A Final Note, 2010.
Friday, 31 December 2010 19:18![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a_bit_of_wit_2It's my annual Final Note, where I recap my year--what I can remember of the good and bad of 2010. I feel a bit depressed as I write it, actually...2010 was by far, one of the worst years of my life. Read on if you'd like, but I take no responsibility if you feel bummed out by the end of it...although, it does have a positive ending.
A final note...
It's going to start the same way as it did last year, the same way it's been since I started life with April (with the exception of 2005, where we spent New Year's Eve in Kingston, being stranded by a snowstorm): spending it at her parents, and having the traditional head-to-head Monopoly game with my brother-in law.
What happens in between, though, is the adventure. Unfortunately, I can say with total honesty that 2010 saw some of my lowest points. I can say without hesitation that on a personal level, this past year, frankly, sucked. It sucked almost right from the beginning, and kept snowballing until it finally reached its painful climax in September, and finally, I began to feel relief once again. I'm trying to block out most of this year from my mind, keeping the good memories, and hopefully, I will be a stronger person after the trial that was these past 365 days finally concludes.
It began innocently enough shortly after our friend and roommate, Danielle, moved in with us this past December, packing up and moving out of her family's home in Vegas. She needed to get out, much like I needed to in May 2005. I knew that there would be some issues at first trying to adapt to a third person living with us, but I didn't anticipate just how much of a strain it was on my wife. It was much harder on her, mentally, as it was for me--I'm used to it, really. I've had to share my home (be it in a house or apartment in New York, in a dorm room, etc) with relatives, step-siblings, and the like for pretty much my entire life; privacy was at a premium. So it didn't really bug me at all when Danielle moved in, and April didn't have (too much) of an issue with it either--it'd mean she'd have to give up the second bedroom, her den, which she decided she'd just suck it up and deal with it until Danielle moved out.
The whole idea, at least, my understanding of it, was that we'd let Danielle have some time to breathe and collect herself, but then she'd have to hunker down and find work soon after. The arrangement was temporary; six months to a year, I thought--simply put, April and I couldn't afford to support a third person indefinitely, especially if that third person contributed nothing to the expenditures of the apartment. We would help her out as best we could, but she too would have to put in some effort. I don't regret at all the decision I made to let her stay with us, but if I knew then what I knew now, things may have been a bit different. Regardless, I hope that April and I helped her more than hindered her.
What we had hoped to do was to ease her into living independently; however, with this being all new and foreign to her, she was at a loss what to do. Never having a taste of being fully independent, the notion scared her to death. Rather than make decisions for herself, she preferred that we made them for her. I won't go into specifics--this isn't a rant against my friend, and I don't want this to turn into one. Suffice it to say, the gentle approach didn't work, and finally we had to light a fire under her ass so that she could get some initiative of her own. I'm happy to say that the approach worked; she's now employed and living on her own, and taking steps in that wide world to hopefully improve her life. It's my continued hope that she realizes that the world is not always a cruel place, and that living on her own will eventually remove her unnatural fear that life's always out to get her.
Shortly after the Januarymas parties, really, was where the year started to go downhill. I picked up some food poisoning after eating some bad beef at one of the local 99's, and when you have Crohn's disease, food poisoning can exacerbate the irritated digestive system and cause flare-ups. Danielle and I had both been hit with it, but while her system returned to normal after a few days, mine dragged out for a couple of weeks. I never fully recovered from it for a long time--that's the nature of the disease. Add to that the stress of a full time job, school, and home, it didn't make for a healing environment. I'm convinced that stress only added to the fun yet to come.
