Comics, de quervain’s, and guinea pigs
I ended up cranking out quite a few drawings in January despite getting covid, and that has continued for part of February. I’m really excited to have incorporated yet another color into the book’s palette: beryl green. It’s basically an aquamarine shade which will serve as the first of two more additions to the green family (which currently consists of moss green). The color-change signifies a change in setting (in this case, this is a flashback within a flashback).
This semester I’m trying much harder to stick with the routine of drawing in the morning (usually from 8am–1pm), then lunch, then school from 1:30–6pm. So far it’s really helped me chug along usually with 2-4 pages a week, plus drafting of my next pages based on past work. Last semester I started getting overwhelmed worrying about school deadlines by mid-semester and then would never prioritize artwork. Chris had some good advice as I voiced this concern during winter break, that there is never going to be a time when I have nothing on my to-do list but artwork, so I might as well prioritize it or I will never feel it’s a legitimate priority.
I don’t have all that much left in this chapter, but also had to hit the brakes the last couple of weeks. The combined forces of overuse from drawing, taking copious notes during lectures, and shoveling/scraping/brushing off the car in strong winds during our recent blizzard resulted in a bout of de quervain’s tenosynovitis, which is essentially tendonitis where the base of the thumb meets the wrist. Of course, when I thought it was almost better, I resumed drawing and taking notes, only to make it far worse, so I ended up spending a week and a half mostly wearing a brace and refraining from any lifting or fine motor skills in my right hand. Though I was tempted to return to drawing last week, I gave it another week just in case. But one sign that it’s doing much better is that I can again crack my thumb joint (the Dunscombes all have terrible knuckle-cracking habits); for the last several weeks whenever I would forget I shouldn’t and unconsciously try to crack it, it would result in a really sharp pain and the crack was impossible to achieve due to all the inflammation (if you’re a knuckle cracker, you will understand how unsatisfying it is to not succeed in a cracking attempt). Perhaps all this is a signal that I should re-examine the ergonomics of my drawing setup and habits though.
Below are a few snapshots of this chapter’s pages. There are several more after this, but I haven’t snapped any photos. Once I’m further along I’ll venture out to scan them all.
Another factor in the slow-rolling is that our beloved guinea pig Ivy was diagnosed last month with inoperable carcinoma in her abdomen, and the tumor is growing quite aggressively. It has been heartbreaking to watch it grow and know that it’s completely out of my control, and to keep circling around and around conversations about the timing of eventual euthanasia. We even had an at-home euthanasia appointment scheduled quite recently when Ivy was having some sudden complications, but then they suddenly resolved (she passed a bladder stone that we didn’t even know she had!) and so we cancelled with the option to reschedule when we feel it’s truly time. In the meantime, right now she is sitting beside me looking hopefully for a snack of some kind, and she seems quite content on her pain management medications.
End-of-life planning and care for an animal companion is a uniquely traumatic experience; they cannot advocate for their own wishes, we must make our best judgments based on the evidence, and balance the prevention of future pain with the urge to give them as much happy time as possible. But as the quote from Winnie the Pooh goes, “How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”
