Wednesday, January 17, 2007 11:08 pm  <|>
<256> Make Every Moment Matter: So once again it's been a little longer in between posts than I would have liked... but I guess that just can't be helped sometimes. I'd like to say I've been so crazy busy that I just haven't had a spare moment... while it does feel like I haven't quite had the moments needed to getting around to updating here (as if that weren't already apparent), at the same time a lot of this last month and a half has been spent doing very little... though I guess that's not totally my fault. Sometime in the early weeks of December I started not feeling so well. It was random one day I was fine, that night I threw up my dinner, I spent the next day laying on the couch feeling crappy, and the following day at the ER... followed by a week in the hospital for an 'unknown' infection - such is my life. At least that last couple times this has happened they ruled it was a mild case of e.coli (both times) and had to do with my urinary tract and having a bladder infection, but this time they didn't even seem to get that far in the ruling. They said they couldn't determine what caused it, but that antibiotics seemed to help, so even though my kidney numbers were high they began to fall and they felt they could let me go home. It's always an adjustment coming home from the hospital... especially when you truly don't feel well (as I've been in sometimes just for an IV treatment or something where I felt just fine but had to stay in the hospital anyway). Usually by the time you leave you are supposed to be feeling better, and this time I was somewhat, but mainly you mostly just want to get out of there and be home. At least feeling sick in your own home sounds like a better option at the time. Sometimes this is true, other times not so much. This time around when I got home I still felt pretty sick and in the days that first followed I started to feel just as sick as I had before I'd gone into the hospital. Some of the issues were I couldn't keep anything down, so I was going to next to no food for like 6-7 days straight plus even though I was doing my best to keep drinking, I had gone into the hospital dehydrated and feared that I was continuing to be so, especially with the throwing up not helping matters much. All in all, I felt like quite a mess. Christmas came and I fortunately felt a little better that weekend, though still not the greatest and very low on energy. Blood tests twice a week did shown improvement slowly, but surely in my kidney numbers, so that was a somewhat good sign... but I still didn't feel the greatest. This held true by New Years as well... so I took it easy. We just had a few friends over and even though we ended up staying up until 3am, a bit later than I had planned, otherwise I managed to take it easy and didn't feel too bad, though I would hardly call what we had a party and I was FAR from the life of it. But I have good friends who understand my annoying situation at times, so everything was cool.

So 2007 snuck in without too much of a bang, but that was ok with me. I have no idea what this year holds. This time last year I was wondering about starting a new full time job once again, not feeling the greatest then either, and just worrying a bit too much about money issues and just had a lot going on and to think about really I guess. Now I'm feeling much more laid back after the year that I've had. A lot of it tends to blur together at times, but I guess that is to be expected. Dates of hospital visits and times of sickness overlap in your head eventually when you start to add them up and are left to identify them by times of year and outcomes. This time last year I couldn't have guessed that I'd be back on dialysis by February. This year I got scared my luck of getting off dialysis back in July might have run out. I think the doctors started to think so too, but I'm lucky to have one single doctor in my 'team' of doctors at the kidney transplant clinic who I truly believe is looking out for me and realizing I am not the usual case. The other doctors are nice and I respect them a lot, but sometimes you just really need someone who listens to you and who you can believe in. I had all but given up on finding that with my current hospital until the doctor I just mentioned came along. He also happens to be the one who got my off of dialysis and has kept me off since. And he continues to do what he can to see that this kidney of mine isn't kicked quite yet. I'm doing the same in my own ways, some of which would make sense if I explained them and some of which wouldn't. Either way, a positive attitude is important regardless and I was worried that I was starting to lose that despite my best efforts in this last month. I think that is finally turning around and I'm happy about that of course. I'm starting to feel more and more like my old self and starting to get back a little energy here and there, though some basics are still feeling like a struggle. I guess I just need more time... and that's something I will always have to learn to allow myself to take.

