This was a bad one but it's easy to admit that it was no one's fault. My regular doctor was out sick so I was thrown back to the lions...err...back into the main group. Please keep in mind that I was in moderate to severe pain before I even arrived for the appointment. The practice had CNN on the TV as is usual but this happened to be during the Republican National Convention so there were lies being repeated left and right all over the place. I was starting off at a pretty high agitation level in any case.
A face more familiar to Melissa than me brought me back to a room I'd never seen before. Turns out there's a new proceedure where you go back to have your vitals updated and then you get back in line for your real appointment. It's gotten to the point where having my vitals taken scares me. I've experienced severe pain from blood pressure cuffs for years but this was a new level of pain. Since this nurse has helped me out on a couple of occasions recently, I did my very best not to complain. Instead, I panted with the pain and the nurse got the point very easily.
The funny part came when they weighed me. I'm not talking the sort of funny that anyone could get but the sort of funny that comes from years of severe pain. I tried to climb on the scale which was to my left only to have my left arm utterly fail on me. I fell against the wall and scared the nurse and Melissa and I insisted on cooperating as best I could. No one will be able to say anything about me being a difficult patient outside hospitals. After this, I was brought to my real room and I came to a horrible yet true conclusion. I was going to be in agony and bored out of my mind at the same time. It shouldn't be possible but I've experienced it more often than I'd care to admit.
There was only one thing left for me to do and that was make a joke out of it. In Las Vegas, you can bet on just about anything or so I have heard. One common bet is the over/under bet. This usually applies to the combined score of two teams in a big game. I joked with Melissa many times that the over/under for pain doc visits was three hours. I believe that is a pretty accurate number when you take the decade or more that I have spent going to the practice especially if you don't take into account the improvements from the clinic system. There have probably been an equal number of visits that took over three hours than those that took under three hours.
When one of my favorite doctors looked slightly dazed from the long day she was facing, I caught up to her to deliver the news. Vegas is taking a beating today. You guys missed the over/under and now all those poor bookies are in trouble. That got me a sympathy laugh.
I left in horrible pain and it took me a week to recover enough to write this. Worse yet, I left in terrible financial straits and with no samples of my most expensive meds. I've since begged for and gotten enough to make it through payday so that helps a lot. I was fretting about spending a whole week going off that medicine and now that doesn't need to happen. Hopefully, the two weeks I'll need before the next visit won't start the next financial crisis.
It's hard to depict just how bad it was last week because I'm so calmed down compared to then. I spent a fair amount of time discussing hopelessness with anyone who would listen. You might say that I'm half a step ahead of those feelings now. I won the small victory over the fear of withdrawal so that helped. It's just hard to see any scenario in which things improve any time soon. I'm beginning to think that death could be a blessing again. Then again, I might just need some more sleep.
It was August with temperatures in the 90s when my Fall/Winter symptoms started to set in this year. There is no such thing as fair so I won't ask what planet that would be fair on. I just feel as if I'm being attacked from all sides again. As if I didn't have enough to worry about, I have to contact the court system and figure out how best to prove I'm disabled. That deadline is approaching fast and I'm so tired. Please make it stop.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Sunday, August 19, 2012
The Price Is...Unavoidable
For the last few weeks, I have been writing up a storm. Two drafts of a novella aren't a bad month's production for me. I've been working on my fantasy world as well. With the introductory short stories finished or ready for serious feedback anyway, I started the first novel in the "Book of Names" series. I have been keeping crazy hours working for 24-36 hours at a time and then collapsing in pain and exhaustion.
It wasn't that long ago that I was on the edge of despair. Not only was I in constant extreme pain but I was accomplishing nothing as far as I was concerned. Those of you who have been reading since the beginning might remember the Trinity of Coping. First, you need faith in something to help you through. That's double for me with religious faith and faith in Melissa whom I call my health coach half jokingly. The second and third parts of this trinity are accomplishments and treats. If you accomplish nothing, it leads to feelings of total helplessness which cause you to lose faith among other things. Maybe it's just how I was raised but I find it tough to justify my existence at times even though I know you're not supposed to do that.
The third element is treats. Everyone needs something pleasant to anticipate and that's never more true than it is for someone who is in almost constant pain. If you're lying in bed embracing the peaceful nothingness of meditation because every thought brings too much pain, you need to know that something good will happen soon. We've had some highs and lows at this Stapleford household. The highest high was the week spent soaking in the peace down at Ocean City. The lowest point was losing our cable TV which had been such a dependable source of entertainment. I'm lucky enough to live with my beloved wife who understands this principle.
Recently, I've been working on accomplishments to the best of my ability. As far back as Christmas or Easter, I started a major push on the "Book of Names" project. I asked for and got colored pencils so that I could draw a map on some hex paper I'd printed. This allowed me to determine things like where the characters started, where they needed to end up and what was in between. I've had a book on world creation for a few years which I used to generate some things like what weather to expect and how to keep characters who are hundreds of miles apart on the same timeline.
