Man plans; God laughs
January 13th, 2015
I’ve been gone from the internet for a week. That was not my plan. I had planned to be very busy and therefore to have a limited presence here for a while, but that’s not what happened.
Here’s the Cliff Notes version of the past week: On Wednesday I got sick. Thursday I got sicker and went to the ER. Friday I was admitted to the hospital. I was there until Monday being very sick, the sickest I’ve ever been in my life. It was very unpleasant. Now I’m out of the hospital and better and expected to fully recover…though they say that may take another four weeks or so.
If you want the TMI version, keep reading.
On Wednesday I started getting the shakes, alternated with bursts of sweating. Then I started throwing up. I thought I was getting the flu. Thursday I began getting progressively more and more ill. In the afternoon I went to the ER.
At the ER the doctor initially diagnosed it as “a stomach bug” not the flu and signed the discharge order, telling me to just go home and I’d be fine in a couple days. But then he looked back in on me and saw that I was getting worse, while he would have expected me to already have started improving. So he decided to not let me go, and to examine me more carefully.
Immediately he noticed that I had a severe rash from head to toe. It never itched, so I was too busy throwing up and being miserable to have noticed it. The rash lead to the conclusion that I was having a drug reaction. I had been taking a sulfa antibiotic for a couple weeks because of some left over lung infection from a bout of bronchitis. I’d never had a drug reaction in my life, and had taken sulfa drugs before with no problem, but this time the drug decided to wait until right at the end of the prescription to try to kill me.
Because I thought it was the flu and had been taking the sulfa for two weeks without a problem, I never suspected that was the problem and kept taking the sulfa after the reaction started, finishing the prescription just before going to the ER.
The doctor wasn’t sure the drug reaction was all that was going on, so test began. Chest X-rays, a CT scan, and then a spinal tap. For a long time Meningitis was the leading theory.
By the time I got into a hospital room in the early morning on Friday I was miserable. The most miserable I’ve ever been, and that’s saying something. At one point I remember seeing these objects in my mind. There were three identical objects, side by side. Somehow they represented the Past, Present and Future. Or Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. Something like that. And I remember thinking that if the level of misery I was feeling was going to continue into the next 24-hour period, I was just not going to be able to do that. Any option. ANY. OPTION. Was superior to feeling like this for another day. Continuing feeling this way was just not something I was able to do. I would have agreed to anything, including not continuing to exist, just to avoid going on like that.
I was sick.
Understand that I’m not used to being sick. I’ve been very fortunate and relatively healthy all my life. My health problems are of the annoying variety, like arthritis and glaucoma, not the “kick you on your ass” variety. I get the flu shot every year and I don’t get the flu. It had been at least 20 years since the last time I threw up. The last time I was admitted to a hospital was in the first grade when I had my tonsils out. This was a very new, very scary experience for me.
Once I got to my room in the hospital and they started doing things to help me recover, my level of misery quickly dropped to barely tolerable. But then the headache started, caused by the spinal tap. Turns out most of my time in the hospital was spent trying to recover from the spinal tap. I’m still recovering from the spinal tap, and will be for weeks.
The final diagnosis was drug reaction with aseptic meningitis. That means the abnormalities in my spinal fluid were most likely caused by the drug reaction. Nothing contagious was going on. All the tests on my spinal fluid came back negative.
The rash is fading (and still not itching). The headaches are mostly gone now, just a threat in the background to keep me from trying to do anything physical. I have the good drugs if the headache returns. Typing on the computer is the most strenuous activity I’ll be engaging in for a few weeks.
But I’m alive. I’m feeling better. And I’ll be back at it soon.
I can’t say enough good about the care I received. Every single medical professional I encountered during all this was just extremely good to me, worked hard to help me, and made me feel well cared for. Especially notable was Nurse Angie who took it upon herself to research my condition on her own time. That resulted in her finding the best drug to use for my headache. Until she gave me that, what they had been giving me just reduced the intensity of the headache. An hour after taking the new drug, the headache was gone. That’s significant. This headache was of the mind numbing, nausea educing variety. The pain level was a 9 on a scale of 10. Having that gone greatly helped me recover.
But most of all I have to praise my wonderful wife, who was there beside me through this whole ordeal, making sure the doctors and nurses knew what was happening with me and sleeping (mostly not sleeping) on the sofa beside me the whole time I was in the hospital, taking care of me the whole time. It would have been a lot more awful if she hadn’t been there. In no way do I deserve such a fantastic, loving, dedicated wife. She is a major blessing in my life.
Now I’ve had a full night’s sleep without any tubes running into my body and nobody waking me up every couple hours to stick needles in me. I don’t think I achieved REM sleep at all during the whole hospital stay. Just a good night’s sleep was a real blessing and helped me feel much better.
So, that’s where I’ve been. I’m very glad to be back.
