No, you're not staying up too late, you've got something wrong with your thyroid!

During Small Press Idol, I spent months staying up late, waking up early, etc... Somewhere in the middle of the competition, April or May, I started getting really tired, like I wasn't getting enough sleep (which I wasn't). I thought, well, I've been staying up late and waking up early for months, so I just need to get some sleep, rest up, and I'll be good to go! So, I took the period between rounds 2 and 3 and then between 3 and 4 to catch up on sleep, chores, etc, thinking it would help me feel better... it didn't. During the last handful of months, too, I started to gain an odd amount of weight... I thought to myself, "well, I haven't been eating a lot more, but maybe my metabolism is slowing down or I'm eating more than I thought." Nope...

During SDCC this year, my wife and I gave blood... I get this letter in the mail a couple of weeks later that I got a false positive for something indicating I could have or could end up with leukemia. Since my grandfather died of leukemia, I thought, OH CRAP, and made a quick appointment with my doctor to get things checked out. Barrage of tests later, nope, I'm fine, oh wait, there are some levels off with your thyroid! Hmmm....

Didn't think too much about it, but I did recall that thyroid issues run in my family. The doctor scheduled me for an ultrasound of my thyroid which showed that I have multi-nodular goiters on both sides of my thyroid. The doctor didn't seem too worried but said "just in case" I should get these extra tests done (I'll get back to that "just in case").

Last Thursday and Friday, I got to play Radioactive Man... They gave me this radio-nucleotide pill (radioactive iodine), which was cool because I didn't have to get a radioactive injection instead (phew). They kicked me loose for a few hours and then did some scans... Friday morning, more scans...

Today I found out that there's a bunch of abnormal stuff in the readings, so I just need to find out what my next steps are, but I was told I'm probably going to need to get my thyroid taken out. Some? All? Who knows!

Strangely enough, I was listening to Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb when my wife called to tell me... Surreal.

Just thought I'd share since people actually do read this thing, I've come to find out!

Well, while you're reading... go check out all of the cool stuff I updated at the Bearded Lady site... Darn it!

Projects, projects, and more projects... more coming?

So, over at the BeardedLadyOnline.com site, we've got a few projects mentioned... well, some of those are going to be getting a lot of wordplay from us in the coming weeks... We're actually going to start doing web comics, too!

First to be mentioned... Capetown Chronicles... Part 1: Just a Cup of Coffee...

After some of the buzz surrounding the story, perhaps for its sheer vulgarity, I'm not sure, we've decided to share the story in the coming weeks and follow it up with some more installments, all on the web!

The page just shows a sample, so be prepared, there's a lot more coming... Roger is just working to get some more life in the pages. You'll see!

Go to the Bearded Lady Comics section of the site here and click on "Capetown Chronicles"...

Enjoy!

thanks,
Erik
erik@beardedladyonline.com
http://www.beardedladyonline.com
http://thelastbardsblog.blogspot.com

Image Crazy 99! Ok, maybe it's just the third one, but I thought I'd share...

Yeah, I know it's a crazy number of images, but that's the point! Welcome to my mind, people! What happens to me when I'm writing, or should I say when I'm in a creative mode, is that other ideas start popping into my head. Rather than consider them distractions to the stories I'm working on, I welcome them, flush them out, and get them out of my mind by writing as much as I can in a short period of time.

I've probably talked about my process before, but when I get that initial idea, I try to get to my computer, open a file and brain dump as much as I can out at the same time. It's a loose plot and dialog and whatever else might pop up... names, locations, time, whatever happens to come out. I'd say it's a brainstorm, but I don't limit myself in any way, I just throw what I can out in as large chunks as possible. In the end, I'll end up with anywhere between a page and a handful of pages and I can set it aside until I get back to it again. The nice thing about co-writing with someone, if you do that, is you can take that same brain dump, throw it into a Google Doc (I recommend it if you haven't tried it), and bat it back and forth, organizing as you go along, add, subtract, separate into different files, etc... in the end, you have something you can almost start scripting from. Over the past handful of months, I've ended up with over 30 of these "little" brain dumps ranging from solo projects to things I've worked on with Michael Nelsen, etc... So there you have it!!!

What you have is... Unfiltered, written by Me with art by Jason Baroody... Unbeatables, created by Michael Nelsen and I with art by Michael Nelsen.... "TLA" created by myself and Michael Nelsen... pen "doodle" by Michael... The Evil Tree written by me with art by Denman Rooke... My Detective book, written by me with Art by Sachin Nagar... Any lettering you see is done by me, I try to do all of my own lettering, but sometimes I get some help. ;)

Have fun and please go check out the Bearded Lady site, it's getting ready to go through some SERIOUS changes!

Thanks,
Erik
erik@beardedladyonline.com