Before that, though, there was some great high points, some wonderful fun times--like the Happy Everything Party for Jess, and seeing Jeff Dunham in Albany. RENT also came back to Proctors Theatre in Schenectady, and I took April to see Lord of the Dance for her birthday. In terms of my photography, some of my artwork was featured in Sage College's student publication, Vernacular,, and under the suggestion of my photography professor, I entered some works into the annual Photo Regional, which comprises artistic photos from many photographers in the Capital region. Of the five pieces I submitted, three were accepted into the exhibit, where they were on display for a few months. It was my first public exhibition, something that will stay with me forever. I finished the semester very strongly, and as things began to settle down at the end, I was hoping to do much more work to develop my skills as a photographer. With summer approaching, I was looking forward to getting out more. We'd gone to visit my family on Cape Cod for Memorial Day, and I was feeling pretty good. Annie and Erica came up the first weekend of June, and we'd gone to see a weekend of Dave Matthews Band up in Saratoga.
However, later in the month, something began that would derail me for nearly the rest of the year. It was June 19, to be exact--when Danielle, April and I went to see Toy Story 3. I began feeling a throbbing pain, and an unnatural swelling between my legs. I didn't know it then, but what was happening was that my Crohn's was moving to the next stage in its progression--it was starting to fistulize. Abnormal connections and passageways were being created in my digestive system, diverting body waste into areas where they shouldn't go, causing painful abscesses. It was only a couple days after this started that sitting up was very painful, and thus began a long series of very frequent doctor visits. I found myself bouncing back and forth between my primary care doctor, my gastroenterologist, a urologist, a couple of surgeons...oy. At first, Crohn's wasn't suspected--it was thought I had just a couple of abscesses.
Still, when I wasn't healing, it meant a weekend stay in a hospital for more observation and another incision. I already had one incision and drainage, but the feeling of being sliced into with a scalpel when the anesthetic hadn't kicked in is probably some of the absolute worst pain I'd ever felt. I had sounds coming out of me that I didn't think I could create, and the horrible image of a surgeon hovering over my crotch with a scalpel has been forever burned into my brain.
Shortly after that, I thought I was on the mend--we came down for a weekend in New Paltz again for what I called the Ben and Ian Show. We spent a couple of weekends at the New York Renaissance Faire. We made our yearly pilgrimages to Tanglewood--seeing Garrison Keillor and the rest of the Prairie Home crew with Dan; seeing James Taylor another time, then going with Wyatt and Jess to see a reading of the first third of Beowulf (in the original Old English), then taking Ryan to see the BSO and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus perform Mozart's Requiem, and then taking Danielle to see her birthday present--Film Night with John Williams and the Boston Pops, accompanied by both Ryan and Sara. After a bit more improvement, April and I spent a week at the end of August in New Hampshire, taking in the sights and sounds of some of the most pristine country I remember--the White Mountains. Pain prevented me from doing some of the things I wanted to do, but I did get some lovely photographs. It was not quite the reset I wanted--but it'd have to do. Right after vacation, it was back to school.
However, I hadn't made it three weeks into the semester when I was pretty much back to where I started. The abscesses were not healing properly, and I was once again calling out of work because the simple act of sitting up was excruciating. Finally, I was turned over to a rectal surgeon, who, upon looking at all of my tests of the past summer and medical history, was certain that my Crohn's, after being kept mostly quiet since 2006, was progressing--progressing to the point where if something wasn't done soon, I'd lose my colon and be forced to have a colostomy bag for the rest of my life.
So, I had surgery--the surgery was to clear out any active infection and to correct the fistulas diverting shit where it shouldn't have been. I then spent the next two months out of work and out of school, having to withdraw from classes this semester. It was a low point in my life, surely--while my gastro had told me after the surgery that the hard part was over, it would still take six weeks after before I started showing real improvement. For the first 6 weeks after the surgery, I was almost entirely bedridden, and almost entirely useless. I felt like an infant again, needing help to do simple tasks like go to the bathroom, clean myself, and even walk. My 1-year wedding anniversary was spent in total discomfort.
