I've been practicing my PhotoShop skills lately and found this old family photo that my cousin had posted to her blog so I decided to test my skills and see if I was able to make the old picture look like new.
Before
Before
After
Monday, July 28, 2008
Back to School
I have just finished my first week back in school and I am stoked about it. I am attending the University of Phoenix Online where I am working to get my Bachelor's degree. The courses are for BSIT/MVC. Which in layman's terms means: Bachelor of Science in Information Technology specializing in Multimedia and Visual Communications. All-in-all it means I will be a graphic Designer.
Etsy
I also wanted to let everyone know that I have found a way to try to occupy my time as well as make a few bucks. I have opened a shop on Etsy.com and will be trying to sell some of my photography. Feel free to take a look at my shop by clicking here.
Pain is such a pain
As many of you may or may not know, I have recently under-gone back surgery.
When I was 16 and living in Mesa, AZ I had an unfortunate accident that would change the rest of my life. One fine summer day I decided it was time to go into the back yard and trim the palm tree that was growing there. As I was finishing the job there was a particularly stubborn palm frond that was very opposed to be trimmed. As i exerted the necessary force to remove it, I fell from the ladder. It was a 10 foot drop and I landed flat onto my lower back.
I lived through 15 years of chronic back pain and numerous doctors and chiropractors telling me there was, ultimately, nothing wrong with me. Then one morning, in April 2008, as I was getting ready for work, I sneezed. Now most people would not be overly concerned by such a thing, but for me I thought I had just thrown my back out. As this was a regular occurrence for me, I was not overly worried. I took some Tylenol and went to work.
As my day progressed at work, so did the level of my pain. My hopes of making it through the day were quickly dashed and I had to get to my Doctor as soon as possible. Shortly after arriving at the doctor, my pain was incapacitating. My doctor decided it was time to get me to the emergency room. After a very painful drive I made it to the emergency room where I had an MRI taken of my back. The MRI showed that I had an acute rupture of the the L5-S1 disk out the left side. So I was admitted and had surgery performed to remove a portion of my disk called a "Discectomy".
This lead to me having to go on short-term disability leave from work while I recovered. My recovery was going very well for the first 4-6 weeks but then the healing stopped, the pain started to increase again, and physical therapy was starting to hurt more and more. So I went back for another MRI and found out that there was still disc material in my back that was causing difficulties.
After an extensive search to find a new Neurosurgeon, I received Steroid injections into my spine. That caused a completely unexpected complication. Apparently I suffer from an uncommon side effect called Steroid Psychosis. After a very painful and trippy 24 hours, things started to improve.
So here I am now, 3 months later, still on disability leave and patiently waiting to find out if I am going to have a second surgery or not. If I am able to have a follow-up surgery, then after I recover from that I should be able to return to work and lead a relatively normal life. If surgery is not a viable option, then I will be this way for the rest of my life. Suffering from extreme back pain, constantly taking Narcotics for managing the pain, and unable to work.
You can guess what I am hoping for and I will keep posting here to update my condition for anyone that happens to read this and is interested in following up.
When I was 16 and living in Mesa, AZ I had an unfortunate accident that would change the rest of my life. One fine summer day I decided it was time to go into the back yard and trim the palm tree that was growing there. As I was finishing the job there was a particularly stubborn palm frond that was very opposed to be trimmed. As i exerted the necessary force to remove it, I fell from the ladder. It was a 10 foot drop and I landed flat onto my lower back.
I lived through 15 years of chronic back pain and numerous doctors and chiropractors telling me there was, ultimately, nothing wrong with me. Then one morning, in April 2008, as I was getting ready for work, I sneezed. Now most people would not be overly concerned by such a thing, but for me I thought I had just thrown my back out. As this was a regular occurrence for me, I was not overly worried. I took some Tylenol and went to work.
As my day progressed at work, so did the level of my pain. My hopes of making it through the day were quickly dashed and I had to get to my Doctor as soon as possible. Shortly after arriving at the doctor, my pain was incapacitating. My doctor decided it was time to get me to the emergency room. After a very painful drive I made it to the emergency room where I had an MRI taken of my back. The MRI showed that I had an acute rupture of the the L5-S1 disk out the left side. So I was admitted and had surgery performed to remove a portion of my disk called a "Discectomy".
This lead to me having to go on short-term disability leave from work while I recovered. My recovery was going very well for the first 4-6 weeks but then the healing stopped, the pain started to increase again, and physical therapy was starting to hurt more and more. So I went back for another MRI and found out that there was still disc material in my back that was causing difficulties.
After an extensive search to find a new Neurosurgeon, I received Steroid injections into my spine. That caused a completely unexpected complication. Apparently I suffer from an uncommon side effect called Steroid Psychosis. After a very painful and trippy 24 hours, things started to improve.
So here I am now, 3 months later, still on disability leave and patiently waiting to find out if I am going to have a second surgery or not. If I am able to have a follow-up surgery, then after I recover from that I should be able to return to work and lead a relatively normal life. If surgery is not a viable option, then I will be this way for the rest of my life. Suffering from extreme back pain, constantly taking Narcotics for managing the pain, and unable to work.
You can guess what I am hoping for and I will keep posting here to update my condition for anyone that happens to read this and is interested in following up.
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