Then, of course, I had the "Twice in a Lifetime" concept pop into my head. It didn't seem like something I'd get around to writing any time soon but it turned out to be fun. Even if what I've written is utter dreck, I am a writer and producing dreck is part of the process. There's a quote about writing first drafts where someone once said, "I give myself permission to write a shitty first draft." It's okay as long as the second draft is less shitty and so on.
So, what do you think happens when I write for days at a time often until I'm overcome by pain and fatigue? Well, I just told you. I'm overcome by pain and fatigue. I just spent most of two days lying down in a room with no clocks meditating and sleeping back and forth. When the pain is too much to stand while conscious, it's best to be unconscious. There were a number of days lost that way earlier in the week where I was in bed with a view of the clock. The ratio is probably three or four to one of days lost to productive days. Otherwise, I spend all my time lounging about in discomfort severe enough to require all the same medication.
The price is not right but there's no point in dwelling on that. I've already chosen a profession where the perceived cost of entry has dropped so low that there is a belief that anyone can do it. Oddly enough, that actually raises the bar on what you need to do in order to get in. Fewer people are reading fewer authors while the number of people who consider themselves writers has skyrocketed. The odds suck and most people who fail do so because they spend more time thinking of the odds than writing.
The price is too high but I wouldn't be me if I failed to pay it. The price for normal life is way too high for all of us with chronic pain. In order to get something more out of life, I have to be willing to pay an even higher price. Pardon the slightly cynical laugh that you couldn't hear. None of this matters as long as I'm writing dreck except for the fact that I do this sort of thing for myself anyway. I find an amazing degree of joy in creating worlds. Perhaps I enjoy creating people interacting in this world even more. It makes up for a lot to be able to write about a life so different from mine that I could never have lived it. At the same time, these fictional people have to solve the same problems as you and I.
Later this month, I'm going to hang out with my best friend for a few hours in his hometown. It's going to cause me extra pain that I could avoid by not taking the trip. Life is pain so, if you want to live, pain is unavoidable.
The next thing I write might just be about how to cut down on pain at the margins. It's not all about popping pills although they do help the most.
It wasn't that long ago that I was on the edge of despair. Not only was I in constant extreme pain but I was accomplishing nothing as far as I was concerned. Those of you who have been reading since the beginning might remember the Trinity of Coping. First, you need faith in something to help you through. That's double for me with religious faith and faith in Melissa whom I call my health coach half jokingly. The second and third parts of this trinity are accomplishments and treats. If you accomplish nothing, it leads to feelings of total helplessness which cause you to lose faith among other things. Maybe it's just how I was raised but I find it tough to justify my existence at times even though I know you're not supposed to do that.
The third element is treats. Everyone needs something pleasant to anticipate and that's never more true than it is for someone who is in almost constant pain. If you're lying in bed embracing the peaceful nothingness of meditation because every thought brings too much pain, you need to know that something good will happen soon. We've had some highs and lows at this Stapleford household. The highest high was the week spent soaking in the peace down at Ocean City. The lowest point was losing our cable TV which had been such a dependable source of entertainment. I'm lucky enough to live with my beloved wife who understands this principle.
Recently, I've been working on accomplishments to the best of my ability. As far back as Christmas or Easter, I started a major push on the "Book of Names" project. I asked for and got colored pencils so that I could draw a map on some hex paper I'd printed. This allowed me to determine things like where the characters started, where they needed to end up and what was in between. I've had a book on world creation for a few years which I used to generate some things like what weather to expect and how to keep characters who are hundreds of miles apart on the same timeline.
Then, of course, I had the "Twice in a Lifetime" concept pop into my head. It didn't seem like something I'd get around to writing any time soon but it turned out to be fun. Even if what I've written is utter dreck, I am a writer and producing dreck is part of the process. There's a quote about writing first drafts where someone once said, "I give myself permission to write a shitty first draft." It's okay as long as the second draft is less shitty and so on.
So, what do you think happens when I write for days at a time often until I'm overcome by pain and fatigue? Well, I just told you. I'm overcome by pain and fatigue. I just spent most of two days lying down in a room with no clocks meditating and sleeping back and forth. When the pain is too much to stand while conscious, it's best to be unconscious. There were a number of days lost that way earlier in the week where I was in bed with a view of the clock. The ratio is probably three or four to one of days lost to productive days. Otherwise, I spend all my time lounging about in discomfort severe enough to require all the same medication.
The price is not right but there's no point in dwelling on that. I've already chosen a profession where the perceived cost of entry has dropped so low that there is a belief that anyone can do it. Oddly enough, that actually raises the bar on what you need to do in order to get in. Fewer people are reading fewer authors while the number of people who consider themselves writers has skyrocketed. The odds suck and most people who fail do so because they spend more time thinking of the odds than writing.
The price is too high but I wouldn't be me if I failed to pay it. The price for normal life is way too high for all of us with chronic pain. In order to get something more out of life, I have to be willing to pay an even higher price. Pardon the slightly cynical laugh that you couldn't hear. None of this matters as long as I'm writing dreck except for the fact that I do this sort of thing for myself anyway. I find an amazing degree of joy in creating worlds. Perhaps I enjoy creating people interacting in this world even more. It makes up for a lot to be able to write about a life so different from mine that I could never have lived it. At the same time, these fictional people have to solve the same problems as you and I.