In a wonderful gesture, Mary and James came up to visit, which, at least temporarily, took my mind away from the depression that was starting to seep into my consciousness. In a beautiful and most loving motion, the dining room table was moved into the living room, where I could sit on the couch with minimal discomfort and enjoy a delicious ham dinner with all assembled instead of eating on my bed. I spent several evenings crying, feeling as if I had no hope of getting better. I remembered thinking and saying to April that all I wanted for Christmas was to be well enough to spend it on Cape Cod with my family. In the meantime, I'd settle for the nice relief and the wonderful hallucinations given to me by hydrocodone.
In November, after it was ascertained that I no longer had any active infection, I began a new Crohn's treatment--an IV medication called Remicade. It's a powerful immunosuppresant that has been shown to reverse some of the damage Crohn's can cause. It wasn't long after my first treatment that I began to show rapid improvement--namely, I could finally get up and move around again. I could go to the bathroom by myself again. Most importantly--the surgery was finally starting to heal. And with successive treatments, the wound continued to heal. I got better and better. I was well enough to do almost everything again by the time my birthday came around--I was well on my way to being me again, to have my life back after spending a summer and fall sidelined. I began to feel happy again!
And since starting (and continuing treatment), life continues to improve. I returned to work Thanksgiving week, having just exhausted all of my sick, vacation, and personal leave in the process. I spent a lovely Thanksgiving weekend here, and as I continued into December, improvement continued. April and I headed down to visit my relatives in Washingtonville, and then we went to NYC the next weekend to spend some time with Nella, and to see the Vixens En Garde perform a show. I'm going to have to return to the city in the near future--and do nothing but take pictures. I've got plans....moo ha ha. And finally, I got my wish--I spent my Christmas on the Cape with my family.
So we've nearly come full circle, friends. I'm happy to report that despite all the misery experienced this year, 2010 will end much how it started--on a good note. I hope that 2011 will not be a repeat; that the surgery will finally heal up for good, and I can go on living happily without my immune system holding me hostage. I've got plans for 2011--more college, more photography, more enjoying life, and trying to keep stress to a minimum, otherwise my body will let me have it again.
My hope to you, friends, is that 2011 treats you well no matter what you're doing. Some of you also had a crap year, and I can only hope for the best. Much love to you all as we get set to flip the calendar over. Giant hugs to everyone!
The Monopoly board is calling. Dick Clark is being removed from cryogenic stasis. Now I've come full circle on 2010.
A final note...
It's going to start the same way as it did last year, the same way it's been since I started life with April (with the exception of 2005, where we spent New Year's Eve in Kingston, being stranded by a snowstorm): spending it at her parents, and having the traditional head-to-head Monopoly game with my brother-in law.
What happens in between, though, is the adventure. Unfortunately, I can say with total honesty that 2010 saw some of my lowest points. I can say without hesitation that on a personal level, this past year, frankly, sucked. It sucked almost right from the beginning, and kept snowballing until it finally reached its painful climax in September, and finally, I began to feel relief once again. I'm trying to block out most of this year from my mind, keeping the good memories, and hopefully, I will be a stronger person after the trial that was these past 365 days finally concludes.
It began innocently enough shortly after our friend and roommate, Danielle, moved in with us this past December, packing up and moving out of her family's home in Vegas. She needed to get out, much like I needed to in May 2005. I knew that there would be some issues at first trying to adapt to a third person living with us, but I didn't anticipate just how much of a strain it was on my wife. It was much harder on her, mentally, as it was for me--I'm used to it, really. I've had to share my home (be it in a house or apartment in New York, in a dorm room, etc) with relatives, step-siblings, and the like for pretty much my entire life; privacy was at a premium. So it didn't really bug me at all when Danielle moved in, and April didn't have (too much) of an issue with it either--it'd mean she'd have to give up the second bedroom, her den, which she decided she'd just suck it up and deal with it until Danielle moved out.
The whole idea, at least, my understanding of it, was that we'd let Danielle have some time to breathe and collect herself, but then she'd have to hunker down and find work soon after. The arrangement was temporary; six months to a year, I thought--simply put, April and I couldn't afford to support a third person indefinitely, especially if that third person contributed nothing to the expenditures of the apartment. We would help her out as best we could, but she too would have to put in some effort. I don't regret at all the decision I made to let her stay with us, but if I knew then what I knew now, things may have been a bit different. Regardless, I hope that April and I helped her more than hindered her.