In other, non-related news I'm typing this post from my laptop, which is remotely connected to my desktop upstairs. The laptop is sitting on the pillow next to me. In my lap is my NEW laptop that I just bought Monday! ;) It's also a Sony Vaio (as is my current laptop and my desktop), but smaller than my current laptop and weighs in at 5 pounds. The screen is small (13 inches) on purpose, but widescreen which is nice. It's fast and new and I bought it for my business so that I could have one computer setup for Metatative that I could take around to clients and keep all my business files in one place. That's not to say I won't use my desktop still for most of my design work as I'm sure that I will, but when I had a client ask me recently to bring my laptop to work at his office I did, but my older laptop is just not very fast, needs a bit of an overhaul, and really it just wasn't productive. I've also been wanting a new laptop for a little while now and knowing that my current laptop was already a few years old and that it wouldn't make it as a main laptop for another 1-2 years (the time left I have for school - another place I need to be able to bring my laptop with me to and travel with it whenever) I thought it would be a good investment. I can do this because I took out the second (and final) loan for school. Some of that money goes to tuition of course, but it's also meant to be put aside for the remaining two trips to Austria I have left, school supplies, lost wages during my residencies, etc, etc.... and since I used my credit card to pay for a lot of stuff while I was at the first residency as my first loan was much smaller than this second one I'm taking out, I plan to get my cards paid off and give myself (and Dan) a somewhat clean state and some money to work with to get us going on the right track FINALLY! It's been tough with me working only part time and Dan being out of work for the most part since last March. He just started back at the set painting job he had to leave this time last year because they had to let all their workers (well almost all) go because they couldn't afford them. This time around he's probably only going to be able to stay on for a month or two, but at least it's something and it came about just as the last of his unemployment came through... so now after this we'll have to see. And I lost time and wages around the holidays on top of basic gift spending (though I must say I had to keep it somewhat light this year) because of not feeling well... so basically right now I'm feeling the need to get back on my feet and back in order where everything is concerned. So what else is new? ;)

Ahh I see my file transfer is almost complete on my new laptop. Yes, I'm remotely connected via GoToMyPC through my old laptop to my desktop, then also connected with the new laptop to the desktop through the shared internet connection network. Shared folders can be quite useful, though I've never really used them that much until tonight. I did just buy a USB cable that was supposed to easily connect two PCs together, especially laptops, but I just couldn't get the thing to work correctly. I got them to recognize each other, but when I'd go to transfer a file - the only thing the cable/built in program is supposed to do, it would lock up on one or both of my laptops and I've have to restart both to even try again. I finally gave up and resorted to the shared internet connection - I know it can't be as fast.... 480 Mbps with the cable would have been much nicer than the at most 11 Mbps I must be getting through this wireless connection, but what can I do? I'm going to try setting up the link between my desktop and my old laptop since there is plenty on my laptop I could really use to be moved to my desktop as well... so hopefully I'll get use out of the cable after all.

Also, besides the laptop purchase I had a little spending spree on Monday which also happened to be Dan's 25th birthday. It started out as us going to lunch with my mom and then into the mall to buy Dan a new cell phone which he was badly in need of. Then we decided to go to Best Buy because they were having a coupon weekend and I wanted to get my 'one item for 12% off' - so off we went. I ended up applying for a Best Buy card since I don't have my loan check yet (though it is approved and should be here in the beginning of February) so I got the laptop, the speakers I've been wanting to get for awhile, and a VCR - DVD-R Player/Recorder which is also something I've wanted to get for us for awhile. Now to make myself sound better just for the record my parents' had no speakers for their computer system, so I gave them my old ones and Dan is going to get my old laptop eventually to use mainly as his own. I suppose he deserves that since we have now four computers in the house (can't forget about the mac desktop too) and none of them are really 'his' - though I have a feeling I will still be using my 'old' laptop too. It's not a bad machine at all, like I said, it's just going to be much better for travel and business to have the new one.

So, things are going ok and I'm realizing it's time to get back on track (once again!). I suppose I've come to accept that this is much the way my life might have to go for awhile. The back and forth isn't fun - I won't pretend it is - but I know some of it will always remain out of my control. What I have come to realize though, is that I do have a lot more control than the traditional world would like me to think and I no longer accept that as an excuse for why things just go the way they happen to go. Yes, I'm going to have setbacks from time to time and eventually my health might get the better of me, at least for periods of time... but if I have anything to say about it and I hope and believe that I do, then it's time for things to turn around for the better and stay that way. Am I up to the challenge... not sure, but I am going to do my best and I will soon find out! Until next time! :)