Later this month, I'm going to hang out with my best friend for a few hours in his hometown. It's going to cause me extra pain that I could avoid by not taking the trip. Life is pain so, if you want to live, pain is unavoidable.
The next thing I write might just be about how to cut down on pain at the margins. It's not all about popping pills although they do help the most.
Monday, August 13, 2012
Not the New Normal
After a July so full of pain that I could hardly do anything, I've written two drafts of a new fictional project in August. I hesitate to call it a novel at a mere 185 pages but it could grow into one through future drafts. I didn't bring it up here to brag about it or anything. I'm bringing it up because I've been able to exceed my expectations by so much here in August and because of the topic. It's a story of love and loss due to a fictional terminal disease.
I'm a writer. It's how I self identify and how I choose to interact with the world at large. I'm also someone who lives with chronic pain. I've struggled with the idea of writing a novel about someone surviving my own illness and thriving but that just seemed like wish fulfillment. My abortive attempts felt more like times when I tried to write football stories with me as a star quarterback.
My favorite author, Stephen R. Donaldson, once wrote that he needs the connection of two ideas for a story to come to life. He calls those two ideas the familiar and the exotic. His most famous books are about a leper hero named Thomas Covenant who refuses to accept the magical land he's transported to as real. Donaldson wrote that his father was a specialist doctor in a place where leprosy was common so that was the familiar. The exotic was the idea of someone who didn't believe the story. That was the genesis of "Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever."
I liked the idea of the familiar and the exotic so I started off with the idea of writing about a sick and dying person. I thought that the exotic might be switching roles and having the sick person not be the protagonist. I would write about a caretaker who loved her instead but that wasn't exotic enough. There was one time when I believed that Melissa had cancer and the idea stuck with me long after cancer was ruled out and the real problem was healed.
The exotic came to me in the form of the "Twilight" books. Why not write about young love and focus my ideas on loving descriptions of people. Forget writing about real looking people! I needed to let myself write through the eyes of someone who had just fallen madly in love for the first time. There was also no reason to be realistic about the illness that's killing her. I needed symptoms that would make a reader wince. I also needed to write something to show how being disabled is okay in the eyes of those who love you. It may not be easy to care for someone like me but that doesn't stop Melissa from loving me.
My main problem with the "Twilight" books is that they promote the idea that a 17 year old can know exactly what she needs in life. I was sure I knew everything at 17 and I can't tell you how many things I had dead wrong. Therefore, I decided to play out a little dark fantasy of my own. If I were to die and leave Melissa behind, I would want her to be happy. In my moments of doubt, I wonder if it might not be better for her to find happiness with someone else now. That's just the doubt talking, of course. Why not give my healthy protagonist a happy ending of sorts.
Since he's not the disabled one, why not make him a tiny bit of a hero? It was the "Twilight" influence again. Why not show that someone who is terminally ill holding the attention of the guy who is just a little tough? Why not mix in some action to ease the "in your face" morals of the story? I would have absolutely no problem with writing a commercial success, of course.
There's a moral to this story as well. I feel crappy again. One part of the trinity of surviving chronic pain is accomplishments. Therefore, I used my insomnia to be productive in between sessions of day sleeping and twitching and I wrote between severe pain attacks. Now I feel crappy but I'm still pleased with myself. It's easier to feel crappy after wearing myself out. It's too damn hard when I start off that way.
I'm a writer. It's how I self identify and how I choose to interact with the world at large. I'm also someone who lives with chronic pain. I've struggled with the idea of writing a novel about someone surviving my own illness and thriving but that just seemed like wish fulfillment. My abortive attempts felt more like times when I tried to write football stories with me as a star quarterback.
My favorite author, Stephen R. Donaldson, once wrote that he needs the connection of two ideas for a story to come to life. He calls those two ideas the familiar and the exotic. His most famous books are about a leper hero named Thomas Covenant who refuses to accept the magical land he's transported to as real. Donaldson wrote that his father was a specialist doctor in a place where leprosy was common so that was the familiar. The exotic was the idea of someone who didn't believe the story. That was the genesis of "Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever."
I liked the idea of the familiar and the exotic so I started off with the idea of writing about a sick and dying person. I thought that the exotic might be switching roles and having the sick person not be the protagonist. I would write about a caretaker who loved her instead but that wasn't exotic enough. There was one time when I believed that Melissa had cancer and the idea stuck with me long after cancer was ruled out and the real problem was healed.
The exotic came to me in the form of the "Twilight" books. Why not write about young love and focus my ideas on loving descriptions of people. Forget writing about real looking people! I needed to let myself write through the eyes of someone who had just fallen madly in love for the first time. There was also no reason to be realistic about the illness that's killing her. I needed symptoms that would make a reader wince. I also needed to write something to show how being disabled is okay in the eyes of those who love you. It may not be easy to care for someone like me but that doesn't stop Melissa from loving me.
