First apartment

Moving day was amazingly smooth - the apartment complex had people to
transport everything from the loading dock into the apartments. We
took a few odds and ends in a cart sitting waiting for us at the
elevators. Not quite the way I remember moving into my first apartment
- up three flights of concrete steps.

The rest of the day was spent building furniture and unpacking and a
few trips to pick up the most important items such as toilet paper and
shower curtain rods. Then we walked to one of Shawn's favorite
restaurants, a sushi place a block away.

:-)

Da Coach...

On Shawn's last night in Chicago we went to Ditka's for dinner - and there was Da Coach in person, looking exactly like his photos. Shawn got a football autographed, then went to buy another one and have it autographed for Arie. Is he a great boyfriend or what?

Studio time

Recording a few songs before heading back to school...

Greetings from the Jersey Shore!
Our first few days here were fantastic; in fact we kept hearing it was the the best two days of the summer. Beautiful sun, a nice breeze coming off the ocean, perfect warm, clear water... LBI at its best. Yesterday the weather was still nice, but there were lots of jellyfish in the water, so we hung out on the beach for awhile but didn't go in the water.

Check out more photos here.

Where do all the dead pills go?

We seem to be accumulating lots of bottles full of medication that
Shawn is no longer taking. Today we added topamax to that collection,
although it will take 3 weeks for him to wean himself off it.

I'm not quite sure what to do with all these. At the moment they are
all dumped into a big baggie which is starting to get full. It did
come in handy though when trying to list all the medicine he's taken
for the last 6 months.

Diamond Headache Clinic

Here's the update from the headache clinic.  First they said that migraines can be completely ruled out.  However, due to the chin up accident I had in the fall, the doctor thinks I damaged the hypothalamus causing severe cluster headaches along with other problems.  He said it doesn't account for the blood pressure problems as those started before the accident as did the issues with the pulse and flushing however it does solve the problem of the headaches.  Treatment for this is threefold.  I have to take a calcium channel blocker three times daily.  I have to breathe 100% oxygen on the onset of a headache along with taking a spray of lidocaine up the nose.  The last thing the doctor said was that this whole ordeal "smells a lot like a carcinoid" so it sounds like we've still got some testing to do.  At this point however, I'm very excited to go back to school!!