Strokes are serious medical disturbances that we all have to live in fear of, often striking out of the blue and claiming lives or altering them drastically. For manga artist Mahiro Takura, it cost the use of his right hand, perhaps the most valuable body part for someone in his field. For many, that would be enough to send them into a spiral of depression.

However, rather than let his condition control his life, Mr. Takura decided to take control and has been rapidly learning to make use of his left hand instead. He recently tweeted the story of his recovery and we would like to share the translated version with you.

The following was patched together from several tweets made on the evening of August 2, 2013.

Right, this is going to get a little heavy. You may have noticed I’ve been out of touch for over a month. I’ve been in hell since late last June when I suddenly lost control of my body and collapsed. Although I was conscious and alert I couldn’t move my right hand or leg. It was a brain hemorrhage.

Luckily the bleeding wasn’t too heavy and I didn’t need surgery. They said it was best to just wait and see how the recovery goes. However, scars of what they call “right-side hemiplegia” linger on in my body.

I couldn’t move at all for the first week… at least I think I couldn’t. LOL Actually, I don’t remember most of the first week and what I do is hazy. LOL

From there recovery went slowly day by day and there is a constant pain in my right hand. At this point if you asked me if I would ever draw another line again I would have screamed “Hell no!”

I was in despair. Was that how I really wanted to live my life? Only then I knew that it was silly to think that way. I was still alive. The left side of me seemed to be shouting at my right saying “Snap out of it!” and “Get to work!”

Since my left hand seemed to know everything, I decided to put it to work instead! Good luck, left hand!

I wouldn’t have gotten this far were it not for my editor and other kind people who told me “I’m waiting for your rebirth!” Even greater was the support from all my fans! I’m sorry I’ve been really busy and couldn’t reply to everyone. For those of you who I missed, I will always be available in places like [Twitter].

From then on I began drawing with my left hand until my right one eventually gets better. It will take a long time but it will happen. Please continue to support the rebirth of the new Mahiro Takura! LOL

At this point we should mention that Mahiro Takura works in the erotic manga field. Don’t worry though. The following images are little more than kind of saucy and we censored any naughty bits with Mr. Sato’s face. Alright, back to the story!

It was a crash course for my poor left hand but just after getting out of the hospital I did a test drawing. Warning: they’re really miserable.

Here’s what I managed to do after one month. Again, warning.

Then I got the idea to practice by tracing over some old drawings! I tried with this old one.

And here is the practice picture!

Thank you everyone! Still, this picture feels hollow. I guess it’s hard work breathing new life into anything.

And so it looks like Mahiro Takura has the spirit to find new life in his work and in himself. We’d like to wish him the best on his journey and hope he finds even better success as a lefty.

Source: Twitter – Mahiro Takura via My Game News Flash (Japanese)