My main problem with the "Twilight" books is that they promote the idea that a 17 year old can know exactly what she needs in life. I was sure I knew everything at 17 and I can't tell you how many things I had dead wrong. Therefore, I decided to play out a little dark fantasy of my own. If I were to die and leave Melissa behind, I would want her to be happy. In my moments of doubt, I wonder if it might not be better for her to find happiness with someone else now. That's just the doubt talking, of course. Why not give my healthy protagonist a happy ending of sorts.
Since he's not the disabled one, why not make him a tiny bit of a hero? It was the "Twilight" influence again. Why not show that someone who is terminally ill holding the attention of the guy who is just a little tough? Why not mix in some action to ease the "in your face" morals of the story? I would have absolutely no problem with writing a commercial success, of course.
There's a moral to this story as well. I feel crappy again. One part of the trinity of surviving chronic pain is accomplishments. Therefore, I used my insomnia to be productive in between sessions of day sleeping and twitching and I wrote between severe pain attacks. Now I feel crappy but I'm still pleased with myself. It's easier to feel crappy after wearing myself out. It's too damn hard when I start off that way.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
The New Normal
I'm going to use certain terms here in this blog and define them as I go. These are personal definitions for things that take place in my life. Where possible, I stick to accepted medical terms but I just don't know them all. My doctors are also too busy to act as my medical dictionary.
The point is that I'm worried about establishing another new normal. You might also call it my baseline level of illness. This is how sick I can expect to be on a daily basis without factoring in any aggravating or mitigating circumstances. Since pretty much any day would have both aggravating and mitigating circumstances, it's a lot of guess work. Experience and input from doctors does help make it an educated guess at least.
A shift in my baseline illness isn't always easy to detect. There are too many aggravating and mitigating factors to explain plus there is a reliable degree of seasonal variation. There are signs that point to a change and I can't help but notice them. It's the sort of information my doctors really need. One sign is that I have a series of good or bad days in a row under a variety of conditions. Another sign is that my coping strategies start to fail. You could call that a bad sign.
I've been going downhill since the beginning of July and this scares me. It's too early for my Fall symptom changes and I have been doing all I can to be better. My summer symptoms are dominated by massive crippling headaches. They can be vise grip headaches where it feels as if someone is trying to crush my scalp or ice pick headaches where the pain is concentrated on a tiny point as if someone is trying to jab...you get the picture.
Right now, I'm suffering from a classic Winter symptom where it feels as if my bones are aching from the inside out. It is worst at the joints but all the major bones seem to come into play. My upper body is worse than the lower probably because I use it more. Then again, I keep my pain patch on my thigh these days so it might have more effect on the lower body. It's better to consider all possibilities but I think it's the greater use.
Yesterday, I had the dizzy headache. There is an area of pain that seems to contain the whole Bermuda triangle (Nope. I'm not a believer. If you combine the number of flights in that area with the unreliable extreme weather, you're just going to lose people.) for my body's internal compass. I can't tell up from down or left from right. Normally, I can still putter along or cling to something until it passes. Yesterday, I had it hit me in the dark right beside the bed. It wasn't the first attack of the day but it was the worst. Earlier, I'd fallen going up the stairs but it was a nice soft fall forward.
The fall on the bed would have been far worse if there hadn't been such a nice surface to land on. I could not get up from my position lying face down. Thankfully, Melissa was there to talk me through it because the Bermuda triangle drowns out all thought. I let gravity slide me off the bed to my knees but that didn't help. I was stuck clinging to the side like I was trying to climb into a boat. Eventually, I used my contact with the bed to guide me up all the way on it and crawled to my pillow. I get angry with myself in situations like this. My inner critic insists that I must look like such a faker to my audience (of one) and so I try to fight my way out of it. It's almost always a bad idea.
I know I can't be the only one with such a harsh inner critic so I hope the rest of you take heart in this. Lay there as long as you need to lay there. Anyone who wants to give you a hard time needs to take a long look inside themselves. I discovered that I was okay lying completely flat but the mere thought of elevating made me dizzy so I just stayed where I was. Melissa coached me through my momentary impatience but she's not always there. Getting up before you're ready is just asking for another fall. I've had falls in doctors' offices where the staff was ready to call an ambulance but I assured them I was okay. All they wanted from me was for me not to hurry.
So, I've had terrible headaches well beyond my normal range that lasted entirely too long. I had severe dizzy symptoms. (I'm trying to relax myself through more of them trying to set in right now. The meditative breathing is helping some.) I'm spending absurd amounts of time in bed. Is this another change in my baseline illness? Am I losing more ground? I don't know yet because there has been a rash of severe weather and I react badly to that.
My confession is that the thought of this as the new normal sent me spiralling downward. I started thinking seriously about death but not in a suicidal way. I was just thinking about signing a DNR order (do not resuscitate) in view of my overall health. With my family history, I'm pretty much guaranteed a heart attack or stroke at a young age. Someone asked about how we handle the things we can't control on a mailing list I enjoy and I tried to answer. My inner critic (in my mother's voice) insists that I put far too many things in that category but my doctors disagree. They agree with me that I can make some improvements at the margins but my main health problems are beyond my control. Of course, signing a DNR without having any life threatening condition in place might not even be allowed so I went to see my coach.