What we had hoped to do was to ease her into living independently; however, with this being all new and foreign to her, she was at a loss what to do. Never having a taste of being fully independent, the notion scared her to death. Rather than make decisions for herself, she preferred that we made them for her. I won't go into specifics--this isn't a rant against my friend, and I don't want this to turn into one. Suffice it to say, the gentle approach didn't work, and finally we had to light a fire under her ass so that she could get some initiative of her own. I'm happy to say that the approach worked; she's now employed and living on her own, and taking steps in that wide world to hopefully improve her life. It's my continued hope that she realizes that the world is not always a cruel place, and that living on her own will eventually remove her unnatural fear that life's always out to get her.
Shortly after the Januarymas parties, really, was where the year started to go downhill. I picked up some food poisoning after eating some bad beef at one of the local 99's, and when you have Crohn's disease, food poisoning can exacerbate the irritated digestive system and cause flare-ups. Danielle and I had both been hit with it, but while her system returned to normal after a few days, mine dragged out for a couple of weeks. I never fully recovered from it for a long time--that's the nature of the disease. Add to that the stress of a full time job, school, and home, it didn't make for a healing environment. I'm convinced that stress only added to the fun yet to come.
Before that, though, there was some great high points, some wonderful fun times--like the Happy Everything Party for Jess, and seeing Jeff Dunham in Albany. RENT also came back to Proctors Theatre in Schenectady, and I took April to see Lord of the Dance for her birthday. In terms of my photography, some of my artwork was featured in Sage College's student publication, Vernacular,, and under the suggestion of my photography professor, I entered some works into the annual Photo Regional, which comprises artistic photos from many photographers in the Capital region. Of the five pieces I submitted, three were accepted into the exhibit, where they were on display for a few months. It was my first public exhibition, something that will stay with me forever. I finished the semester very strongly, and as things began to settle down at the end, I was hoping to do much more work to develop my skills as a photographer. With summer approaching, I was looking forward to getting out more. We'd gone to visit my family on Cape Cod for Memorial Day, and I was feeling pretty good. Annie and Erica came up the first weekend of June, and we'd gone to see a weekend of Dave Matthews Band up in Saratoga.
However, later in the month, something began that would derail me for nearly the rest of the year. It was June 19, to be exact--when Danielle, April and I went to see Toy Story 3. I began feeling a throbbing pain, and an unnatural swelling between my legs. I didn't know it then, but what was happening was that my Crohn's was moving to the next stage in its progression--it was starting to fistulize. Abnormal connections and passageways were being created in my digestive system, diverting body waste into areas where they shouldn't go, causing painful abscesses. It was only a couple days after this started that sitting up was very painful, and thus began a long series of very frequent doctor visits. I found myself bouncing back and forth between my primary care doctor, my gastroenterologist, a urologist, a couple of surgeons...oy. At first, Crohn's wasn't suspected--it was thought I had just a couple of abscesses.
Still, when I wasn't healing, it meant a weekend stay in a hospital for more observation and another incision. I already had one incision and drainage, but the feeling of being sliced into with a scalpel when the anesthetic hadn't kicked in is probably some of the absolute worst pain I'd ever felt. I had sounds coming out of me that I didn't think I could create, and the horrible image of a surgeon hovering over my crotch with a scalpel has been forever burned into my brain.
