Cozy Con is over. (See previous entry) All my author friends have gone home. My latest book is done and the next not yet begun. I’m waiting for the advance reading copy of The Wrong Hill to Die On to be sent to me for final corrections, but I haven’t received it yet. I have started making notes for a short story – something quite different from my books. Haven’t actually written the story, though. I haven’t seen the new cover yet. Below is an early version, but I am told that it will be completely redone:

In fact, writing is pretty much in limbo. Don and I spend our days getting ready for the next operation on May 29. He has gotten the requisite clearances. In the next few days we finish up the tests. Next week a trip to the hospital for the pre-op conference. I’m trying to get all the necessities of life taken care of before the next round of caretaking. He’ll be in the hospital for a week or so, and so will I. We have no relatives here, so when Don is post-op, I come home only to sleep. Then after he is released, he’ll need nursing up close and personal for a while. So the plan is: if it needs doing, get it done right now, baby.

A friend of mine commented that what we have been going through for the past three years sound like hell, but the truth is that it’s more like war. Long periods of drudgery interspersed with periods of abject terror. Actually, there are long stretches during recuperation that are very sweet, just him and me, talking a lot about mortality, waxing philosophical on the meaning of it all.

I’m busy right now with all the getting-ready, but we’re both feeling calm and businesslike, old campaign veterans. But past experience leads me to believe that as time grows nearer, I, at least, am about to undergo another terrifying battle in the war.

Carolyn Hart, Hannah Dennison, Earlene Fowler

What day is it? Tuesday? I meant to post this report yesterday. And yesterday I meant to post this the day before that. That’s the way it’s been lately. I have the energy of a slug. I blame it on allergies. Yes, that must be what it is.

As I mentioned in my last post, May 5 was the first annual CozyCon, sponsored by Poisoned Pen Bookstore and Phoenix Public Library. It was spectacular.

Here we are: me, Rebecca Hale, Carolyn Hart, Jen McKinlay (tall), Barbara Peters (red), Jane Cleland, Avery Aames (black dress), Hannah Dennison (in the back), Earlene Fowler, Kate Carlisle on the end. The event ran from 10:00 a.m until 4:00 p.m., with a general session followed by author panels. I picked Hannah up at the airport early Saturday and we spent an hour together at Starbucks before going to the library, which was worth the price of admission all by itself. After the event Carolyn, Earlene Fowler,and I spent a lovely evening having dinner at Barbara’s. (Homemade by her husband Rob Rosenwald, who in addition to being my publisher, is a gourmet cook)  I love those people, and it was a great treat to feel so authorly again. I’d go into more detail about the event, but there is no way I could do it as well as Lesa Holstine did on her blog, Lesa’s Book Critiques. Check it out. She has posted lots of pictures, as well.

Me and Lesa

The latest husband news: Don has been doing much better just in the last three weeks.  We just saw the surgeon on May 2 and he gave us the thumbs up for surgery. Don weighed 136 pounds – up almost ten pounds from 3 weeks ago! Reversal surgery is set for May 29 at 7:30 in the freakin’ a.m. Don will be in the hospital about a week.  He has a couple of pre-op appointments with GP and cardiologist beforehand, but otherwise he’s good to go.  We saw the the oncologist on the first.  The PET scan Don had last week showed no cancer anywhere in his body but a couple of funny little spots to the around his ileostomy.  They don’t know what it is, but it could be anything from inflammation to more cancer. The surgeon said whatever it is won’t interfere with the reversal. So – here we go again. He’ll have a couple months of recovery, but if all goes as planned, this will be the last surgery for a while and it will be nothing but improvement from that point on.

Fingers crossed.

And last but not least, The Wrong Hill to Die On has been accepted and is on the publisher’s schedule for release in October 2012.

I’ll leave you with one more picture of my dear Hannah and dear Earlene, just for the smiles.

This past Thursday I had a wonderful time speaking to the Moon Valley Women’s Club up in Moon Valley (where else?). Moon Valley is part of the Phoenix metro area, but it is located on the northern edge whereas I live on the far southern edge, a good half-hour’s drive if the freeway is moving well.  It’s been so long since I had a speaking engagement – I think that October with Mara Purl at Changing Hands was the last one – that I had to spend a lot of time rehearsing my spontaneous charm. The event was wonderful.  Nearly 50 women were there, a most kind and receptive audience.  It was nice to get out by myself and be an author again.  This was the first time Don had spent any great amount of time alone since before his operation! He really does very well for a while on his own after all this time, and probably was overjoyed to have some time to himself without me hovering over him.