On display in Vermont
January 4th, 2015
I’ve been traveling the last couple days and forgot to let you know that I have a print in a show at the Darkroom Gallery in Essex Junction, Vermont. The show opened Friday and runs through January 25. If you are in that neighborhood you might enjoy stopping by to see the show. It’s a very nice gallery and a great place to show and view photography. Tell Ken I sent you.
The exhibit is called Con(text):Symbol and Image. At this link you can see the show on line if you can’t make it to Vermont:http://www.darkroomgallery.com/index.php/exhibits/current
Above is the photo I have in the show. It was shot with my Panasonic G5 and the kit zoom that came with it. I had the electronic viewfinder set for square format because squares can be fun and it reminds me of my old medium format days:
More Random Reveille
December 28th, 2014
Just a few more random photos of Reveille hanging around her house.
Reveille is nothing if not an interesting person. And, of course, she’s a beautiful and talented model. And not nearly as dangerous as she might like to lead you to believe.
I hope your Christmas was happy and that the new year will bring you joy, prosperity and beauty.
Another Calendar Sale
December 27th, 2014
Calendars are on sale again at my publisher. You can buy them at a 25% discount if you do it before the end of the year. You can see my 2015 calendars in my on line store here. Or just click on the calendar above, or one of them over there in the right column. To get the discount use code: TREAT. Offer ends December 30th at 11:59 PM.
Merry Christmas
December 24th, 2014
Hoping the holiday season is a good one for all of you. May you and the world find peace.
Reveille’s Living Room
December 22nd, 2014
I didn’t only shoot with the crappy Polaroid camera when I visited Reveille at her home. I brought along the “real” camera and did some fun stuff in with her in the house.
As you can see, Reveille’s home is not decorated in an exactly conventional way. She’s an interesting person who lives in an interesting environment. It was fun to take a few snap shots to capture her in her own place.
And it was the kind of place that just demanded that I pull the fisheye out of the camera bag and use it to capture the whole scene at once. Including, of course, the cat.
These are all “available light” photos. I use the old photojournalist definition of available light: Any light that is available to light the subject.
Instant Reveille
December 18th, 2014
In my continuing work with Fuji’s now discontinued instant 3000 speed film, I did a shoot with a wonderful, beautiful model, Reveille at her Dayton home. I was trying to use one of the cheap Polaroid cameras I had bought on ebay. Since then I’ve given up on those crappy cameras and gone back to shooting this film with my Speed Graphic.
As you can see from these photos, even though the quality of the camera is pretty poor, it’s still possible to get some interesting photos with a very talented model.
Even the blurry shots can be interesting sometimes.
Finding the right exposure with those cheap Polaroid cameras is totally a hit or miss process. And there’s no screen on the back of the camera to preview the results. Every miss uses another piece of this precious film. But sometimes the misses work anyway. Some are underexposed, some overexposed, but still the results can be interesting.
I also took photos of this lovely young lady with a “real” camera. I’ll share some of those in my next post.
In an unrelated subject, I just added a link to my Ello page over there on the right, under “Dave On The Web.” Go check out what I’m posting over there. You might find something you enjoy. And check out Ello while you are at it. It’s a fun new place. I’m using it as my photo social media site. It’s in beta. It’s buggy and the interface takes some getting used to, but there are no ads, they don’t sell your info, and nudes are ok. I like it over there. https://ello.co/davel51
Another Calendar Sale
December 18th, 2014
Yep, my publisher is having another calendar sale. Order by 11:59 December 21 and you can get 30% off. Just use the code NEWYEAR. Order from my online store here. Or just click on the calendar above, or any of them over there in the right column.
Cold
December 12th, 2014
I sometimes ask models to do completely unreasonable things. I try to always make sure they know that they can say no. But sometimes, more often than any reasonable person might expect, they say yes to something no reasonable person would do. That’s what happened last December when I asked Pippy Couture to pose for me at a beautiful spot in the mountains of Vermont. From what she has told me, she thinks it was worth the suffering.
Looking at Old Stuff
December 7th, 2014
In case you are interested, I’m on Ello and I’ve been posting a lot of my old stuff on there. It will be my social media site for my photo work. Recently I’ve been posting my “docunude” series that I shot about 10 years ago. It’s environmental nude portraits of most of the models I worked with back then, like JoJo in the photo above. Come on over and check it out. I think you’ll be able to see my posts without joining Ello, but if you can’t, please let me know. I don’t know how to tell myself. And if you’d like to join Ello, a place that is sort of a cross between Facebook and Tumblr, but where there are no ads, they don’t sell your information, and it’s ok to post nudes…well, it’s invitation only, but I can invite you if you ask nicely. Here’s my page there: https://ello.co/davel51
Ello is in beta. It’s buggy and the interface takes some getting used to, but once you get the feel of it, it’s pretty easy to navigate. And it seems to be turning into a pretty nice community. I like it there. Check it out.
