lymonostrepatitis fever

I wish I started this blog a long time ago. My life has been at least decently amusing and interesting over the years. So, this will be a blog of current events, as well as past experiences and stories that are sparked by things I see, things I think about, or just completely randomly :)
Moving on.

This has been a very different summer thus far. I stepped out of the world of college, expecting to fall right back into the routine of a typical summer--work a lot, spend time with my awesome girlfriend, spend all the money I worked for (some of that on the second item in the list), and ideally get enough sleep and have enough fun to get me through another 1-2 semesters at SUNY Plattsburgh. But this summer I was greeted with a great internship (more to come), a good paying job, and DISEASE.

It all started at my girlfriend's house with a headache in the back of my head/neck. Thought nothing of it. It quickly turned into restless nights with highs and lows between incredible fevers and disabling chills paired with total fatigue that couldn't be fed. A trip to the doc's gave me a positive for strep paired with little dots on my back (according to them, scarlet fever). "what the #$*%?" I thought (only in my head...of course), "how do you get strep in the middle of the summer?" but it's more common than you might think ;) (so I am told by my nurse mother)
So on the antibiotics I went...until it got worse. Fatigue turned into the pounding of my head attempting to put me to sleep, and fevers and chills turned into one minute I'm in the bathtub sucking down hot tea as fast as I can, the next minute I'm jumping out, sucking on icecubes, and turning on every fan in my house to cool me down.
So, back to the doc's. Still had strep according to the foot long swab gagging the crap out of my sick body. But just to be sure, the meds were renewed and blood was drawn. Unfortunately, the nurse couldnt hit my enormously large vein, and today (3 weeks later) my arm is black and blue. But anywho, they sucked my blood well enough to test it.
Doc calls. "Well, this is very strange, but you tested positive for mono as well, and due to the mono, you have a swolen liver (hepatitis)."
Meanwhile, I feel like a dumptruck drove on top of my head and stalled. I can barely eat, so I look like a pale, anorexic 12 year old girl, and lava plus global warming couldnt keep me warm, and if i froze my blood and went to live with santa I couldnt be cool enough.
But, I didn't lose hope, and I dragged myself down to the creek on my property and started taking pictures. Slowly but surely I felt better. I was engrossed in taking pictures, and couldnt think about the war that was going on inside me with my antibodies and bacteria.
Then my liver started convulsing! Well, it was actually my phone in my pocket, but I didn't know. My mom picks up and says "You're not gonna beleive it" and I thought ,"What? You're pregnant?" and she said, "The doctor called with the rest of the test results" (oh, awesome, the REST) ,"and they came back positive for lyme disease."
Hmmm. I looked around at the tall grass surrounding me, the fields and woods encompassing that grass, and down at my bear chest and legs. Naaaah, how could a tick have bitten me??
So now I have strep (with scarlet fever), mono (with hepatitis), and lyme disease. And on top of that, my memory card is full, and I'm completely and totally removed from happy island.
Needless to say, im pretty much a walking, talking, photographing miracle of medical science. Or, as the infectious disease specialist may say when I see him, the mono (which i definitely have) may have caused the other to come back positive. However, as of right now, I am Zack Baldwin, the only man to ever survive lymonostrepatitis fever and blog about it.


Taking pictures probably got me into it (at least the lyme part) and it is currently getting me away from it. Sometimes huge neon blue horse pills can't cure everything. A good dose of whatever makes you happy is sometimes the best companion to a good night's sleep ;) psshh. Or you could do what makes you happy all day, AND all night. For example, take pictures all day, talk to my girlfriend all night and then in the early hours of the morning edit my shots and put them on my site...and then wonder the next day why I still feel monoy. (not a real word)
But hey, this is your life. Make the best of the mono+strep+lyme's.

Lessons learned:

• Don't go into tall grass with shorts and flip flops on a regular basis.
• Lots of rest (aka, not making any money) is way overrated--especially when you can't see your girlfriend, or KISS HER!
• Lost of rest ISNT overrated when the weather is good and you can take pictures all day :)
• Don't take pictures that require crouching down in a creek when your phone is in your pocket (had to spend $100 on a new phone today)
• Count your blessings! Even with all these illnesses and a brick for a phone, I still have TONS to be happy about...so do you ;)

until the next rant,
Zack
pictures

*the pictures at the top were taken when I probably got lyme and when I was attempting to cure the feeling of it. (in that order) (coming soon)

Find your beach (an introduction)

Life isn't always a private island with its crashing waves creating a perfect balance between a "put you to sleep" lullaby and a gentle reminder that there is nothing to worry about except where you and your significant other are going to sun bathe on the beach. No, life can be quite the opposite. It can take those dolphins diving into the horizon mirrored by a perpetual sunset, and make you wish you had even just a cup of salt water to rinse your wounds so that at some level you could at least attempt to imagine that beach with its palm trees and coral reefs.

All the flowery language aside, life can SUCK. I am sure anyone reading this can take that word and give it its own gruesome, miserable, disheartening definition paired with an HD visual playback and multi-chapter pity party story. You wouldn't be alive if you couldn't. But life also wouldn't be life if there wasn't those things that can turn that frown upside down and somehow take you back to that island (of course, for you it might not be an island). Everyone's island is a little different, but it's your life and your mind, so that happy feeling should be available all the time. And once you find the key to that door, future kicks in the shin will transform into first-class tickets to anywhere you want to go--without you even knowing about it! You won't even know you just bypassed a week, month, or year of dwelling, worrying, and regretting. There will only be excitement and anticipation for what awesome thing is coming down the pike next.

Life does have some pretty beautiful, amazing and uplifting things. For me, the act of taking a camera and forever petrifying those images, those stories, those moments, can take me far, far away. No matter what my mind is being plagued with, I can go find a dragonfly, glassy pond, or dewy flower to use as a model for my happiness. Now don't get me wrong, I wish I could be in New Zealand or Paris photographing rolling green landscapes and 14th century architecture, but that tiger lily floating down a stream does the trick. Now, this blog is not at all limited to photography--it's about life, so essentially it's not limited to anything at all. (for the record, photography is not the only thing that makes my happy, and others will surface over the course of my posts)

I'll have pictures with stories that can cheer probably anyone up, and I'll open my mind to anyone reading this, and show, through the things I talk about or show through pictures, how pessimism can be whacked more simply, sanely, and permanently than we think, and since this "revelation" is still new to even me, reading through the pages of my simple views on life might take some patience...I apologize in advance :) All that to say, every post may not be me describing how much I'm enjoying the hammock on the beach if you know what i mean ;)

I'm just a sophomore in college who is excited about what life has to offer, and I hope through the pages of this simple blog, I can share how I got to where I am, what makes me tick, what makes me tick with a smile on my face, the story behind some of my photography, and the crazy things that happen to me... in the hopes that someone will get something out of (if nothing more than a laugh or a "wow, look honey, I could be like that guy!")

Now let's get to the releasing of all that "shuddering", and get away from anyplace where you can't curl your feet in the sand and laugh at the thought of a "bad day"!




PS. I haven't physically been to as many private islands and sandy beaches as I would like to, but if I have been everywhere I want to, then what's the point of life? Anyway, this pic is as close as I can get to the feeling I want to convey...or maybe it's just me acting like an idiot. It's in Maui, the most beautiful place ever!! (stories to come) and by the way, most of my shots will be better than this! (check the link at the bottom)

My website in the progress