An Old Devil's Angel

S. Clay Wilson Update
(most recent, and very disturbing, 6/11-at bottom)

  Readers of this blog and those with a general interest in Underground comics know all about the terrible circumstances in which S. Clay Wilson and his devoted wife Lorraine Chamberlain have been living these past few years (see earlier entry “7/25/11 S. Clay Wilson Turns 70”). The quality of Wilson’s remaining life is dependent to a great extent on the energy that Lorraine is able to give him. She needs us to help her continue this difficult and relentless work. The most effective way to do that is to make a donation to the Trust Fund. Please do what you can.

Thanks

S. Clay Wilson S.N.T. (Special Needs Trust)

P.O. Box 14854

San Francisco, CA 94114

4/21 post...This follows one that I omitted, in which W took a sudden nosedive and the situation looked extremely grim. This one is from the following day. There was also a note thanking all who donated thus far. 

When I arrived today, Wilson was sleeping. I kept bugging him, saying it was his 1pm forced feeding, which made him smile even tho he didn't open his eyes. I finally got him to take some bites of his lunch. He managed some grapes, pineapple, the top of his sandwich, and some milk. Better than nothing! Then Ace arrived, and he really did wake up. Ace told some jokes and made him chuckle. Still couldn't say his own name, nor mine, but he was more alert than yesterday and his color had returned. The ct scan showed no change from before, so that was sort of good, at least. Later on I got him dressed and we took him downstairs in a wheelchair and practiced getting him in & out of the bathtub with a transfer bench. He was really cooperative. Then I got the car and we tried to get him in & out of that....but I couldn't get him back out. The therapist finally had to lift him. That will take more work, strengthening his legs. (I won't be able to take him out in the car without help til he gets stronger.) I had been pulling him out of there for the past month without help, nearly killing myself. I can't continue to do that, obviously.

Thanks to everyone who wrote & called. It made me feel so much less alone.

I'll find out next Monday or Tuesday if I'm bringing him home next weekend. They may want to keep him a bit longer to stabilize him and also give me a break before bringing him home, where it will now be more difficult to take care of him. We'll see....

I want to give him many more years of a happy life at home. I believe it's still possible.

Best,

Lorraine

 FORWARDED MAIL ADDED 5/3 from Lorraine to Ron Turner

It has been a process, getting the staff at the Tunnell Center to understand how to deal with Wilson.

Even though I have spent at least 6 hours a day there.

The doctor at this new place has changed his meds, even though they lowered them at Davies a couple of days before they discharged him. So yesterday, he mostly just stared at me. (This was disturbing, as he always answers YES or NO to my questions, at least!) The doctor saw him for the first time on Tuesday, as he wasn't there on Monday. That's only 3 days he's known him, so this staring thing was a puzzle to the staff until I tracked him down and told him this was extremely unusual behavior. They didn't know him well enough to think otherwise. They've taken him off Trazadone, which is mostly for sleeping, and lowered his anti-psychotic meds to one dose at night. This is to get him more perky, and willing to get up out of bed. He has walked each day a little farther, but it's still only about 150 feet. In light of this, they plan to keep him for another couple of weeks, so he will presumably be stronger when he comes home.

The hard part is he is so uncooperative with anyone but me. Most days I end up giving him his meds when I get there, as he refuses to take them from the nurse most mornings, even though they call me to speak to him. 

This puts a burden on me that has got to stop. I am exhausted from all of this, and don't have the time or energy to do anything else in the course of a day. I get up and get ready to race over there, and leave just in time to get a parking spot at home at the end of the day. I do emails when I get home, eat something, and have to lie down for the rest of the night.

I'm on my way there soon, after I take a shower. Yesterday, by the time I'd helped clean him up, get him dressed and take him for a walk, got him to eat his lunch, put him in the shower seat, washed him down, got his diaper & gown back on and got him back in bed, my back was a mess. But with all that attention he was finally smiling and answering me in the afternoon. I stayed to introduce him to another therapist, and finally got home at 5.

I am excited to see if he's more cooperative today after having possibly adjusted to lower meds. I'll let you all know.

Best, 

Lorraine 

 FORWARDED MAIL ADDED 5/29 from Lorraine to Ron Turner

The night nurse just called. I've been waiting ALL DAY for the techs to arrive to do the ultrasound. Since lunch time, they've been saying they're "on the way". From a neighboring GALAXY? I finally came home with the assertion they call once the test was done.

Anyway...he DOES have DVT. I couldn't understand the answer when I asked where the clot is, but will find out tomorrow when I go. If I hadn't been in the habit of looking him over every day, this could have killed him. And still could til the Cumadin kicks in. Thank god I took photos and insisted it wasn't a SUNBURN on one leg, (like that would be real) and insisted they do an ultrasound. I'm glad I told my sister about it last Wednesday, and she said it sounded like a blood clot. I had no idea WHAT it was. I only knew it looked like an emergency, and told them right away. And it's now a whole week later.

