2024 was quite the year. A lot happened. Ever since meeting Leanne, I keep saying in my head that “next year will be simpler.” I’ve gotta stop that. My mind uses reverse-phycology and events tend to happen. Like the time when Rosalie was about 8 months old, and I mentioned to Leanne that I’m really surprised that Rosalie has never really spit up or thrown up. Yeah, that day or the next day, Rosalie threw up. I kinda wanna say it happened within 5 hours of mentioning that. Or just this year, I mentioned that it’s been a while since Rosalie has been sick and spread it to us. Within the week, we all got COVID.
At the end of 2023, Rosalie was a couple of months old, so other than taking care of her, the year was planning to be pretty relaxed. No major trips, pregnancies, and no major COVID outbreaks. We just get to sit back and relax this year.
One thing that Leanne and I had talked about the first of the year was me quitting my job to focus on freelancing so that I could stay home with Rosalie, thus saving us daycare costs. Being single, I’ve never had to think about how much day care actually costs. It’s a lot. Like a decent house mortgage payment, a lot. By staying home and saving that money, I could find work that could essentially pay half my normal salary, and we’d be fine.
After discussing the pros and cons of this, it was a hard decision to justify. I didn’t have any current clients or projects of my own. I’d have to start from scratch. I’d also have to build my brand so that I could use that to get clients. There was just a large period of time where I’d have to dedicate on working for myself before being able to get paying clients. While it was something we agreed I could do, it just wasn’t feasible to do it, but it was something that I could slowly work on until I was ready to quit my full-time job. That was the new goal that we’d set for myself in January.
Just two days later that week I get an email from work telling me to come into the office Friday and make sure I bring my laptop and any office equipment I may have at home. My heart sank. I called Leanne while she was at school to let her know that I’m most likely being let go. She was very supportive. Even though I’d be losing my paychecks, she said this was going to be a good thing. I was less optimistic. I knew the amount of work that was going to have to happen to get things started. It wasn’t going to be easy.
You may remember from one of my earlier posts that my friend Adam and I shot a trailer for a documentary that was successfully funded on Kickstarter. We had several days that we were planning on traveling and shooting in 2024. With me being laid off, this made me less guilty for taking time off to shoot. We were now a bit more relaxed with our timelines, although Adam still had a job he had to get back to. Just a week after getting laid off, we spent almost a week in Virginia, staying with Michael and Robin Sullivan, shooting interviews. (Link to Michael’s books on Amazon)
Looking back at my calendar and photos, I see that I was laid off January 19th and we flew out to DC January 20th. This first trip was a brief trip as we were capturing Michael signing books from one of his Kickstarters. Shortly after getting back, I got sick. Had a fever for a day, and sinus issues. But aside from that, it seemed normal and I was better except for a cough that didn’t seem to go away. We flew back out February 11th to capture more interviews. I remember having a pocket full of cough drops for the flight so that I wouldn’t get dirty looks while we flew.
Upon landing, my ears rang. I’ve had issues in the past with flying. Sometimes I can never get my ears to pop when the plane starts its descent. Sometimes it’s painful and the only way to relieve it is by blowing my nose. This time landing, nothing was working. It felt like I had cotton jammed in my ears.
The next morning I couldn’t concentrate. My ears rang like nothing I’ve had before. We stopped at a drugstore and I got some pain medicine hoping that would help. It didn’t. Throughout the day, it became less noticeable, but it was still concerning. Hearing in my right ear was very muffled. We drove back to the DC area February 13th and stayed at a hotel by the airport so that we could take a morning flight on the 14th, Valentine’s Day. We had to get back for that or Leanne wouldn’t be happy. Ha.
On the flight back, my hearing got worse. Adam was sitting to my right, and I couldn’t hear a single word he was saying. He was telling me his thoughts and plans on the documentary. I wasn’t hearing anything he was saying at the time, and just nodded along.
After we landed, my ears still hurt, and if I had to put a percentage on the amount I could hear, I’d say it was about 10-15%. Adam drove us to the airport, so we drove back to his place where I’d left my car. Instead of going straight home, I went to the Walgreens walk-in clinic. That was a waste of time. They were completely booked up, so I went home. Kinda defeats the purpose of a walk-in clinic if you can schedule a time online to show up, taking up all the available time to see a doctor as a walk-in.
After getting home, I looked up clinics I could get into and found one next to an Italian restaurant. Our date night was planned.