She was struggling with Facebook and this made me think of a few things. One is that I have had major improvements in my activity level since a low last winter. There were days when I only got out of my comfy chair to use the bathroom. I walked up the stairs without thinking about it or planning anything. Melissa resolved her own Facebook issue using methods I taught her. Maybe I should continue trying to cope with things the way they are.
There's plenty of time after a first heart attack or stroke doesn't kill me to sign a DNR or create a living will. There's also no reason why I can't have some quality of life after the worst case scenario. The methods I taught Melissa to control her Facebook issue didn't even exist until after I got sick. I can continue to contribute even if things got so much worse. My pain doc assured me that there are additional steps left to take to control my symptoms.
When I was going into my third year of illness, I knew in my heart that I couldn't survive a third year. That was the beginning of 2003 and things have gotten worse since then. Thankfully, they've also gotten better or else I wouldn't have made it.
Even another retreat to a new normal doesn't have to stop me. Maybe I need to move out of this house that causes so much stress. Why does someone like me live with stairs on a daily basis anyway? There's always a next step. Sometimes, you just have be there to see what it will be. Until then, I will bitch, moan and soldier on.
The point is that I'm worried about establishing another new normal. You might also call it my baseline level of illness. This is how sick I can expect to be on a daily basis without factoring in any aggravating or mitigating circumstances. Since pretty much any day would have both aggravating and mitigating circumstances, it's a lot of guess work. Experience and input from doctors does help make it an educated guess at least.
A shift in my baseline illness isn't always easy to detect. There are too many aggravating and mitigating factors to explain plus there is a reliable degree of seasonal variation. There are signs that point to a change and I can't help but notice them. It's the sort of information my doctors really need. One sign is that I have a series of good or bad days in a row under a variety of conditions. Another sign is that my coping strategies start to fail. You could call that a bad sign.
I've been going downhill since the beginning of July and this scares me. It's too early for my Fall symptom changes and I have been doing all I can to be better. My summer symptoms are dominated by massive crippling headaches. They can be vise grip headaches where it feels as if someone is trying to crush my scalp or ice pick headaches where the pain is concentrated on a tiny point as if someone is trying to jab...you get the picture.
Right now, I'm suffering from a classic Winter symptom where it feels as if my bones are aching from the inside out. It is worst at the joints but all the major bones seem to come into play. My upper body is worse than the lower probably because I use it more. Then again, I keep my pain patch on my thigh these days so it might have more effect on the lower body. It's better to consider all possibilities but I think it's the greater use.
Yesterday, I had the dizzy headache. There is an area of pain that seems to contain the whole Bermuda triangle (Nope. I'm not a believer. If you combine the number of flights in that area with the unreliable extreme weather, you're just going to lose people.) for my body's internal compass. I can't tell up from down or left from right. Normally, I can still putter along or cling to something until it passes. Yesterday, I had it hit me in the dark right beside the bed. It wasn't the first attack of the day but it was the worst. Earlier, I'd fallen going up the stairs but it was a nice soft fall forward.
The fall on the bed would have been far worse if there hadn't been such a nice surface to land on. I could not get up from my position lying face down. Thankfully, Melissa was there to talk me through it because the Bermuda triangle drowns out all thought. I let gravity slide me off the bed to my knees but that didn't help. I was stuck clinging to the side like I was trying to climb into a boat. Eventually, I used my contact with the bed to guide me up all the way on it and crawled to my pillow. I get angry with myself in situations like this. My inner critic insists that I must look like such a faker to my audience (of one) and so I try to fight my way out of it. It's almost always a bad idea.
I know I can't be the only one with such a harsh inner critic so I hope the rest of you take heart in this. Lay there as long as you need to lay there. Anyone who wants to give you a hard time needs to take a long look inside themselves. I discovered that I was okay lying completely flat but the mere thought of elevating made me dizzy so I just stayed where I was. Melissa coached me through my momentary impatience but she's not always there. Getting up before you're ready is just asking for another fall. I've had falls in doctors' offices where the staff was ready to call an ambulance but I assured them I was okay. All they wanted from me was for me not to hurry.
So, I've had terrible headaches well beyond my normal range that lasted entirely too long. I had severe dizzy symptoms. (I'm trying to relax myself through more of them trying to set in right now. The meditative breathing is helping some.) I'm spending absurd amounts of time in bed. Is this another change in my baseline illness? Am I losing more ground? I don't know yet because there has been a rash of severe weather and I react badly to that.
My confession is that the thought of this as the new normal sent me spiralling downward. I started thinking seriously about death but not in a suicidal way. I was just thinking about signing a DNR order (do not resuscitate) in view of my overall health. With my family history, I'm pretty much guaranteed a heart attack or stroke at a young age. Someone asked about how we handle the things we can't control on a mailing list I enjoy and I tried to answer. My inner critic (in my mother's voice) insists that I put far too many things in that category but my doctors disagree. They agree with me that I can make some improvements at the margins but my main health problems are beyond my control. Of course, signing a DNR without having any life threatening condition in place might not even be allowed so I went to see my coach.