Coming up on May 5, I’m going to be participating in a multi-author event called Cozy-Con at Burton Barr Library – the main Phoenix Library – with a whole bunch of ‘cozy’ mystery authors from all over the west. Don may be in the hospital by then, but we’ve already determined that I’m going to be at the conference no matter what.  It’s not like Don and I haven’t been through this before.

This is going to be quite a fun event, and I hope you’ll come if you’re in the vicinity, Dear Reader. Here’s the official skinny: The Poisoned Pen, in partnership with Phoenix Public Library is sponsoring CozyCon at Burton Barr Central Library on May 5th. Authors attending include Avery Aames, Kate Carlisle, Jane Cleland, Donis Casey, Hannah Dennison, Earlene Fowler, Rebecca Hale, Carolyn Hart, Beth Kendrick, Jenn McKinlay, Paige Shelton and Betty Webb. A free open panel with all authors is scheduled from 10-11am, followed by a paid conference from 11:45 to 4:30pm. Cost for the conference is $25 which includes lunch. Seats are limited so call and register at 480-947-2974.

In my personal little world, you will be thrilled to know that I bought a rug for my living room. I know I am thrilled. We gave out living room furniture to a women’s shelter over a year ago with the intention of immediately buying a whole new suite. Long story short, we have had a bare living room ever since. I’ve had my eye on this particular rug for a while, but thought I’d better wait until I found the furniture before buying the accessories. I finally decided what the heck. So I’ll buy a furniture to match the rug rather than the other way around. Observe, and you’ll understand.

In case you are wondering, we bought some art for the walls just this morning. I do think I’d like to paint those white walls a nice warm color, too.

In health news, Don’s next appointment with the surgeon is this coming Monday.  We’re hoping he’ll set a date to reconnect Don’s plumbing, because Don is getting pretty dang tired of dealing with the ileostomy.  I think Don wouldn’t have such trouble with his if it weren’t for that open wound from the infection being so close to the ostomy.  Between the two of us we change the dressing on that little open wound every day, which messes with the attachment and often causes it to leak. It’s a pain.  He has an appointment with a wound doctor out at Banner Baywood hospital in Mesa on Wednesday, which he won’t keep if the surgeon says he doesn’t need to.  But Don thinks it’s taking an inordinately long time for the wound to close, and wanted to see if there is anything else he can do to help it heal.  (And if that is way more than you ever wanted to know, I apologize.) He is slowly gaining weight again.  He was up to 127 1/2 last night but back down to 126 tonight.  He has to eat continually, and does!  Sadly, so do I. 

Spring in Arizona

I didn’t sleep very well last night. I couldn’t go deep. This is a problem I’ve been having off and on ever since Don got sick, one with which I’m sure everyone who has ever been a caretaker is familiar. I’ve become hyper-vigilant. I’m always right on the surface, aware even in sleep of everything that is going on in the house. My mind won’t shut off. It’s exhausting.

It occurred to me during my mental ramblings that my life has become very small. Don’s illness has become the driving force behind my days. My world is confined to my house, various doctors offices and hospitals, my neighborhood groceries and pharmacies. My social circle has shrunk to medical professionals and the occasional kind friend with a casserole. And Don, 24/7. I seldom go out. Which means that I spend a lot of time going in. Fortunately, ‘in’ is a very big place.

As I lay awake, thinking about the concept of ‘going deep’ did cause me to spend some time pondering the mysteries of the universe. Physicists are on the hunt for the basic building block of reality, the smallest thing there is. The elementary particle. The Higgs boson. But for years I have had an intimation that creation is not just imponderably huge, without limit, out there, it is also imponderably ‘in there’, deep without limit. Just as there is no top, there is no bottom.

I recently read a review of a new book by Jonah Lehrer called Imagine. According to the reviewer, Lehrer propounds that daydreaming and otherwise allowing the mind to wander is the most effective way to tap your true creativity. If this is so, then I am the most effectively creative creature alive.

Don’s birthday was the 23rd. He was happy just to be having another birthday.  Our big celebration consisted of my buying him a piece of cake (I certainly did not make a cake).  We actually went to Changing Hands bookstore and he picked out a poetry book for his birthday. It was a nice outing.