Turned out I had a ruptured eardrum in my right ear. What happened was that with the cold I had, any drainage passages were swollen, which is why I couldn’t relieve the pressure, and that pressure ended up blowing out my eardrum. Luckily, all that I needed was antibiotic drops while it healed itself and today my hearing is back to normal. The eardrum was a piece of cake, though, compared to what was about to happen.
About 10 days after getting back from DC, I went for a walk during the day. About halfway through the walk, I felt really exhausted; almost out of breath. The rest of that day, I didn’t think anything of it. I just figured I was really out of shape. The next day, I got Rosalie ready for daycare. At this time, she was not crawling and still light enough to carry in her car seat. I placed her in her seat, but as I squatted down I felt all the energy I had, drained out of me. I had to lay on the floor for a minute or two right next to her. After regaining my strength, I carried her out to the car and put her in. This action drained me so much more. I had to walk around the car using it as a brace. Once I got into the driver’s seat, I had to sit five minutes before I felt okay to drive. I had broken out into a bad sweat. After I got home from dropping her off, I feel like I walked into the house and just laid down on the kitchen floor where I took about an hour nap. I was exhausted and fatigued. So tired, comfort didn’t matter. I don’t remember exactly how some events played out, but I remember asking Leanne if she could drop off Rosalie the next morning. Leanne pushed back. She was already getting up extremely early to get to school on time, and dropping Rosalie off would add about 30 minutes extra to her commute. But after going over how my day was, and probably seeing me go straight to bed after not eating much for dinner at 6 p.m., she knew something was wrong with me and told me to not worry about it.
One of those first nights I was freezing and could not stop violently shivering in bed. Leanne said she’d never seen anything like that before. I’d taken my temperature at one point and it registered as 103 degrees. Thinking this was the flu, I really didn’t think anything of it until about the fourth straight day of having a temperature of 100+. I’d go to bed freezing. I’d wake up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat. I’d have terribly weird dreams. I had no energy or appetite during the day. Usually the first few hours after waking up, I’d be sweating uncontrollably from my entire body—top of my head to the tips of my toes. After the fifth day, I went to a walk-in clinic, not one of the previous ones I’d been to. An actual one where you can walk in and be seen. Although it did take three hours to get in and out. They tested for flu, COVID, RSV, and all came back negative. They said I had this “mystery” illness that’s been going around. I think they gave me some antibiotics that didn’t help.
Then one evening, we decided to go to the ER. My heart rate was averaging about 90-100 bpm for the entire day. I also usually have higher blood pressure. My average is 138/78. During this period, it was 100/58 even with the high heart rate. Going to the ER seemed necessary. After running all the tests, they came back and said I was perfectly fine. Well, not really, but they had no answers for me. All tests came back negative; mono, gallbladder, kidneys, appendix, along with flu and COVID and all those too. They had no answers for me and sent me back home.
After a couple days, my blood pressure was even lower and heart rate was just as high. We went back to the ER. As someone who felt like their organs could very well be dying, I thought they sure didn’t act like they were in a hurry to look at me. When we got there, I walked up to the counter to check in. They had me wait while they rebooted their system and while standing there, I told them I had to sit down. I was sweating and had no energy to stand. This time in the ER, I had them look closer at my gallbladder. I’d been feeling what I thought was a sensation in that area. They scanned it and told me it was nothing. Still no answers. The thing they did give me was a referral to an infectious disease doctor, but that appointment was scheduled like two weeks out. I know it seems kinda dark, but I actually wondered if two weeks was going to be too late for me. I had no other options.
We felt helpless during this time. No one knew what was wrong with me. I still had a constant fever, low blood pressure, and high heart rate. Will my body be able to make it two weeks? It didn’t feel like it. I remember during this time we took Rosalie to her checkup. I was wearing my winter coat and I remember looking down at it. I was sweating so much, you could see it soaking through the seams of the jacket. Most days I’d just sit in the recliner with three blankets on me because I was freezing. There was a day where I just started sobbing uncontrollably because I was thinking of the worst outcome, leaving Leanne and Rosalie by themselves. There wasn’t anything that could be done and I literally could not do anything.
I saw the infectious disease doctor. She didn’t have any answers for me during that visit, but I had to get more bloodwork done that would check for more things. More days of waiting. Around this time I started keeping a journal of my temperature and blood pressure. There were signs of things getting a little better. Tylenol actually started bringing my temperature down temporarily for an hour or so. Before, it wouldn’t budge it one bit.
