This is not a post I wanted to write, but if you’ve been following along on Twitter, Ravelry, or on Patreon, then you know that in the past few months my health issues have gotten to the point where I can no longer manage a “side hustle” of any kind; I’m barely getting through the work day and probably wouldn’t survive if my wife didn’t cook.
A little background, for those not in the know: I have Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, which was initially diagnosed because I was sleeping all the time. With medication, things improved, but not the the point where I was “normal.” I went from operating at something like 10% to something like 75%. Over the past five years, my energy levels and symptoms have gone up and down, but since September they’ve been in a steady decline, and taking my immune system with them. I’m back down to that 10-20% marker. It’s not just being tired, either. It’s brain fog, so that even on my “good” days when I have energy and motivation, I don’t have the ability to concentrate on things like writing and editing. There are loads of other symptoms, too, but those are the three main ones.
I’m currently waiting on visits with 3 different specialists to see what is going on. Obviously, I haven’t mentioned everything here. I’m hoping that I’ll be back by June, but right now I don’t have a choice except to put all of KnotMagick Studios on hold because I am physically incapable of meeting any kind of deadline or schedule. The little energy I do have I need to put toward my day job so that I can keep a roof over my head.
I am still creating, I just can’t put it on any kind of schedule or timeline; it’s very, very slow. I’ll still be posting on social media and hope to have an update in about a month since I will likely be starting a new med soon which should help (It’s actually meant to address a totally different problem, but will also probably help with my exhaustion and sleep issues. Hooray for good side effects).
Most of my health updates and talk about diagnostic processes are going over on my Tumblr, since it’s kind of separate from the rest of my “business” social media, but you can still find me there as KnotMagickStudios.
I held off posting anything here on my main site just because I do draft blog posts in advance, and had a small backlog I could work through. I’ve been thinking about this since October and was really hoping that the break over the holidays would see an improvement, but basically my energy tanked around Thanksgiving, and took my immune system with it. I’ve been sick and having flares of various kinds since Christmas, which mostly leaves me laying in bed watching tv and sleeping while holding the knitting projects I can’t bring myself to work on. The thought of going to the grocery store makes me want to cry. So I’m going to listen to my body and take the time I need to heal and recover from….whatever is causing this. I am in contact with my GP and a long list of specialists and am getting tested for many different things, but so far there are no “yeses” and the only “no” has been cancer (but that’s a good thing at least!).
Stay safe, stay healthy, and find something cute and fluffy to cuddle with. I’ll see you soon, I hope.
KnotMagick Studios 