She was struggling with Facebook and this made me think of a few things. One is that I have had major improvements in my activity level since a low last winter. There were days when I only got out of my comfy chair to use the bathroom. I walked up the stairs without thinking about it or planning anything. Melissa resolved her own Facebook issue using methods I taught her. Maybe I should continue trying to cope with things the way they are.
There's plenty of time after a first heart attack or stroke doesn't kill me to sign a DNR or create a living will. There's also no reason why I can't have some quality of life after the worst case scenario. The methods I taught Melissa to control her Facebook issue didn't even exist until after I got sick. I can continue to contribute even if things got so much worse. My pain doc assured me that there are additional steps left to take to control my symptoms.
When I was going into my third year of illness, I knew in my heart that I couldn't survive a third year. That was the beginning of 2003 and things have gotten worse since then. Thankfully, they've also gotten better or else I wouldn't have made it.
Even another retreat to a new normal doesn't have to stop me. Maybe I need to move out of this house that causes so much stress. Why does someone like me live with stairs on a daily basis anyway? There's always a next step. Sometimes, you just have be there to see what it will be. Until then, I will bitch, moan and soldier on.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
PDD: July 2012
It was a matter of two pain doc days this month. The first came right before my wife's trip to Boston and was a SNAFU even by chronic pain treatment care. In fact, it was so bad that I didn't want to write about it in such stark terms and possibly scare people away from treatment that they need. The second appointment was yesterday and it was as smooth as good glass.
The first visit included the following fun features:
My doctor asked me to give it another 30 days before making any medication changes. This made sense to me because most of my remaining options are on the extreme side. One that I had been worried was my only option is all but ruled out. Others were put on the board as potential changes. As I put it, I plan to live a long life and tolerance makes treatments less effective over time no matter what. Therefore, I need to change things as slowly as I can stand. She reminded me that my back was not truly against the wall. I'm glad she did because I'm not immune to the tendency toward doing stupid things when I think my back is against the wall.
Even at their worst, the practice pulled together and took care of me. Let's just make sure we note that. It was a little shaky but we held it together. That's we as in the whole practice of receptionists, nurses, techs, doctors and me. We're a team and I've always seen it that way. If I didn't, I don't believe my results would be this positive overall.
The first visit included the following fun features:
- After being told it was just an appointment for prescription pickups, I had to wait and be seen.
- The doctor who saw me (one I like if I may say so) didn't have a clue about the course of treatment I've been on for the past half year.
- I was left frazzled almost to the point of being unable to walk but that's nothing unusual.
- In my frazzled state, I forgot to bring up one of my prescriptions.
- In a followup call, I was told that I had been taken off two prescriptions including one they had actually filled that day and the one I forgot to bring up.
- Melissa backed up my memory that no such conversation had taken place and/or message delivered.
- I ran out of the one prescription on July 4th. On July 5th (the day before Melissa left for Boston), my calls about it led to me being told it (and one they had given me a prescription for) had been cancelled. I was also told about the non-existent conversation.
- A nurse at the practice had to perform a service above and beyond the call of duty in order to get me through the 28 days. She collected me enough samples and stayed late after the office closed to give Melissa the meds in the parking lot. I hope this was legal but it sure was the right thing to do and I do not identify doctors and nurses for such reasons.
- I saw my regular doctor and received all my regular prescriptions.
- I was feeling extra paranoid about the drug testing due to the other problems from the first visit. Therefore, I had taken extensive notes on what meds I had taken when. When I dared my doctor to test me and confirm or deny those results, I was told that I had passed the previous drug test just fine.
- My doctor found no indication that any conversation had taken place about taking me off any meds.
- My doctor continued me on all current medications including one where I found a need to adjust how I go about taking it.
My doctor asked me to give it another 30 days before making any medication changes. This made sense to me because most of my remaining options are on the extreme side. One that I had been worried was my only option is all but ruled out. Others were put on the board as potential changes. As I put it, I plan to live a long life and tolerance makes treatments less effective over time no matter what. Therefore, I need to change things as slowly as I can stand. She reminded me that my back was not truly against the wall. I'm glad she did because I'm not immune to the tendency toward doing stupid things when I think my back is against the wall.
Even at their worst, the practice pulled together and took care of me. Let's just make sure we note that. It was a little shaky but we held it together. That's we as in the whole practice of receptionists, nurses, techs, doctors and me. We're a team and I've always seen it that way. If I didn't, I don't believe my results would be this positive overall.
Monday, July 23, 2012
To justify my existence...
Hopefully none of you actually use those words on a regular basis. I'm trained to look at my thoughts and actions carefully because I used to be suicidal. If I need to do something in order to justify my existence, it's a trap. If I fail, that means my existence is unjustified and then there's the next layer of defense. If I have no justification for my existence, then I shouldn't exist. Right? Wrong! We all exist and have no need to justify that existence.
What can we use to replace those words? It isn't always easy to know these things so I'll give you my best try. For today, I'm trying to fight the feeling that I'm a total impostor as a writer so I'm embracing that part of my identity. I'm not writing to justify my existence but to try to add something of value to the world. It's my legacy. When I'm dead and gone, I can only hope that someone reads my combined works of fiction, blog posts, the journal entries backed up on my hard drive and my private journal. Then, I have to hope that it adds something important to their lives.