I went in for a follow-up with the infectious disease doctor and she had no more answers for me from the bloodwork. She told me that there was not conclusive evidence for anything since they didn’t have a baseline of numbers before I had gotten this illness. She did say that my numbers for the Epstein–Barr virus were higher, but couldn’t say that’s what I had without that initial baseline. She mentioned that I could come back for another blood test once I get back to normal to see if that was what it was. F that.
I did end up getting better shortly after this visit. I think I had a fever for 28 straight days, but my high heart rate lasted for about another month. With all the doctors’ visits, ER visits, and testing I hit my insurance deductible at I think $7000. And in the end, not a single doctor was able to help me or give any answers. I would have been in the exact same position if I’d never gone and I wouldn’t have had to pay anything. I found out a few months later that the infectious disease doctor was no longer with that hospital system anymore. Her two visits alone, not including bloodwork, cost me around $1000. $500 for each office visit. This year was not a good financial year for us.
The fun thing about 2024 was the documentary that Adam and I were shooting. We did a lot of traveling. After the flight that ruptured my eardrum, we drove everywhere. We drove to Florida, Texas, and Canada, where we were detained at the border for being a film crew without any paperwork.
Adam was so proud to say that the reason we were in Canada was to film a movie. To them, it sounded like a major motion picture. They questioned why we were only staying for a couple days and asked where my gear was. They made us pull over to the “interrogation” area where we were greeted by two armed officers who instructed us to go to the front desk. At the front desk they repeatedly asked us for our paperwork and who sent us. After not having any paperwork and telling them that it was just us, we were told to wait in the waiting area, where doors were labeled “Interrogation Room 1” and “Interrogation Room 2.”
We sat there for a good 45 minutes. After seeing others walk up to that same counter that we were just at and being sent on their way, we knew something was different with us. We didn’t know at that time what the issue was.
They finally called us both into one of the rooms where we explained what we were doing, where we were planning on staying, and what equipment we had with us. We told them that we were working on a project that was funded by Kickstarter and told them all about the project, making sure to make it sound as official as possible.
They then interviewed us one at a time. I was sent out into the waiting room first. When I was called in, I was asked the same questions as before again. Then was asked what my role was with this film and what equipment I had. I had no idea what they were looking for, so I was as detailed as possible. Two cameras. One was a Canon R5C, the other was a Canon C70. I had two SmallRig video lights with light stands and soft boxes. And that was about as far as I got. She stopped me and sent me back out to sit with Adam.
After a few minutes, she called us both back in. Turns out with major film productions, someone is supposed to file paperwork with Canada. Our interrogator finally understood who we were, that we’re just two guys with big dreams. She told us that instead of saying that we were there to film a movie, she was listing us as “News and Media,” and she sent us on our way. We’ve learned our lesson, and will now only tell the border that we’re there to visit friends. Once we made it to Canada, we stayed with Emilie (who goes by the pen name Delemhach and writes The House Witch series) and her husband, Kevin.
With this documentary, we interviewed a lot of fantasy writers. Before this, I’d never heard of any of them. But that’s not surprising since I’ve never been much of a reader. If it wasn’t a picture book, I probably haven’t read it. But there has been a handful of authors whose books I have read. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton was one of the first books I’ve read without being forced to, and since then, I’ve really enjoyed a lot of Crichton books.
One author I’ve read all of his stuff has been Andy Weir. I picked up The Martian at some point after it was in the top five on Amazon, before the movie was announced. After that, whenever Weir came out with his next book, I went ahead and pre-ordered it. I enjoyed his follow-ups, Artemus and Project Hail Mary. Somehow, Adam managed to get Andy Weir to volunteer his time to be interviewed for our documentary. If you ask Adam, this is about how it went:
Adam: “Hey, Andy, would you like to be interviewed for our documentary about independent publishing?”
Andy: “Sure, I’m not busy right now.”
The day of filming, Adam and I drove up to Chicago and set up in a room in a co-working office. We got there about an hour early, which I’m glad we did. It took all that time to get all the equipment set up. Then, Andy showed up. I had my DJI Pocket video recorder out and wanted to capture Andy coming in. After the initial introductions, he promptly started taking off his shirt to change into another one. Me, awkwardly turning the camera away. He said he didn’t care if I recorded him. He was a super cool guy. We started cracking jokes right away, some inappropriate, but in a way that he knew we knew they were inappropriate. He knew exactly what he was saying and knew that we could take those jokes without being offended. I felt that he felt comfortable around us. I wasn’t sure how he’d be, but he’s probably been around enough people interviewing him that he knows how to make everyone else feel relaxed.
