Author: Kati Prince

I’m mostly updating because it’s now 3-something A.M, and I am apparently not getting any sleep tonight because everything hurts. And I’m bored.

My health is, as I’ve probably said an annoying number of times now, a mess. I had to cancel Austin, which is really disappointing. We’re trying to work something out for me to do from the house and maybe part time at school, at least.

As much as I’ve learned from the website work I’ve done, what I learned most about is how to handle chronic illness… It gets in the way a lot. Though I’m hoping this is just a flareup, the nature of my conditions is to be a bit degenerative, so I’m learning as I go.

I’m having to figure out how to set boundaries for myself (which, for someone who wants to do everything possible to be useful as efficiently as possible, is not at all fun) and listen to my heart. Not figuratively–I don’t have feelings– but literally. I also have to listen to my joints and stomach and nervous system, but the heart thing sounded better.

Truly, though, I’m learning a lot about when to resist limitations and when to just accept them. Write 8 English essays in three days? Sure! Push myself to the physical limit, particularly when there’s no one up for helping me out? Probably not a good idea.

You’d think heat stroke, dehydration, and an IV in my arm would’ve taught me about overworking myself, but it takes a while to get through to me.

Moral of the midnight story? Take care of yourself. Whether it’s mental or physical, no matter how small you think your problem is, take care of yourself. And listen to me, here, I’m the expert in ignoring my problems for fear that they’re too small to warrant any concern… ya girl ignored what was probably a serious arrhythmia a couple years ago because it was “no big deal.” (Fun wakeup call when your cardiologist tells you about that.)

Everything is temporary anyway. Might as well keep yourself as happy and healthy as possible while you’re here.

Love,

Your very annoying and very tired fellow student.

Oh, and Walgreens sells mango flavored Pedialyte that doesn’t taste like vaguely-salty, syrupy junk. If anyone’s dehydrated, I highly recommend it.

Hello all! Sorry I’ve been MIA (@doc); I have numerous health issues that have had a fun time popping up out of nowhere. So, here’s a basic recap of last week and my (changed) plans:

Tuesday of last week: Returned to Louisville way later than I intended because my car needed a little work.

Wednesday: Got to work on more website stuff, drafted up another report, and checked my research again because I was a little bit manic… then collapsed and had a heart thing. It’s fine. I’m all good.

Thursday: Work from the couch! Revised the report. And then the friend whom I was staying with informed me that her parents were very concerned about my health and wanted me to go back to STL. So…

Friday: More on-paper website planning, packing for the drive. Again.

Saturday: Driving!

So it’s been a time. I’m subsisting off of watermelon and pedialyte for now, but I get to try some vegetables today! If my stomach doesn’t reject it, I will be very happy. I’m sure the health details are probably boring, but that’s kind of been the reality of this. I’m learning how to manage allll of my problems and still get work done.

This Friday, I will be heading out to Austin, TX to work with Austin Pets Alive! They’re an awesome organization, and I’m excited to work with them. The rest of my week will be fleshing out/putting finishing touches on the website, as well as trying to, ya know, live.

TLDR: Things got a little messed up because my health is a disaster, but I’m working on it and getting things done anyway!

I drove back to St. Louis on Friday evening, but after an appointment I’ll be headed back to Louisville. Everything is right on schedule for this part of my project!

I really love working on the website; it’s something that actually benefits an organization and helps form some solid skills for the future. It’s been great working with Mr. Eckel.

This week I get to start on the actual design process and registering/updating the domain. After all of that is done, I’ll move on to updating pages on different social media platforms.

I’m still in the “research” phase of my website project, but I’m close to the end and to moving on to the actual designing and uploading part. It’s been a really cool experience so far; this is definitely a versatile and useful skill to have. The beginning of designing the website is what’s been most fun so far, as I really like to identify what things need to be organized or marketed differently. Also, starting to pick photos and colors is fun.

I’ve been in pretty poor health this week, hence the title, so things have definitely been challenging as far as dealing with that and trying to stay on top of things. Luckily there’s Pedialyte and Gatorade to keep me alive for a while.

Loki is very happy. He’s thrilled about being allowed on the couch, and my temporary roommate keeps feeding him popsicles…

Sunday I drove to Louisville (with Loki, who was a perfect angel for four hours) to work with the IT company in person for two weeks. I’ve spent my time so far getting everything together on paper for the website and researching different platforms for how versatile and affordable they are for my purposes.

Since Monday, I’ve been working with an IT company based in Louisville. So far, most of my work has been on the beginning stages of developing a website for a non-profit. To determine how best to create the site, I’ve been discussing with my contact person what the needs of the organization are and spent time taking notes on the way similar organizations’ websites and social media pages work. I’m currently still in the middle of comparing and getting comfortable with different website designing platforms.