hoping like hell I wasn't going to get sick myself at the con, which I very thankfully didn't. But if you saw me this past weekend, this is why I was only fist bumping and not shaking hands, and I was chugging tons of water with vitamin C / immune boosters.

As I write this, my procedure is actually in a few hours, it's super early in the morning, but I should be finished and back home before noon. However, recovery just depends - they said some people are back to work on Monday, other's are laid out for a week. Either way I'll have splints in my nose until the following Friday. Depending how I'm feeling, I'll maybe shoot something while I'm swollen up and with stuff shoved up there, haha. They also had to tell me that there's never a 0% chance something terrible wont happen, which is always nice to hear... My doctor does this procedure sometimes several times a week but it's still got me a little anxious. I haven't had surgery since I guess my wisdom teeth.

The other thing going on in the background of all this is my general health. I'll cut to the chase here but on a hunch I started reading about long term exposure to mold and how it can effect you. It's fucking serious stuff! I found a Naturopathic Physician who got me tested, and the results came in Tuesday - my body is teeming with several types of mold. I tested mid/mild for black mold, which is still really bad but I was assured could be much worse. Though I tested extremely high for a few others types of mold, and these can severely impact fatigue, immune system, and GI.

Over the last few YEARS I've been adjusting/increasing my ADHD meds, started taking antidepressants, and been drinking a lot more coffee but I've found myself struggling so incredibly hard to keep up with the channel, not to mention just stuff in my day-to-day life. I've also put a bit of weight despite still eating basically the same stuff I've always eaten. My hairline has started receding even though that's not really a thing in my family (don't worry, my family still has plenty of "things" to worry about haha). I thought I was just getting older, I just turned 40, you know? But also Grace has had some weird health struggles creep up. I'm over-sharing enough already but I'll just say we almost separated last year. It got really bad. Probably the toughest year in the eleven we've been together. Even our dogs have gotten sick! Both are getting on in age but so many things line up with around when we moved to this apartment!

I can't start my mold detox yet, not until after my procedure. I've been staring at these supplements that are supposed to help but I have to wait until a few days after surgery. But the real solution to mold in the home is cutting into the dry wall or ripping out the carpet and replacing it. Which we can't do in a rental. So the next best thing is to move. Our lease is up in January and we'd decided last time we weren't going to renew again but Grace has already started looking for a new apartment. All the detox in the world wont help much if you're still living in the toxins, getting out of here ASAP is the best thing for us. But my recovery from surgery is a big question mark.

And this whole time I have been working like hell to get this Faceball video done. It's been such a crazy and fun story to tell! And I have so many other projects too - back in June I interviewed the CEO of TecToy about their new portable PC, the Zeenix, which is a combination of Zeebo and Phoenix! Literally, a new Zeebo! Their new head of video games reached out to me personally! I also interviewed the team at NightDive and talked about the new Doom ports they put out. I've researched Delisted Doom Ports since this new version of Doom made the previous one's delisted, plus there's several others. This summer I commissioned someone to help research all the Silent Hill mobile games because there were shockingly a lot of them! There's a team cracking old Japanese cell phones to preserve the games on them. And the guy spearheading that was also the guy who hooked me up with my Zeebo and is willing to help with any video topic I want to cover! One of the devs who worked on UFO 50 reached out and gave me an early review code, telling me himself it would be a perfect Punching Weight game (and he's 100% right!) But I have so much going on, I haven't even played all 50 games yet. I even ask Matt McMuscles if he could get me in touch with Justin Wong and when I asked Justin if he'd film himself playing Marvel vs Capcom 2's iphone port for me (which he's never ever played before), he said he'd absolutely do it! I have so many awesome project that I've been working on, and I've been dying to stay motivated!! Or had to focus on myself and my family! The UDUG projects have been an absolute blessing because I'm able to finishing SOMETHING!

The silver lining here is that this mold exposure has gotten both Grace and I to do health stuff we'd needed to do for a while. I think a lot of these problems were already there but this was a heavy thumb on the scale. I feel horrible for how the channel has been the last few years. I thought often about retiring but there's just too much stuff I want to do. If I left it like this, I'd have regrets. And maybe I've already fucked myself with the algorithm and with my audience, but I NEED to get these projects done, if only for myself. But knowing that I've actually been really sick this whole time, is a bit of a relief. I'm always positive about the future, it's kind of a problem sometimes haha, but I really can't help it. I'm gonna get this shit done and I'm gonna make as good as I can make it because it's just what do. I don't know when it'll be ready, but I'm working as hard as I can. Things can suck and be awesome at the same time. When we get through this, we'll be better than ever. Or you're witnessing this all going down in a blaze of glory. Either way, my only hope is that you're entertained and learn something.

Stay Powerful,
Derek Alexander