Hi guys, It’s not an easy time right now. I wanted to check with all of you, if you are doing fine, if you and your families are healthy. If everyone is keeping their jobs. I’m curious to know what covid-19 did change in your life, in good or bad, it’s up to you what you want to share. I heard a lot of different stories from some people around us, so I was wondering how my fans are doing during those times. Well, on our side, it’s kind of ok :-D I would say this whole year had been very strange so far. Starting with being very sick the whole of January nearly. February was kind of figuring out plans and organising next shooting trips, organising models to come to Belgium, booking locations, flight and boat tickets, ….. and then boom, March. All plans disappeared like steam over a pot once all countries started with closing borders. We had 3 shooting trips planned from the end of March till July. All got cancelled because of the lockdown and restrictions. On top of that I started to be extremely tired, but I thought it might be the stress coming out of the whole situation. Suddenly nothing was possible, not even going for a walk with Nelly. It was very hard time for me as I hate the feeling of being trapped or closed somewhere. It’s not claustrophobia as our place is not that small, but kind of similar. Don’t know how to explain it lol. As time was passing I thought ok, we can work on the garden, clean windows, do things we do not have time for normally. But I was feeling so exhausted. Once going out was possible again, I tried to go for a run, but omg, my calves got cramps and I could barely walk back home. At some point, I started to have a weird skin rash. I was thinking, what the hell is going on with me. My weight was going up fast, which was stressing me so much. I tried to work out, but I could barely do anything else that day as it took all my energy. My brain was kind of sleepy most of the time. I did not know what was going on, but thought well, it’s probably all the stress coming out of this situation, so once it’s all back to normal, I will be back to normal too, hopefully. But it was not getting better. As we were running low on content and all our shooting trips were cancelled, we had to shoot at home but I was already tired even before beginning so it went slow, very frustrating. As we were not able to travel, David decided to take the time to make work of improving the website and adding PayPal as an approved payment option so he was busy with that all the time. There were problems with every single thing you could think of, first the membership management software had to be changed, then the download manager software had to be changed too, that caused other issues with other software, etc.. At some point David had enough of the old software as he was more busy solving issues on the sites after updates then with creating content and being productive so he decided to go for a completely new approach and started searching a good solution, which is the software our site runs on now. The setup of it, was more time consuming and difficult then expected. Everything had to be changed, re-uploaded and done again. It took forever to make the switch. After a several weeks in t the project, the server admin didn't want to keep working for the price which was agreed for the setup and they would start charging 165USD / hour for every single task on top of the monthly fee. Not knowing how much time they still needed and they said themselves it is very complex, it felt so frustrating and never ending, so we also had to change the server and server admin. Luckily the current server company and admin has experience with the software and setting up went much faster and smoother since then. Unfortunately we lost a lot of time with all the hassle before. In beginning of July we went to Czech to visit my family, I had to visit some doctors for regular checks. One of the doctors made a blood test and found out my thyroid is not working well, the function is a lot under the limits. She wrote me some pills and send me to a specialist. After 3 days of taking the pills, I started to feel so much better. I suddenly had energy to do things, I felt like I finally woke up. Apparently the thyroid has affect on all the hormons and functions in your body. I did not know that something so small in our body can have affect on the function of the whole body. We are back in Belgium now, I’m still waiting for the specialist to get back to me about the next steps. I should do sono and other tests. I hope the borders won’t close again, so that I can continue the process. I feel very relieved that I finally know what was wrong, why I wasn’t feeling like myself. It is nothing serious, I just wanted to keep you updated :) I tried to make a long story short, but it still seems very long :-D Looking forward to hear from you.
Such diseases are already stressful. And nobody takes you seriously unless you know why. The Covid 19 measures already restrict freedom considerably. There have been and are so many diseases that are dangerous. Only this pathogen is additional political this time. That makes it so difficult for everyone. One can only pray that everything will not scale even more. Get well soon and good luck!
Furtunately in my city we had only one case.Nevertheless, we did a three-month quarantine and we experience some fear every day.The bad of the case is the loss of complete freedom and part of the income, and the good thing is the partial rest from the pressure of everyday life.With the new site and the download speed Iam a satisfied complete,finally good all good.As for your health problem, I would like to tell you how to listen more to doctors and less to others because I believe that case is different and the characteristics differ from person to person.For us here in Greece summer flows almost normally amd the beaches are full.Beware of cows when they are on a trial they are dangerous.But the walks are definitely also refreshingly.Courage better days will surely come.
Despite our lock down, we had surprisingly great weather! All from March up to even now. Health wise was a bit of a scare, after some random blood tests, due to extreme fatigue, I was diagnosed with a Vitamin B-12 deficiency, the levels were so dangerously low that I had to have a 2 week course of injections to get them up to the acceptable levels, B12 is in poultry,cheese,dairy products- all things already in my diet so how it got that low is a mystery. Going to the doctor though is difficult as they do not want to put people at risk. I am glad you are feeling better though, sounds like some of our symptoms were similar lol.