I am relieved that they have found it, but outraged at what it took to get anyone to pay attention. Even today, they were saying "well, it isn't red any more, so it's probably not a clot". I reminded them that he's been bedridden since Thursday, with it elevated. Jesus.

Now I need to talk to a real doctor to find out what the next step should be. I'll try to get ahold of his Dr in the morning, and if nothing else works, I'll go up and ask to speak to the Dr in Davies....the nice one. I need some real advice on how long he should stay in bed, and what to expect. I have a discharge meeting there on Thursday, and am interviewing caregivers. I need to know if he should go back to a hospital, or if he can come home in a week.

I'm exhausted.

Later,

Lorraine

 FORWARDED MAIL ADDED 6/11 from Lorraine to Ron Turner

Today's ultrasound showed that Wilson's DVT has not responded to medication, and the doctor now advises sending him to the hospital. I believe he will be moved to St Mary's tomorrow. (thanks to Ron Turner for his reassurance about that place....I only know I don't want him returned to the hospital he was in before!). I am very worried. The clot is extremely large. 

Not much else to say. I'll go at noon, and hopefully they will move him shortly after I arrive. (I only know they're not moving him before that.)

Another hard night.....

L

Hero Revisited, Revisited

This originally appeared in the premier issue of PRIME CUTS, published by Fantagraphics in 1986.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A Jamaican Switch

When these pen drawings came tumbling out of the archives, I thought of this old street lingo. It’s a method of duping a “John,”  a guy who's in search of a prostie. One pimp promises to deliver the goods, then cajoles the hapless fellow out of a deposit. He is then led into a waiting room or bar where his quest for fleshly delight proves futile. It was ’97 when I got a call out of the blue from an author who had written an American history of cruel misdeeds that had been perpetrated by the military, science, industry and government. “We saw your work in the New Yorker and loved it. We absolutely want you to illustrate our book. We just need a couple illustrations to show the publisher.”
  I had yet to grapple with Photoshop, much less Quark. This was my attempt to provide a certain ultra clarity of line that was increasingly becoming the stylistic norm. I did this through a series of tissue overlays and xeroxs’. I worked hard on these to prove that I could still keep up with the latest technology, though in a John Henry sort of way. More importantly, I badly needed a freelance gig that would allow me to work while on the road. But I was blindsided by the rejection. Another artist had been given the same line by the author and we were both unwitting competitors enlisted to submit finished art for free.
  The first illustration shows the intentional radiation poisoning of a test subject in a military hospital during the mid-'40s.
  The second is an actual pygmy who was housed at the Bronx Zoo near the turn of the 20th Century.
  Not shown is me sitting near the phone, an old-fashioned black cradle type, waiting for that cash call that was to be my imagined salvation. But the other guy got the girl.

 

 

Fate is kind, too

  I am constantly amazed by the seeming randomness of events which bring delays or petty annoyances that are ultimately fortunate. This strip was one of the 100+ Musical Legends biographies I did for Tower Records’ PULSE! Magazine during the ‘90s. (The collection is still available from Last Gasp.) It describes how an improbable series of actions and non-actions led to an occurrence that was perfectly timed. I recently experienced such a remarkable chain of events on a long auto trip. All the stops and detours along the way determined the exact time of arrival. Salvation came in form of a slow school bus ahead, that suddenly made the scenic route unbearable. The difference of ten minutes (gained by getting back on the freeway) would have been a matter of life and death. 

Love By Trial and Error

Pen and ink with watercolor, 1999

A Name That Should Be An Adjective

This one was done in watercolor and pen and ink back in ’93 after an intense study of Thomas Nast. It was part of a freebie fundraiser project for WFMU, the great little station in NJ that has a signal strong enough to reach Manhattan, from where the Great Prevaricator holds forth daily. I am amazed that he’s still standing, on the top of the world, no less. Busted for Oxycontin abuse, this pudgy pundit’s credibility among his vast Republican audience is never questioned. Almost 20 years later, all I would have to do to bring this image up to date in Photoshop is whiten the hair, add some wrinkles and “lasso” the pile of shit, then  “free transform” it to about ten times its current scale.

  Much is made of the Diebold theft of the previous election and the earlier Florida cabal that sealed Gore’s (and Iraq’s) fate—both by such close margins. But what about the low IQ, racist, xenophobic, superstitious sector of voters that this blowhard delivers into the Republican fold every single election? Speaking of campaign finance reform, what are the economic tendrils which reach beyond his mere advertisers?

"Must" Reading

This charming bookplate will be included in the whopper (about 250 pages) anthology NO ME, which will be released this April at the Stumptown Comics Festival in Portland, OR.  
  The black & white extravaganza will feature line works by scores of pen-pushers personally invited by Jason T. Miles to submit work in exchange for three free copies.  These will no doubt fetch a pretty penny at auction, should cash-strapped artists decide to pay rent rather than bequeath bagged copies to their heirs. A very small edition will be available for sale to the public.

  A longtime employee of Fantagraphics, Miles soldiers on there, wearing many hats. This project, though, is his sole production. Good luck to all of us!