When we last saw the surgeon on the 22nd, the doc thought Don might be ready for his ileostomy reversal surgery at the end of April. I can’t say I’m happily anticipating all that goes with his having another operation in a few weeks, but I’m looking forward to his being free of that horrible ileostomy bag.  An old friend of mine wrote me that she has an acquaintance who had a temporary ileostomy, and when the doctor told her it was time to get the reversal operation she said it was the first time in her life she had looked forward to surgery.* Don is pretty much the same way.

For a while he was gaining almost a pound a day, but his weight went down a pound or two a few days ago and has been holding steady at 123 since then.  He doesn’t seem to be able to put on more pounds no matter how much he eats, so we have good days and less good days.  At least he isn’t losing again. Don wants to get to at least 130 before he’ll feel ‘on the mend’ and confident that the doc will think he’s in good enough shape to do the reversal.  Last weekend we went to a meeting of the East Valley Ostomy Support Group, and it was quite helpful for Don’s psyche to talk to others who are having to live with ostomies of all varieties.  Seems his problems are not that unusual. Next doctor’s appointment is April 16.

In the meantime, spring is here in the Sonoran Desert (hence the photo, which is five years old but cheerful nonetheless). The weather is beautiful and the taxes are done. Things could be worse.
____________
*Yes, you, Carolyn D. Not that you’re old, heaven knows.

The photo of the birthday petit-four really has nothing to do with anything besides the fact that tomorrow is Don’s birthday – a very big one. He might have been depressed about getting so old if it wasn’t so forcefully demonstrated to us lately that he’s lucky to have made it so far!

Progress has been made this week. Monday Don’s wound vacuum was removed, so now he doesn’t have to lug that heavy purse-machine around all the time, or listen to it make clicking noises all night when he’s trying to sleep. Then Wednesday was the final visit from the home health nurse who had been coming out three times a week for the past two months to change the vac dressing and document his progress. It’s nice that he doesn’t need her any more, but we grew fond of Nurse Michelle (you can see the back of her head in the Feb. 19th entry, below), so we’ll miss her.

This very morning he had a regular follow-up appointment with his surgeon, and everything looks pretty good.  He’s finally gaining weight. He is 15 pounds heavier today than he was just two weeks ago! The doctor said that if all continues to go well, he’s looking at the reversal operation at the end of April. I cannot tell you, Dear Reader, how it cheers Don (and me) to know that there is actually an end in sight.

Don had been getting rather dragged down after all this time, struggling with depression over all the delays and set backs and one-thing-after-anotherness of it. Of course his mood affects me, too.  But then the day comes when you realize that there are at least as many ups as downs.

My dear, wise, friend Kevin in Oklahoma, whom I have known since God was a boy, was the primary caregiver for both his father and his uncle during their final illnesses. He and I correspond about the difficulties of aging, illness, caregiving, and generally what it all means to be alive and mortal. Not long ago he sent me an email that was so incredibly spot-on about this situation that I can do no better than to share part of it with you:

I think part of the joy of these medical situations is that you never have any idea of when things are going to change. I remember thinking during my various experiences, “Surely we’ll know more after the next appointment” or the next procedure or the next whatever. A corner is about to be turned.  But I think the corners may only become apparent in retrospect. It’s kinda like torture, it just goes on without end. Despite being aware of this at some level, when I talk to my grade-school, truck-driving friend (the truck-driving came after grade school), regarding his ailing wife, I still catch myself saying ”maybe you’ll know more after the next…”.

When I look back over the past several months and see how things have improved, I think that in retrospect, a corner may have been turned. Now if that belly wound would just close completely up (we still have to clean it and change the dressing daily),and Don would gain 10-15 more pounds, he could get the ileostomy reversed, recover from that surgery, and all would be right with the world.

In other news, I finished proofing the text of the next Alafair book, and am now working on the historical notes, genealogy, and recipes.

Remember that old folk song, Dear Reader? It goes like this:

The grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men.
He marched them up the hill one day,
Then marched them down again.

When you’re up, you’re up,
And when you’re down, you’re down.
But when you’re only half-way up,
You’re neither up nor down.

And that about describes my life over the past two weeks.

We had ourselves yet another little medical adventure last Thursday. I don’t know why I bother making plans at all. Of course, any Zen master would tell you that making plans is what leads to misery in the first place and you should simply be surprised by every moment as it occurs.  By that criterion I am the luckiest creature on earth.  

