Alright… so this blog post has been a long time coming. I’ve been reluctant to write this blog post simply because there are some future unknowns coming my way and I really didn’t want to say or mention anything until I got more information. Now, all of that sounds way more cryptic than it actually is so I really need to start from the beginning but before that, I want to assure everyone the strip IS NOT NOT NOT NOT ENDING.
Did I mention that the strip is NOT ending? I did? Good.
Okay, so here’s the deal… back in the winter of last year – specifically November and December – I did a LOT of shows closely grouped together. As many of you who have seen me at various shows know, I tend to do a LOT of drawing at shows – either caricature cards, commissions, signing and drawing in every book that is bought or simply drawing cartoon werewolves for people. Well, somewhere around that same time, I developed a cyst on my right wrist but didn’t realize it as I thought it was simply some minor carpal tunnel or over exertion of my wrist (yeah, you can insert your own jokes here if you want). But January and February came and I started finding it harder and harder to draw without feeling tingling sensations in various fingers.
To combat it, I tried a serious of different things… magnetic gloves, ice, Advil, wrist braces… I even bought a new drafting table hoping that drawing on an angle would relieve the sensations I now experienced whenever I either drew or tried to write for extended periods of time. All of these things helped – to an extent – but for only short periods of time. The only thing the TRULY helped was not drawing at all. So I decided to get this feeling checked out and to finally see what was going on.
I went to my family doctor who suggested I make an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon. The orthopedic surgeon diagnosed the cyst but suggested I make an appointment with a hand specialist. The hand specialist looked over everything and decided I needed to get an MRI and a nerve damage test done before a proper diagnoses was complete.
Well, today (July 22, 2015) I had the MRI done. I had a previous MRI done when I had a baseball knee injury years ago. Back then, I only had to go into the MRI tube up to my waist – which was easy and really relaxing. Today, I had to be immersed much deeper into the tube. And it seemed much, much tighter than I remembered. At first, a tad bit of claustrophobia began to set in as I was immersed all the up to the bridge of my nose. But I got through it since it had to be done.
Now, the next step is going back to the hand doctor and getting the nerve damage test done, go over the MRI results and figure out what the next step is.
The good news is that I can still draw. There’s no real pain until I try to draw for long periods of time. It sucks that my drawing production has dropped off the face of a very long cliff but I wanted to let you all know that I am doing everything I can to climb back up that cliff so I can once again be as productive as I was when I was working my way through 1,000 Capes & babes strips.
As soon as I know more about my diagnoses, so will you all as well.
Thanks for understanding and I hope you all will see Roy back in cyber pixels very, very soon.
-Chris