There are days when I feel trapped. I'm unable to produce anything new and I'm tired and I end up hoping the pain will come to help me justify my lack of production. Just in case you feel something similar, let me break down that logic for me. If I'm tired, it's often because I'm trying too hard to create something. The creative juices won't stop flowing even when my body betrays me and demands rest. Being tired is just part of being sick and so I can't need to justify the rest that my body is demanding. Otherwise, I realized that I make myself sicker just to have the excuse to rest.
I don't know if any of this makes sense to you. It certainly makes little logical sense in the course of my life. I have been putting out dozens of pages of new material per relatively healthy day recently. This is a pace I would have probably said was worth getting sick when I was healthier and dumber. In those days, I felt that just making great strides on, or God forbid, finishing projects would justify my existence and let me rest. There's the other problem with that belief. It's like a drug where you need bigger and bigger hits to get the same high/relief. I'm approaching a hundred pages of new material in my "Twice in a Lifetime" project over the course of a couple weeks. I feel ready to purchase and christen a notebook for nothing but notes and an outline for my ongoing fantasy project. That's not true. I feel ready to stop working on the preliminary short stories and go straight for the novel.
This is months of work for me at my normal pace. Why am I feeling like an impostor now? I do not have an agent for my first novel much less the rest of this work. I do not see a path forward toward getting my novel about life and love and learning to ignore the siren song of suicide. It's done according to the current definition of done but I won't feel like a success until it is published for money. My inner critic tells me that anyone can write novels but only the best get published. The fact that I see hundreds of copies of dreck out there does not help deter this belief.
I bled real metaphorical blood along with the far more real sweat and tears for my baby and its less ready siblings. The reality that these early novels might never see the light of day bothers the hell out of me. It's a drag on my current work which I've written for an intentionally broader audience. How can I justify myself by adding something of quality to the world if so few people will ever see it? And we're back to square one.
In my dreams, I'm able to use my non-existent fame and fortune for Chiari awareness. I'm able to tell people that the difference between a success like me and your average failure is that I got a lucky break when I needed one. Right now, I'm feeling the frustration compete with the need to write. I need to finish this project and put a stamp on it somewhere in my mind that says "completed first draft." That's when my coping skills will come into play for real because the distance between "completed first draft" and completed novel is at least as long as the distance between idea jotted down on paper and that completed draft.
Just remember this, fellow Zipperheads and others who live with the pain. Bon Jovi sang it a long time ago. "You live for the fight when it's all that you got!" I continue the struggle so that's my answer when things get bad enough for me to want to justify my existence. With respect to victims of actual violence, I hope it's clear that I'm talking about something else when I strap on my armor and go out there for one more fight. If I should fall today, I'm going to take as many of the bastards as I can with me.
Those bastards are merely the obstacles both external and internal that stand in my way but that's no fun. I'm like the comic who wants to go out there and kill his audience. If I were to be literal, I want "them" to publish my novels and another set of "them" to buy them in massive numbers and, obviously, I need them to be alive. Put on your highest SPF (snark protection factor) gear for this last sentence: I do need them to be alive literally so that they can buy my next book.
What can we use to replace those words? It isn't always easy to know these things so I'll give you my best try. For today, I'm trying to fight the feeling that I'm a total impostor as a writer so I'm embracing that part of my identity. I'm not writing to justify my existence but to try to add something of value to the world. It's my legacy. When I'm dead and gone, I can only hope that someone reads my combined works of fiction, blog posts, the journal entries backed up on my hard drive and my private journal. Then, I have to hope that it adds something important to their lives.
There are days when I feel trapped. I'm unable to produce anything new and I'm tired and I end up hoping the pain will come to help me justify my lack of production. Just in case you feel something similar, let me break down that logic for me. If I'm tired, it's often because I'm trying too hard to create something. The creative juices won't stop flowing even when my body betrays me and demands rest. Being tired is just part of being sick and so I can't need to justify the rest that my body is demanding. Otherwise, I realized that I make myself sicker just to have the excuse to rest.
I don't know if any of this makes sense to you. It certainly makes little logical sense in the course of my life. I have been putting out dozens of pages of new material per relatively healthy day recently. This is a pace I would have probably said was worth getting sick when I was healthier and dumber. In those days, I felt that just making great strides on, or God forbid, finishing projects would justify my existence and let me rest. There's the other problem with that belief. It's like a drug where you need bigger and bigger hits to get the same high/relief. I'm approaching a hundred pages of new material in my "Twice in a Lifetime" project over the course of a couple weeks. I feel ready to purchase and christen a notebook for nothing but notes and an outline for my ongoing fantasy project. That's not true. I feel ready to stop working on the preliminary short stories and go straight for the novel.