The interview lasted just over an hour. It was really interesting hearing his insight into the writing and movie industry. Learned a few things about how the back end of all that works. After we got done, I set up the camera and took a group shot of the three of us. He teased me that I was too good to use a cell phone to take the photo, and then teased me even more when I asked him for an individual selfie with my cell phone. After I knew we were going to interview him, I ordered a hard copy of The Martian for him to potentially sign. After we wrapped up, he graciously did, and after listening to his stories about signing autographs, I asked if he could write a specific inscription in it. He’d mentioned that a lot of fans ask him to write “I’m going to science the $hit out of this.” A line that is only in the movie and not the book, a line that he didn’t actually write, the screenwriter did. Later on in our interview, he was talking about the editing process. He mentioned that he took a lot of feedback and made those changes, but one change that he pushed back on was a line in the book where the main character was chatting with Earth and was told to watch what he says because the world was watching. The line was “Look, a pair of boobs! -> (.Y.)” He said the editor felt it was too juvenile for the character. Andy fought to leave it in, and it stayed. So, I asked if he could write that in with this signature.
With all the traveling that Adam and I were doing, we were gone for four to six days at a time. Not ideal, but necessary. Leanne was very supportive of me taking this time off. But it was hard to leave them for that amount of time. Thankfully, my mom would come over and help out with Rosalie while I was gone. We were grateful that she was able to help and be there.
These are some of the authors we interviewed.
• Michael J. Sullivan – Link to their books on Amazon
• Andy Weir – Link to their books on Amazon
• Bryce O’Connor – Link to their books on Amazon
• Delemhach (aka Emilie Nikota) – Link to their books on Amazon
• Will Wight – Link to their books on Amazon
• A.C. Cobble – Link to their books on Amazon
• M.L. Wang – Link to their books on Amazon
• Travis Baldree – Link to their books on Amazon
• Wayne D. Kramer – Link to their books on Amazon
Almost every night as we were wrapped up, winding down for the night after shooting or traveling all day, I’d get a text message from Leanne letting me know that Rosalie was in her crib. I had a crib-cam set up so that we could monitor Rosalie. I also have an app on my phone that lets me check in wherever I’m at. Many nights while I was lying in bed, I’d pull open my app to watch Rosalie sleep in real time from several states away. I could even hear her breathing through the app as well. Even though I was miles away, I could still be home.
Rosalie’s first birthday was in September. We had a birthday party for her over Labor Day weekend. That same weekend, she showed us that she could climb stairs, without either of us knowing that she was doing it. I think I heard her and look up and she’s already halfway up the stairs. We already had a baby gate installed at the top of the stairs because she was already crawling, but didn’t think about putting one at the bottom until that moment.
Rosalie and I made it onto Google Street View. We were out in the garage getting buckled into the little kiddie trailer that hooks up to my bicycle so we could go for a bike ride, and I just happened to look up and see the Google Street View car drive by. In a move that I do not remember, I gave up the peace sign, something that will stay up on Google Maps for a few years. After we got buckled in, we left the neighborhood, where we followed the car out of our neighborhood.
We took our trip to Texas as previously mentioned in another blog post. That was a fun trip, and I think after this post, I’m going to get started on a post to help others who want to travel with a young one on a train.
For my birthday, Leanne got me a special package to attend the Louisville Slugger Museum honoring Ryne Sandberg. It included a gala meal and then a presentation with Ryne Sandberg. He spoke in depth about his experience playing baseball. It was quite the experience hearing him talk baseball. Along with our ticket to the event, I also got an autographed special Louisville Slugger bat numbered to 100. I think I have 98 of 100. At the museum, they also had an auction of baseball memorabilia. We ate our dinner right next to a $10k-$25k Babe Ruth autographed baseball. I also got to hold an actual game-used baseball bat from Babe Ruth. It was a great birthday weekend.
2024 was an eventful year. A year I never could have seen coming. I did end up finding some freelance work, and ironically, my current biggest client is the agency that let me go at the beginning of the year. We found out we were expecting again in October and soon after found out we were expecting a boy. Rosalie will have a baby brother in June of 2025. (Baby Oliver is here and healthy as you know from my last post.) We finished filming for the documentary and coming up this month (July 18th, 2025), we are premiering it to the Kickstarter backers for the first time. Can’t wait to see what people have to say. It’s convinced me that I should be writing more.
Thanks again, everyone, for following along! Here are some more photos and micro-stories with each photo.