Hello Kristina, Sorry to hear about all the issues with your health and the site. So glad you are feeling better. The lockdowns do make things harder, too. Hopefully, all this will not last much longer. I also hope that your health continues to improve. Best wishes to you and David.
Hello Welle40, thank you very much for your reaction to this post. We hope borders won't close again and that people will respect restrictions, so everything can go at least close to "normal" soon. Stay safe and wish you a nice evening.
Hello Chris, thank you a lot for your reaction. Yes, we also hope that it won't be getting worst, but the opposite. Let's stay positive. Have a great evening.
Hello Stefanos, thank you for your reply to this post. Stay safe and have a good evening. Happy to hear that new site does satisfy you :)
Hello Keith, I'm very sorry to hear about you vitamin deficit. Hopefully it can be fixed soon. Yes, apparently I should increase fish, almonds, red meat. Those are same as when you miss B-12 vitamin. I wish you fast recovery. Greets to Kim.
Hello Philip, thank you very much for your reply. Stay safe and let's hope for the best. Have a nice evening.
Hi Kristina.Glad to hear you are feeling better.We are riding out the virus like everyone in the USA.Like you my travel plans for September have been effected and i doubt we will be going to Arizona or California.But everyone is safe and well here.Alex say's hi to you Nelly and David.Your friend Mike.
Hi Kristina, Thank you for sharing with us your story and everything that you had going through. I guess everyone is trying to cope with the new reality, not sure if it's a temporary situation or we will start doing things differently from now on. I have been working from home since the third weeks of March and I have no idea when we will get back to the office, fall is around the corner and the flu season will arrive in no time, I feel I will get back to the office maybe MArch-April of 2021. I really miss to hang out with my friends, going for dinner or grab a few drinks, let alone to take time off and go to a nice beach or visit family, I just try to be positive and adapt to the new reality of social distancing, wearing a mask indoors. I hope you and D are doing great and I will keep my support to both of you during this difficult times. Stay safe and healthy. Tony
Hello Kristina, David and fellow members! Difficult times these days for sure, thanks too for sharing your story, I am happy you are feeling better! All your troubles with the house and new website etc. reminds me of the fantastic drama/comedy movie "The Money Pit" with Tom Hanks. There is always weird stuff happening and all looks so bad, but you gotta keep fighting, eventually everything will get fixed "withing about two weeks" :) Keep up the great work! As for me, family and friends are all fine, me and many colleagues are working from home since March, and it is the best thing ever! I don't waste ~25 hours/month with driving my car to work and back (saves quite some money too. Mostly sticking at home these times alone, I do miss meeting my friends for board game sessions etc, we had like 2 sessions lately, but still it's not like before. I have to admit, sometimes I don't know what to do lol, especially on weekends when I'm alone. I have short phases with watching movies/series, reading, computer games and stuff like that, but somehow I have phases where I'm just bored with all of it and can't keep going/need a break, but what to do then? All in all, it always could be worse ;) Stay safe, ceph
Hi Tony, thank you very much for your reaction to this post. Yes, that kind of scares me the most, the uncertainty of this whole thing. I'm sorry to hear you cannot do any of that. It seems that the restrictions are much more strict in Canada than in Europe now. Well, at home you are relatively safe :) I think more strict restrictions (as long as people respect them) might help this situation to be over soon. Let's hope it will all be over and let's hope the old good times will come back. Stay safe and positive ( in mind :-D )
Hello Cephelo, thanks a lot for your comment here. Thank you, yes, I feel much better :) I have to check the movie, never heart of this title. Maybe I saw the movie, but in Czechia they usually give a different names to the movies, no idea why lol. Happy to hear all your family members and friends are healthy, it's so important. I'm so happy to hear you love working from home :) I can imagine that it must be very frustrating to be loosing so much time in car. What kind of board games do you like to play? When I have a moment, when I do not like to do anything, I take Nelly for walk. First - it makes her happy. Second - I do something for my health. Third - it refresh my mind and I can think about some things. So when I'm back, I'm usually "restarted" :-D Unless it was way too long walk and I'm tired :-D You are right, it can always be worst, so let's be thankful for what we have. Stay safe Ceph.
Hi Mike, thanks a lot for your comment. I'm sorry to hear about your travel plans. I guess it's best to stay safe and not to risk health of us and people we love. Let's hope we can all travel soon, once it's over. Stay safe and greets to Alex and Felicity.
welle40
Hallo Melisa Als erstes wünsche ich dir dass das mit deiner Schilddrüse wieder in Ordnung kommt. Wir waren heute in Tschechien zu Essen. NOCH sind die Grenzen auf, aber wie lange noch. Durch das PayPal bezahlen konnte ich die Seite abbonieren was vorher nicht ging. Ich wünsche dir und deinen Mann alles gute für die Zukunft