On Wednesday Don’s surgeon had him go in for a bunch of blood tests to try and determine why he keeps putting out so much and not gaining weight.  Then at the regular follow up appointment Thursday morning, the doc said that most of Don’s numbers look very good (yay!), but he was borderline dehydrated.  Since this guy is extremely proactive, he had his assistant call our closest Urgent Care center and make arrangements for Don to go in RIGHT NOW and get two liters of intravenous fluids.  Don was very grateful not to have to go to the ER or other hospital arrangement, I will say.  We hadn’t had anything to eat, so we had lunch and got to the urgent care place at 1:30.  They had all the paper work ready, but they were quite busy and we sat in the waiting room until 3:30 before they took him back. I won’t relate all the things that happened to delay the procedure, but very long story short, we didn’t get home until 8:00, starving.  Don weighed as soon as we got back.  He had gained four pounds since the morning.

The doc said Don’s wound looks good, but he did want Don to keep the vac on for another week. That week is up tomorrow, so if things go as planned, he will be unplugged tomorrow (Monday the 19th). Glorious freedom!  He bottomed out at 110 pounds a couple of weeks ago, but he’s put on a few pounds since then. He weighed 122 this evening! I’ve put on more than a few pounds. I call it sympathy weight gain. You can’t really cook three fattening meals  and a couple of snacks a day for someone and not indulge too much. At least I can’t.

On a more cheerful note, a couple of days ago I finished the rewrite of my next Alafair. Talk about a book being dragged out of me with pinchers.  The Wrong Hill to Die On is the longest entry in this series by far, but that’s what happens when you write and rewrite on the same book for over a year. The production manager at my press always teases me for using such long titles that she can’t fit them on the spine, so this fat one ought to make her happy. I still have to finish the extras, recipes and historical notes, etc., but since my editor will be in Asia for five weeks I guess there’s no big rush. At least I’ll have it ready for her when she gets back.

Don and His Wound Vac Man Purse

We’re going through a bit of a rough patch right now.  Don has been off antibiotics for a while now, which we thought would improve his digestion, but instead he’s lost even more weight.  It’s very depressing, and he’s getting frustrated and short-tempered about it.  Here’s the story we are now telling ourselves: He had so much edema when he came out of the hospital that he is just now getting rid of all that extra water and returning to his actual weight. There may actually be something to this since yesterday was the first time he has been able to wear his shoes in a month.  His feet have been so swollen that he’s been wearing sandals.  As for the weight problem, he’ll take all the meds they want to give him, but he doesn’t want to go back in the hospital, that’s for sure.  But he can’t get any skinnier, either!  I mean, his skeleton must weigh something.

This failure to gain depresses Don, which of course depresses me.  Until he bulks up, he won’t be able to get the ileostomy reversed.  He’s tried everything in the book to slow down his output, but thus far nothing has done a whole lot of good.  We’ve both spent a lot of time on the internet researching the problem, and have found a forum for people with ileostomies.  Apparently this is not an unheard-of problem, which in a perverse way is good to hear.

Don doesn’t really need to have someone with him at all times, but whenever I do go to the store or run errands I cajole him into going with me because I think outings are good for him. Sometimes we just drive around. He can’t stay out for too long, an hour or so, but he admits it helps. His routine is time-consuming, what with all the meals, etc., which makes it hard for me to find time to finish this damn book, which doesn’t help my psychology much, either.  

Otherwise, it really isn’t as bad as I’m sure I make it sound.  He feels good, much more energetic.  He exercises and gets around much better. The wound is healing. The wound nurses come three times a week to change the sponges. His appetite is prodigious. And I have managed to make some progress on the book.  I had a good idea for the climax, which cheers me considerably. As with any illness and recovery, you go through your ups and downs, and as my mother always said (and I do mean always), this too shall pass.

For many years now, I have been a student of Zen, which I love, because it’s very helpful at times like these.  It’s also pretty funny, and anything that’s pretty funny is okay with me.  Years ago, I went to my first meditation retreat with some trepidation, since I had heard that during sitting meditation, the sensei prowls around the room with a long stick and occasionally whacks the hell out of you when you least expect it.  The point of this is to make you be totally in the present, and believe me, when you think you’re about to get smacked at any minute, you actually quiver with awareness.  As it turned out, our sensei told us that he quit doing that because his students seemed to enjoy it too much.  So I’ve never actually been assaulted while meditating.