Shortly after that, I thought I was on the mend--we came down for a weekend in New Paltz again for what I called the Ben and Ian Show. We spent a couple of weekends at the New York Renaissance Faire. We made our yearly pilgrimages to Tanglewood--seeing Garrison Keillor and the rest of the Prairie Home crew with Dan; seeing James Taylor another time, then going with Wyatt and Jess to see a reading of the first third of Beowulf (in the original Old English), then taking Ryan to see the BSO and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus perform Mozart's Requiem, and then taking Danielle to see her birthday present--Film Night with John Williams and the Boston Pops, accompanied by both Ryan and Sara. After a bit more improvement, April and I spent a week at the end of August in New Hampshire, taking in the sights and sounds of some of the most pristine country I remember--the White Mountains. Pain prevented me from doing some of the things I wanted to do, but I did get some lovely photographs. It was not quite the reset I wanted--but it'd have to do. Right after vacation, it was back to school.
However, I hadn't made it three weeks into the semester when I was pretty much back to where I started. The abscesses were not healing properly, and I was once again calling out of work because the simple act of sitting up was excruciating. Finally, I was turned over to a rectal surgeon, who, upon looking at all of my tests of the past summer and medical history, was certain that my Crohn's, after being kept mostly quiet since 2006, was progressing--progressing to the point where if something wasn't done soon, I'd lose my colon and be forced to have a colostomy bag for the rest of my life.
So, I had surgery--the surgery was to clear out any active infection and to correct the fistulas diverting shit where it shouldn't have been. I then spent the next two months out of work and out of school, having to withdraw from classes this semester. It was a low point in my life, surely--while my gastro had told me after the surgery that the hard part was over, it would still take six weeks after before I started showing real improvement. For the first 6 weeks after the surgery, I was almost entirely bedridden, and almost entirely useless. I felt like an infant again, needing help to do simple tasks like go to the bathroom, clean myself, and even walk. My 1-year wedding anniversary was spent in total discomfort.
In a wonderful gesture, Mary and James came up to visit, which, at least temporarily, took my mind away from the depression that was starting to seep into my consciousness. In a beautiful and most loving motion, the dining room table was moved into the living room, where I could sit on the couch with minimal discomfort and enjoy a delicious ham dinner with all assembled instead of eating on my bed. I spent several evenings crying, feeling as if I had no hope of getting better. I remembered thinking and saying to April that all I wanted for Christmas was to be well enough to spend it on Cape Cod with my family. In the meantime, I'd settle for the nice relief and the wonderful hallucinations given to me by hydrocodone.
In November, after it was ascertained that I no longer had any active infection, I began a new Crohn's treatment--an IV medication called Remicade. It's a powerful immunosuppresant that has been shown to reverse some of the damage Crohn's can cause. It wasn't long after my first treatment that I began to show rapid improvement--namely, I could finally get up and move around again. I could go to the bathroom by myself again. Most importantly--the surgery was finally starting to heal. And with successive treatments, the wound continued to heal. I got better and better. I was well enough to do almost everything again by the time my birthday came around--I was well on my way to being me again, to have my life back after spending a summer and fall sidelined. I began to feel happy again!
And since starting (and continuing treatment), life continues to improve. I returned to work Thanksgiving week, having just exhausted all of my sick, vacation, and personal leave in the process. I spent a lovely Thanksgiving weekend here, and as I continued into December, improvement continued. April and I headed down to visit my relatives in Washingtonville, and then we went to NYC the next weekend to spend some time with Nella, and to see the Vixens En Garde perform a show. I'm going to have to return to the city in the near future--and do nothing but take pictures. I've got plans....moo ha ha. And finally, I got my wish--I spent my Christmas on the Cape with my family.
So we've nearly come full circle, friends. I'm happy to report that despite all the misery experienced this year, 2010 will end much how it started--on a good note. I hope that 2011 will not be a repeat; that the surgery will finally heal up for good, and I can go on living happily without my immune system holding me hostage. I've got plans for 2011--more college, more photography, more enjoying life, and trying to keep stress to a minimum, otherwise my body will let me have it again.
My hope to you, friends, is that 2011 treats you well no matter what you're doing. Some of you also had a crap year, and I can only hope for the best. Much love to you all as we get set to flip the calendar over. Giant hugs to everyone!
The Monopoly board is calling. Dick Clark is being removed from cryogenic stasis. Now I've come full circle on 2010.
