QUICK UPDATE!! (posting videos shortly!)

Hi Everyone!! Thank you SO much for sticking around... I know I can disappear sometimes, but I am trying really hard to normalize my schedule as always. After the Japan trip I've been dealing with some (as it turns out) minor health issues, but MAJOR health anxiety. Does anybody else ever deal with this? T_T I have hypochondriac attacks now and again, but this was the worst one I've experienced I think. I just want to tell you guys what's been up with me.

After the flight to japan(14hrs), my left leg had really scary bruising all over the back of it, mostly thigh but many more appeared on the calf and behind the knee as well within days. This scared the crap out of me because I had no idea where they came from, and unfortunately googling it didn't help at all... everything kept pointing to DVT and blood clots. Through the whole trip I didn't have trouble with walking or anything, but my leg felt heavy and sometimes slightly painful basically the entire trip; this kept causing me anxiety and random light-headedness so like.. borderline panic attacks I think, but I pushed through it. The bruising went away, and I'm glad I didn't allow it to ruin the trip, but after I returned from the trip the tightness/heaviness/ and intermittent pain persisted, and was moving around... Man I was SO paranoid about a blood clot, and I've gone to the doctor a couple of times, but since there were no signs of muscle weakness and no obvious symptoms like swelling or redness, it was dismissed (....correctly >_> ). Literally today I finally went to get an ultrasound on my leg because it still feels weird 2 weeks later, but thankfully it was all clear. So now I can stop worrying about that shit. I have no idea what's wrong with my leg, and I think overall it does feel a better/the symptoms are milder, but they're still here even after like 5 weeks which is strange. Maybe it was just some sort of injury I didn't notice... I do have bruises on my legs a lot of the time without knowing exactly where they came from, but this was way more clustered and scary-looking than usual. In any case they are long gone. might try a physiotherapist if it persists. Who even knows.. anywhomst.

The day before I left for the trip I had a whole situation with my cat Boris, he started acting weird and in pain, so I took him to the emergency and they told me it was potentially serious as his urinary tract was almost blocked and I basically needed to spend the next 6 hours locked in a room with him, feeding him as much water as possible and monitoring his use of the litter box, hoping that his ability to pee would improve, because if it didn't I'd have to take him back to the vet for an overnight stay + operation, and it would cost a small fortune. Basically it was just extremely stressful... I was also on my own since my husband was out of town for a trip >_> Thankfully he FINALLY showed signs of improvement in the 6th hour so the relief was massive as you would imagine, but there were so many meds they gave me for him, and I had to leave for Japan within the next 4 hours and hadn't packed yet at that point, so I think my worries about Boris being taken care of and also just the stress of not knowing what was gonna happen maybe compounded and gave me residual anxiety. Thankfully Boris got better very quickly within a few days of the vet visit, and has been his normal self since - we had to change his diet though. But yes,

For the last month and a half I uncontrollably looked up symptoms on google and Reddit for hours almost every day.... sometimes it's a real problem where I just can't get myself to stop. The tricky thing is that googling like a madman is what convinced me to take Boris to the vet, and it was the right call, so it was a real conundrum. At some point I switched to looking up information on how to handle health anxiety and manage it, cause I was just spinning out. I cracked the other day and decided to just get some more conclusive tests done, since DVT doesn't always have symptoms and can be silent, apparently. I also started to gaslight myself thinking sometimes mayyybe I have a hard time breathing etc, so it was just getting out of hand again. Thankfully I can definitively rule out the blood clot at this point, and I'm REALLY hoping that it will help me focus on Gloamingvale/work instead of being spooked by every little unexplained sensation in my body. I've just kinda descended into hitting freelance deadlines and meeting my Youtube obligations only, and coping with this bs and just doing stuff around the house most of the rest of the time. It has been quite frustrating. I get very frustrated with myself at being unable to move along with Gloamingvale as quickly as I'd like T_T And it means the whole world to me that so many of you guys stick around and support me on Patreon, even when I have downtimes!

I hope you guys are doing well and looking forward to holiday plans!!! I'm gonna be posting my latest video process and an Arcane thoughts video here shortly, and soon on Youtube as well. Thank you for your support. I know this was a big block of text overshare tl;dr situation, but ah man... I know things can look real peachy on social media sometimes, so I just wanted to give an honest update. My mental health is leagues better than it was several years ago, but it's definitely a non-linear journey. I'm looking forward to the new year and more efforts at Gloamingvale progress ;u; I got this.