I’m sure most of you Dear Readers have heard of koans, such as “what is the sound of one hand clapping,” those apparently senseless little sayings and stories that you can ponder on all day.  Here is one of my favorites:

A Zen master was teaching his students when a cat wandered into the room.  The master picked up a cleaver and said, “If any of you can tell me the true meaning of existence, I won’t kill this cat.”  Not one student said anything, so the master whacked the cat, and his students ran out of the room, horrified.  The next day, the master was relating the incident to another sensei.  “I said, if any of you can tell me the true meaning of existence, I won’t kill this cat.”  The second master sat there for a moment, then hung his shoes on his ears and danced out of the room.  As he disappeared, the first master yelled after him, “If you’d been here yesterday, that cat would have lived!” (Please don’t get all het up, cat lovers.  It didn’t really happen.)

Or how about this one :  Two masters were debating which of their teaching methods was best when a disheveled drunk burst into the room, kicked the crap out of the first master, and ran out.  “Who was that!”  he cried.  “That was one of my students,” said the second master.  “You win,” said the first master.

Ah, I’m feeling better already.

Installing the Wound Vac

I never did have to stick my finger into Don’s belly wound (see previous entry). The home health nurse showed up early Tuesday morning and installed the wound vacuum before I had to do any cleaning and repacking myself. Thank goodness! So now he has a new ileostomy and suction tubes in his belly leading to a little vacuum box he has to carry around slung over his shoulder like an Italian man-purse. He has so many tubes and bags and wires and devices sticking out of him that he looks like an artificial life form.  

A friend of mine said we had better be on the lookout for an alien popping out of his belly.  If it weren’t so horrifying, it would be funny, like Charlie Brown tangled in his kite string, hanging upside down in a tree, comforting himself that it couldn’t be worse just before it starts to rain.

So much is going on with the health and the nursing, etc. (besides the fact that I’m supposed to be finishing the new book!), that I have decided to retire from my two multi-author blogs, Type M 4 Murder and Fatal Foodies, at least for the interim. I’m sad to do it. I managed to maintain my post all through the spouse’s earlier health crisis in 2009, but this situation has gotten the better of me.  Type M and FF have been a wonderful experience for me, and I have made many good friends because of them.

I posted my farewell entries yesterday, if you want to take a look. Just click on the green titles above.

Don keeps coming up with complications upon complications, but In many ways I feel very lucky. So many friends and relations are undergoing troubles right now, or have borne the unbearable, that I cannot by any stretch of the imagination feel that God is picking on us. John Donne knew whereof he spoke when he told us for whom the bell tolls. Don and I have been married 37 years and gone through a lot together.  When you’re young and first marry, I think you don’t fully grasp the import of the words “in sickness and health”. It’s quite an education when you first begin to realize what you actually signed up for.  My biggest surprise is that in a lot of ways, taking care of him feels something like a privilege.

I’m also amazed and gratified to realize how kind and wonderful most people are.

What? Have ten days passed since my last entry? I’ll tell you, it’s been quite the couple of weeks, and I don’t mean that in a good way. We had a reasonable week at home with the new ileostomy. Home health nurses, physical therapist, one exciting event after another.  We had good days and not as good days. Preparing meals, cleaning up, acting as his personal nurse/valet, and doing more loads of wash than is reasonable makes the day very short.  Every once in a while life conspires to give me the merest taste of what our foremothers went through every day.  They were way tougher than I am, that’s for sure!

Then we had a bit of a complication.  Don had a scheduled appointment with the surgeon Thurs morning at 11:00, but two hours beforehand he sprung a leak from his incision and oozed watery blood all over everything. At least it wasn’t two hours after! He had a little hole in his belly with a hematoma underneath (some blood, I gather)  The doc wanted to do a bunch of tests to make sure nothing is leaking into areas it shouldn’t and also to make sure he had no infection going on.  So long story short, Don was back in the hospital for a few days.  We went right from the doc’s office to the hospital, where after several hours of being admitted and tested and poked (you know the drill), they took a bunch of blood for testing, started a bunch of antibiotics and saline, made him drink a contrast stuff,and took him up for a CAT scan.

Seems he had a minor infection at his incision site, and some subcutaneous fluid in his belly.  So they put him on intravenous antibiotics, and Saturday morning he had a procedure to have a little of the fluid drawn out with a needle. They drew off a lot of fluid and stuck a temporary drain in his side (one more thing hanging off him).

