Christine tells it like it is...

Headaches

Warning: this is a little self-indulgent, but it was necessary at the time. 

 

So, disclaimer, things are much better than they were when I drew this comic about a month ago. My doctor had put me on a crazy anti-seizure medicine in hopes it would help with my migraines. Not only did it not help with the headaches, but I had really bad side-effects. I had trouble thinking and focusing, I would forget words all the time which made it very difficult to hold conversations, I was running into things while walking, I lost weight because I would forget to eat for a whole day, my fingers would tingle all the time like my hands were falling asleep, and I was having panic attacks. I was on this for a little over a month and for that month it became really hard to deal with daily life because now I was not only in pain but I felt like my brain was failing me.
It took so much energy just to get through work that I didn't really have energy for anything else so I mostly stopped hanging out with people because it was too hard to hold a conversation. I didn't go right back to my doctor to be taken off of it because I no longer trusted myself and I thought, maybe this is just what I'm always like. The headache specialist I started seeing this month took me off the medicine right away and things got better fast. Now that I'm seeing this specialist I feel much more hopeful that the headaches will pass with hopefully as few unobtrusive medications as possible.
I wasn't going to post this one originally because it just felt too personal, but I also wasn't really talking to people about what I was going through at the time so I will share now.

This one's an annoying grumblefest. Sorry.

I try not to have my fun-a-day comics be grumblefests, but somedays I can't avoid it. This was one of them.

Kids Comics Club

This was from a kids mini-comics workshop I was doing at the library to promote the Comics Fest, one mister Patrick Holt and I organized for our library. The above link is to a blog post Lunch Lady author, Jarrett Krosoczka wrote about the event. He was particularly excited about the young artists displaying and signing their mini-comics. Two of the kids in this comic (the girl talking about the flea, and the kid with the machine gun arm) are featured in Jarrett's post.

February 19, 2010

Sorry for the lapse in posts. I went on vacation, which also ended up being a technology vacation (no phone, (almost) no internet). I got to see my friends get married; I got to meet my brother's lovely new girlfriend; and Majka (my dog) made a BFF out of my parents dog, Boise. Majka also discovered the wonder of giant backyards where she could dig all she wanted. It was puppy heaven. Beautiful.

On our epic, 18 hour trip back from WNY to North Carolina we stopped in Pittsburgh. We had lunch at my old house with my favorite former housemate, met up with some old friends, and went to the new Copacetic Comics. If you've never been there - It's the best comics shop ever. The owner is so friendly and has read just about everything in the store, and gives great recommendations. Even in the old location that was the size of a closet, it was by far the best stocked indie comics store I've been to. Now that they have a reasonable amount of space - it's wonderful, and worth the stop in Pittsburgh. We loaded up on new comics. Kirill was excited to find Bar Miki, a new Finnish comic (as he is learning Finnish). I picked up Ten Thousand Things to Do by Jesse Reklaw, 3 Stories by Alexis Frederick-Frost, and Neptune by Aron Nels Steinke.

Oh, Pittsburgh, how I love thee.

February 3, 2010