This is a newsletter that I'll be starting and posting sometime in the first week (give or take) of each month. In each snapshot, I'll be sharing what has been going on during the month. This includes my health, photography I've been working on, teasers of upcoming projects and more. The May of hell May has been an eventful month. Honestly, one of the hardest months that I've had in quite some time. With challenge after challenge, things only got worse as the month progressed. As I rolled into May, I had high ambitions and goals that I wanted to complete. I recently finished my studies and started a new course, and I was hoping to complete a large portion of the coursework. I also set aside a large chunk of my time to pre-write captions for my posts to help streamline my process and prepare to work on my yearly autumn photoshoot. However, May had other plans. Let me share what reality had in store for me... How it happened Incident one: Almost right at the start of May, I had a routine sinus infection, not a big deal. I get them frequently. All it did was slow the progression of my goals slightly. Incident two: I then got contacted by Centrelink, the government department that provides support payments, and they told me the course I was doing was only part-time, and I'd need to switch payments. That's fine - I just had to fill out some paperwork. From there, they needed to assess my work capacity, and because of my health conditions and limitations, they deemed me unfit to work more than 8 hours a week, and they advised me to apply for disability payments. That assessment is accurate, but it hurt to be reminded just how much my conditions genuinely impact my daily life, as after a while, you just get used to it and become accustomed to it. These revelations also then impacted my Patreon because, at the time, I had a paid Patreon, even though it is a hobby, and I create when I'm able; they view that as self-employment. I had to deviate from my original plans entirely and make my Patreon free. This was something I was already considering because of my health. There are times, sometimes extended periods, when I can't post due to my health or other factors in my life that get in the way. Knowing people were paying real money to see my work and weren't getting the content they deserved, it was taking a toll on me due to the guilt. Incident three: I then got sick with a flare-up of my chronic lung condition, bronchiectasis. This knocked me around quite hard and was when my month turned from crap to bad. I got over this flare-up within about 10 days thanks to antibiotics, but in that time, my original goals were severely impacted. I knew I couldn't complete them, but at the very least I'd get them somewhat achieved... at least so I thought. Incident four: Within two days of recovering from my last bug, I then got ANOTHER sinus infection, this one wasn't too bad. I quickly got onto antibiotics, and I recovered within a week, but halfway through that week, I started to feel pain and tenderness around my surgically placed feeding tube, and now this will roll us into incident number five... I told you, I had a month from hell. Incident FIVE: I went to see the doctor, who swabbed my tube site, and it came back with my first-ever superbug, and it only responded to two antibiotics. This is serious enough for most people, but I have an immune deficiency, which makes this extremely serious. I didn't improve and got worse over a few days of monitoring, and under the doctor's advice, I had to go to the hospital. That stay was a very long 30 hours in the emergency department, as reportedly there were no beds on the ward where I'd have been admitted to, I spent most of the day sitting in the waiting room, but finally, in the evening, I was moved out of the waiting room and into a backroom, there also were no beds avaliable but at least I did get a La-Z-Boy to sit in. While in the hospital for 30 hours, I was given IV antibiotics. Oh, did I mention the IV line they put in? They had to try twice, as I had a student nurse, and they went through the vein, which left quite an impressive bruise. Near the end of my hospital stay, they then put in a Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter, which goes from my main vein in my arm through to my heart. They did this so I could keep getting the IV antibiotics that I required, but at home through a service run by the hospital. That service was a game-changer because I'd have otherwise needed to have spent 7 days in the hospital, and we all know hospitals suck. A few days after I got home, though, I started to feel unwell again, this time, thankfully, it was nothing serious: just a routine common cold. I really couldn't catch a break... The end So if you were wondering where I vanished and why I only posted once on my new page and stopped, that right there is your answer. I just went through a month of hell. Out of all my goals, I barely completed any of them. In my course's unit, I only got 20% completed, and with my photography goals, I didn't write any captions, but on the bright side, I did get the autumn photos taken! Hopefully, June will be a bit nicer, and maybe I'll be able to achieve some of those goals this month.