They sent the fluid to the lab and were “trying to grow things in it, the surgeon told us later. The surgeon also said the drain doctor told him that the fluid looked like just old blood to him.   

But then late that afternoon his IV site started dripping like it was coming loose from his arm – he left a trail of a few blood drops on the hall floor.  We called the nurse just as he noticed that the back of his ileostomy bag was wet – leaking from a poor seal.  So three nurses came in and all worked on him at once to take off the bag, clean and prep his skin, put on another bag, check all his drains and dressings, fix his IV, as he laid there on the bed like a landed salmon and I sat in a chair in the corner and tried not to draw attention to myself.

This morning they removed the drain from his procedure, packed his wound with gauze, resealed the ileostomy bag, made arrangements for more home nursing, and by late this afternoon, told us we could go. I just brought Don home tonight at about 6:30.  He has an open wound in his belly that is about an inch by an inch and a half, and deep enough I can put my finger in it up to the first joint. Which I will be doing, because guess who gets to clean it and repack it tomorrow morning? (Yes, I did get training. Though I’m not ready for my RN yet and am not feeling full of confidence) Home health nurses are coming out tomorrow to attach a ‘wound vac’ to it, which is literally a little vacuum to suck out any drainage and help it heal from the inside out.  They sent us home with a few supplies. Observe:

If there is anything else that could happen to him I don’t even want to know. He’s immensely glad to be home.

We’ll be going back to the surgeon’s office in a week.

It’s a process.

My husband Don was released from the hospital on Feb 1, minus about a foot of small intestine and plus a shiny new ileostomy bag (temporary, thank goodness). After we got home I spent a lot of time unpacking and trying to get things in order.  Funny, the house was very neat until we got home, but within fifteen minutes it looked like a pharmaceutical explosion occurred in my living room. Don’s doing okay.  He’s still a bit unsteady on his pins.  His arms are so covered with bruises that he looks like he’s stuck them in a grinder, and he has a couple of scraped places that are kind of weepy (just water) and we have to keep changing dressings or his shirt gets all wet. His pain is infinitely improved, and his appetite is not too bad. Below is his first post-surgery meal of veggie broth.

He had ostomy training while we were still at the hospital – changed his own bag for the first time.  He did well, but it wasn’t all that enjoyable an experience as you might guess, Dear Reader. He’ll be seeing the surgeon in a week or ten days to have an assessment and to have the staples from the operative incision taken out.

Late Thursday night we got the lab report on the section of tissue they removed and it seems there was a touch of cancer, some Stage 2 cells.  The surgeon said they got it all – the intestine was clear above and below and there was no trace in 40 surrounding lymph nodes.  He said that the only slight concern was that there were some “micro-perforations” in the sore section through which a cancer cell might have escaped, so we did speak to an oncologist this morning before we left.  The oncologist told us that Don is basically cured. His chance of recurrence is low without any chemo, but if he wants to consider doing a course of preventative chemo, that is possible. The doctor gave us all the info on the regimen to check out before we make a decision, but nothing will happen until Don’s quite a bit more recovered.  This extra added thing to deal with shouldn’t interfere with having the ileostomy reversed, we were assured.  I learned long ago not to assume I can guess what Don is going to do, but history suggests that he won’t go for the chemo.  We shall see.

I didn’t know they’d find a malignancy, but it certainly was in the back of my mind, and neither one of us was overly surprised.  I’m very thankful that Don decided to go ahead and get the operation rather than do the three month course of meds for the Crohn’s, and I was surprised, too.  He has historically been quite anti-operation.  It just goes to show how bad he felt.

We will have home health nursing for a little while. The nurse came by for her initial assessment yesterday.  She’ll be back on Monday to assist in his second bag-changing.  He has a lot of post-op edema, especially in his feet. He has no stamina, and has a hard time getting up and down. He’s trying to eat as well as he can.  I expect the first week or so at home will be rather anxiety-making, at least until he gets to feeling better and we can better judge what’s normal and what to be concerned about.

While he was in the hospital, I did get quite a bit of rewriting done on The Wrong Hill to Die On, which is scheduled to be out in October.  I can tell things are going to have to calm down a bit here at home before I can get back to it, but I’m looking forward to the day.  Fiddling with that MS has been quite a comfort. 

Will Donis survive to tell the tale?  Stay tuned.

My friend Lois created this beautiful arrangement and brought it to the hospital. It still looks quite as lovely in my living room.