Thursday, May 5, 2005  4:56 pm  <|>
<216> Up Down Up: Just when positive things happen, so too come negative ones. I suppose this feeds the law of balance, something I've always strived for. But sometimes, when things are going so well, I want to believe, if even just for a time, that things can stay that way, without something awful coming along to 'balance' it out. But deep down I suppose I know that just can't be true... at least not in my experience.

Don't read this the wrong way. I'm not depressed or even down really, but I will admit that it's frustrating to have so many ups and downs to life that you can't control or even see coming in the slightest. I mean, at the beginning of April I had just gotten engaged, had a new apartment lease signed, and was in the process of applying to grad school. Then the day I turn in my application (the day after my last post), within hours the bad starts to happen. I ended up being taken to the ER that night, with high blood pressure and stayed in the hospital 5 days after that. The thing was I felt fine, though I felt worse and worse the longer I stayed in the hospital both mentally and physically... that's hospitals for you, they bring you in healthy sometimes and let you out feeling sicker than you were. Then I came back to the hospital last week for a day to have a kidney biopsy, to see why the levels measuring my kidney function keep going up and down. Then this past Monday I headed into the hospital and that's where I'm writing from now because they found that some scarring that was on it before is still there now. I'm in for a course of IV medication for 7-10 days total and believe me, it's no fun at all. They have to monitor your responses because the medicine is very strong and can also only be given through IV. Mostly the side effects are feeling like you have a flu for a couple hours after the dose finishes each night. The worst was my 3rd dose (last night) even though each dose is supposed to get better. My 2nd dose I didn't have any reaction at all, again I guess I'm just a unique case...

Now one good thing amongst all this, I did make it to my conference this past Thursday and Friday in NYC. It was such a great time. I met a lot of cool people and discovered a lot of cool companies, many of which I wouldn't mind working for even if it meant living or commuting to NYC... and I never thought I'd hear myself say that. I definitely hope to keep in touch and develop the contacts I made there, not to mention incorporating all the things I learned into my work and projects in the future!

Another cool thing that's happened in these last few weeks of craziness is that this past Sunday we got the keys to our new apartment, so we got to see it finally without any furniture or anything in there. What sucks is I'm not around to help pack or get much done right now, but our leases for our old and new places overlap during this month of May, so we have just a little time. Of course I just want to start planning it out. Maybe I will do some rough layouts later tonight. It's a trinity, so we now have separate places for my studio, Dan's studio, our bedroom, living room, main floor room and kitchen (oh and 1 1/2 baths and my garage). I hope everything with this new place goes well! I think it will be much better than our current place at least.

So as I explained, I'm stuck here in the hospital. This medicine that I get every evening from the IV makes me sick a little bit, usually gives me a fever as the biggest side effect, but at least it goes away before it comes back again. I'm hoping tonight's dose won't be as bad. I will try my best to keep you posted a bit more, but if you don't hear a lot from me in a little while, don't be too worried either. I'm currently only hooked up through dial up using my mom's AOL account, so feel for me too. I miss my cable modem! :)