Life Changes (IMPORTANT UPDATE)

As a lot of you know, I've been REALLY sick here recently. 

So much so that the physical illness has started to take a toll on my mental well being as well. 

Unfortunately due to all of this I had to make the choice to leave full time job. 

Of course there were far more reasons than just the fact that I'm ill.

~~~~~~ If you feel like knowing more. I'll put a TL;DR below ~~~~~~~~

Other factors played into this:

~ The main one being that the higher ups were already gunning for my position due to the fact that I was on a 2 week leave for my gallbladder surgery in early 2018, they started gunning for it even harder because I had to call off 2 days in a row due to severe pain brought on my my most recent kidney stones. I was informed that if I called off 1 more day for the remainder 2019 that I would be terminated immediately. Keep in mind, any time I call off I go directly to the ER, I bring paperwork as proof that I went and as proof that I am indeed as ill as I say I am. 

~ The other higher up reason is that I travel almost 2 hours, 1 way, to get to work each day. I walk for 15-20 minutes to the bus (Mind you, I'm in the polar vortex right now, if it weren't for my friend thinking ahead of time and making sure she was awake at 4am to make sure I didn't have to walk in the cold I would have had to walk in -20 F wind chill weather, and yes... it has been ungodly windy) I then take 2 buses for 40 minutes and then a train for 30 minutes. And this is EVERY Mon-Fri no matter what the weather is like. And all this travel, in the cold, hasn't been helping my health at all. I've ended up with various upper respiratory infections this winter even though I bundle up hard core.

~ The last, and less major factor was... What I was doing every day... what I was witnessing every day... It was destroying my mental state. I can't go into extreme details publicly what was being done, but I can say that I worked in a laboratory and worked with lab mice and rats every day. If you know me, you know I really love animals, especially rodents and have kept many mice and rats as pets throughout my life. Of course I can feed my snakes mice and rats but that's only because that's the circle of life, snakes need to eat too. But to see what I was seeing just... It was morally wrong to me. And I'm not here to bash research on animals, I do still believe it is a necessary thing for us to advance medically and scientifically and I still think every little mouse and rat that has been used in research is a tiny hero. I just feel awful participating in it physically, and of course I have great respect for those who can do it every day in the name of science. I was never forced to do anything I didn't want to do, but still seeing it happen does actually take a toll on the ol' mental well being. 

Making the choice I did wasn't easy, but all of this led me to put in my 2 weeks. Because I wasn't going to hang around for them to terminate me. I liked working where I worked and I hope that I can go back someday (of course, I won't be in the animal research branch, but there are MANY other options open to me and I wouldn't mind exploring them given the chance) 

My last day was yesterday and I'm not going to lie, this is the first time I ever cried when leaving a job. 

I'm going to miss everyone there, all of the managers and supervisors were so wonderful and I made friends with many of the other techs. Of course there was also the pay and health coverage that was amazing as well. But everyone reminded me that my health, both physical and mental, are more important than the job. And that's a hard pill to swallow for me since I grew up being told that money is supreme and I should go to work even if I'm actively dying (Which I have done, far too many times. So much so that doctors told me I had only days before an infection spread to my whole body and killed me when I was 18. Funny story, I still haven't learned my lesson.) 

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TL;DR Time! 

I just finished my last 2 weeks at my job. I left due to being crazy sick physically and having my mental state decline from being ill and not getting enough rest. 

Important Update Time! 

For the time being, I will be back to drawing full time. Commissions will continue to be closed as long as I can manage so that I can actively work toward getting completely caught up on my backlog. 

I will be able to keep my bills paid for at least the next 2 months without having to tack on any extra work, so that will give me a good amount of time to get caught up. 

While the tiers with monthly requests have been pulled down for right now, I do still have a Patreon for anyone who wants to help me stay afloat. https://www.patreon.com/voraciousrose

Once I get my small Patreon Monthly Drawing Request list out of the way I'll be reopening the Monthly Drawing Request tiers for anyone who wishes to receive drawings for their support each month. I'm sure that will help me a good amount in staying afloat in following months. 

I don't like asking for help for myself very much, but I know I'm going to be asked, if anyone wants to help at any time but doesn't want a reoccurring Patreon thing, I still have my Paypal link open. https://www.paypal.me/am1343 

Of course, if you're in a bad way yourself, TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF FIRST! I will always find a way to make things work and keep myself going and you should NEVER put yourself into a bad situation trying to help someone else. 

I hope you guys look forward to me returning and look forward to the abundance of art that will be coming soon. 

Of course I will be taking the next few days off from everything so that I can catch up on some much needed sleep... and like... take a bath and actually tidy the tiny tornado that is my room right now DX

But I will be back very soon! Refreshed and ready to make more lewd stuff :3

Love and Hugs, 

Rose