IMPORTANT: SPELLBIND UPDATE

[spellbindmods]

i can put pretty formatting here when i'm not in a major rush

Hello Spellbind! Your head mod is here, finally, to give you an official update. (Thank you to Otis for giving an unofficial update to everyone on Discord/her plurk.) To start things off, I sincerely apologize for this period of unresponsiveness -- I know it has hindered your enjoyment and potential to play within the game. This is especially true of those who were accepted in February, who didn't get a chance to fully enjoy the game with new characters.

I definitely owe it to you to explain what's been going on (which I've only available the past few hours and wanted to bang this out before the 1st, EST, so apologies for not immediately saying anything)! This will get a little detailed, as I feel I owe it to everyone to explain the situation to the fullest so you can better understand the lack of correspondence. If you'd like to skip the health TL;DR, skip to the last "---".

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The past week has been extremely difficult and frightening -- actually, that can be said about the past month, off and on. I thought that what was a strenuous kidney issue would be topped off by an inconvenient cold and that would be the end of it. It has never actually stopped. I've had this issue in the past, about a year ago, and it lasted about four days; most kidney stones will last a couple days at most, a week if you're really unlucky. Because this has been a problem that has persisted for about a month now, the prognosis is much different.

I can barely remember anything that happened over the weekend, being perfectly honest. I remember being alright at work for the most part, concerned that I had a stone that was stuck and causing some minor pain. As the day went on, it became very clear that wasn't the root of the issue. I couldn't control most of the muscles in my abdomen and they were spamming at random. I took two muscle relaxers to try and see if that would relieve the tension in my body. I was spending the night at a friend's house -- I don't remember it. My pain was so severe, combined with the medication, that I was so exhausted and stressed and it's literally all a blur. She told me I fell multiple times. I couldn't use one side of my body. I was convulsing because of my muscles straining to push a stone out of my body, as well as another detaching from my kidney walls. I couldn't keep anything down because of the pain and muscle strain. I'm glad I don't remember a lot of it.

I had a cancerous cyst removed from my body after two years of extreme pain in 2017. I thought that experience was the epitome of pain -- this weekend was literally hell and proved me wrong. My body has just now recovered, and I say that with shaky certainty. I had multiple pulled muscles that were taught and traumatized because my kidney released another stone and I'm still trying to expel it muscularly. My friend wanted to take me to the hospital but I begged her not to; I couldn't afford another useless ER visit.

Saturday I went out -- I have vague flashes of where I was throughout the day but no concrete memories of interactions or what I did exactly. The pain was lesser that day, but the exhaustion and trauma on my body were there in full force.

I slept a lot on Sunday, and what I was awake for is a blur. Monday was similar, and I fainted on Tuesday. I've barely been cognizant to talk to my friends and family sitting a few feet from me. Getting through work was a struggle Monday and yesterday, and luckily they were slow days so I could get away with sneaking to the bathroom and dozing every once in a while. It's also a job where your phones are locked away for almost 8 hours, so any updates during periods where I was lucid was almost impossible.

Right now I'm okay -- the scary part is I don't know how long that will last. Because of the month long issue that I just escaped from (hopefully), I have to treat this like a kidney disease just to hopefully mitigate making the issue worse, or even making it return at this point. I've been concerned that one wrong move or meal will lead to another stone, or worse, the kidney shutting down because it feels like that's what I'm on the brink of. Eating meals has been something of a worry spot, since my diet is now limited to water, a couple different juices, lettuce and not much else since I'm restricting my salt, carbs, and specific acid intakes.

I can't currently explain this further -- admittedly this isn't doctor diagnosed yet. My two trips to the ER have been massively unhelpful and honestly useless. I was given medication I'm allergic to both times (the doctor in question knew this ahead of time during both visits), and my CT scan results have been contradictory or missing information. Urology is open 8 to 4 from Monday through Friday -- which, coincidentally, is my exact work schedule. I've already missed work twice for this problem and can't miss anymore until my schedule changes on the 11th. After that I have to make two preliminary appointments before they even begin to explain what may be wrong with me. This could be a long wait. I could be eating nothing but lettuce and walking around scared until early to mid-April. This is all to say that if I could have potentially prevented this problem, I definitely would have, but scheduling and strict regulations at my job are preventing it, and I can't be out of income right now.

There are usually a couple of people who do the lighter mod work with me, from posting updates if I can't to delegating tasks to them to help lighten the load. They've been somewhat fair weather (they aren't players, don't worry), whether because of their own life situations that get in the way or lack of interest in keeping up with the game. A mixture of this, plus not being in the best shape to communicate, has led to these delays, and I sincerely apologize for it.

TL;DR Things have been hellish, nightmarish and downright sucky. I've been pain-free for about 24 hours confirmed and incident free for 48 at least, so here's to hoping things are okay for now. No guarantees, but there's at least going to be a plan of action in place in the event things go all the way left again.

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Now that the sob story is out of the way, here's the schedule of events to get things back on track:

- For now, AC will be a check-in that is open for 5 days, like a typical app cycle. If you have AC, by all means post it! Otherwise, you can simply write something on the sheet and consider it done with.
Today, a TDM of sorts will be put up, which doubles as that post-eviction log. Apps will open at 12 AM, like usual, but written samples will be allowed. They will also be open for 7 days, unlike the usual 5 in order to adjust for written samples or potential threads for apps.
Tomorrow, the weekly update from Saturday will be posted and will contain the hacking information everyone has been waiting for (which may explain a thing or two about the TDM). There will also be prompts for what characters can do now so they aren't just sitting in stasis.
Saturday, a weekly update post will be put up with a few other little things just to get the schedule back to where it should be. There will also be instructions for helper mod positions. Hopefully helpers who are players will be more invested and understanding of the game culture and needs, so we can avoid total communication breakdowns in the future! More information on what you'd be doing will be on the Saturday post.

Also, I definitely understand if you dropped during the downtime -- no one wants to commit to a game where you think the future is uncertain, or it's teetering on a cliff's edge. Absolutely understandable, in my opinion. However, if you do wish to come back, you have drop immunity -- just reply to the app page reclaiming your character at any time in March and you'll be reaccepted, no questions asked! This applies to any characters dropped after February 15th.