This is months of work for me at my normal pace. Why am I feeling like an impostor now? I do not have an agent for my first novel much less the rest of this work. I do not see a path forward toward getting my novel about life and love and learning to ignore the siren song of suicide. It's done according to the current definition of done but I won't feel like a success until it is published for money. My inner critic tells me that anyone can write novels but only the best get published. The fact that I see hundreds of copies of dreck out there does not help deter this belief.
I bled real metaphorical blood along with the far more real sweat and tears for my baby and its less ready siblings. The reality that these early novels might never see the light of day bothers the hell out of me. It's a drag on my current work which I've written for an intentionally broader audience. How can I justify myself by adding something of quality to the world if so few people will ever see it? And we're back to square one.
In my dreams, I'm able to use my non-existent fame and fortune for Chiari awareness. I'm able to tell people that the difference between a success like me and your average failure is that I got a lucky break when I needed one. Right now, I'm feeling the frustration compete with the need to write. I need to finish this project and put a stamp on it somewhere in my mind that says "completed first draft." That's when my coping skills will come into play for real because the distance between "completed first draft" and completed novel is at least as long as the distance between idea jotted down on paper and that completed draft.
Just remember this, fellow Zipperheads and others who live with the pain. Bon Jovi sang it a long time ago. "You live for the fight when it's all that you got!" I continue the struggle so that's my answer when things get bad enough for me to want to justify my existence. With respect to victims of actual violence, I hope it's clear that I'm talking about something else when I strap on my armor and go out there for one more fight. If I should fall today, I'm going to take as many of the bastards as I can with me.
Those bastards are merely the obstacles both external and internal that stand in my way but that's no fun. I'm like the comic who wants to go out there and kill his audience. If I were to be literal, I want "them" to publish my novels and another set of "them" to buy them in massive numbers and, obviously, I need them to be alive. Put on your highest SPF (snark protection factor) gear for this last sentence: I do need them to be alive literally so that they can buy my next book.
Friday, July 20, 2012
A Day In the Life
There will be some serious topics coming but I try to maintain my devotion to fairness even when things upset me. For instance, things could have gone better at my last Pain Doc appointment. Instead of reporting on what was likely mere confusion caused by me and my problem of serious time constraints, I realized that my 28 day appointment cycle makes July a rare but regular two appointment month. After my next appointment, I hope to have plenty of positives to report.
Also, Melissa went on a brief vacation with her side of the family but without me. This was by my choice. Their goal was to see a show I would have hated and travel is just plain bad for me. Unfortunately, I learned there's some truth to calling Melissa my better half. I was hopelessly dysfunctional without her to the point where an extended trip probably would have killed me from the sheer neglect I'd have put myself through. How to do better surviving on my own is a topic all disabled people should take seriously.
In addition to those serious topics, I have kept myself very busy. Was I doing something too important to sit down and write something that might help someone else survive better? No. I was keeping myself very busy because the broken chair makes it nearly impossible to relax comfortably while out of bed. If you think that frustrates me, you should see how Maddie the cat reacts to not having lap time for her naps. That got coupled with the great flea invasion of 2012 so that it seemed the world was conspiring against my favorite grey kitty.
Then there were days like yesterday. Melissa was off yesterday and we had a whole day's worth of agenda to complete after Melissa's fourth straight closing shift. Unfortunately, my reversed sleep schedule took a day off on Wednesday. I'd hoped to sleep Wednesday night but it didn't happen. By the time she woke up (very early for her) on Thursday, I was at the end of my rope. My goal was to make a quick trip out that accomplished one or two things but I had a severe headache, extreme touch sensitivity and I was twitching like a madman.
While I was no longer up for a productive trip, I hoped that Melissa would get us some breakfast before I could get worse. Then I might feel better enough to take a little trip and knock one thing off my list somewhere. The cat is out of the bag about the Barnes and Noble "Nook" e-reader that the in-laws bought me. I had tried to keep this information away from them but it never worked worth a damn. The ratio of hours spent on the phone with customer service to hours spent reading was approaching 1:1 and I am very bad on the phone.
This leaked to them with the expected bad feelings but they actally felt guilty about it. As I had snapped to a tech on the phone, my in-laws don't have money to burn. It was very impressive that they had purchased this thing that is relatively easy on the arm muscles to use. I'm trying to get over the guilt associated with someone deciding to make buying me something a priority and move on with life. They were kind and kindness should not bite you on the ass. Melissa and I decided that the way to make this gesture work was to exchange the Nook for an upgraded version that didn't suffer from early adopter bugs and pay the upgrade costs ourselves.
While we were at the bookstore doing this, I was going to spend as much time as I could stand checking out a variety of books that I wouldn't normally consider buying. My interests are already what you'd have to consider eclectic but I'm always interested in broadening those horizons. I never thought that I'd be a tea drinker or someone who listens to symphonic music so I wanted to give poetry reading a try. I'm old and mature enough to no longer be afraid of being that guy who reads poetry and all so why not?
Unfortunately, Melissa doesn't go from zero to full speed in two seconds flat on her days off. While she put way too much thought into the concept of breakfast, it became lunch time. She revealed a hidden agenda of wanting to get me out of the house which I opposed with an asterisk. The asterisk is the always available "do it because you love me and trust me" exception. She invoked that quietly and we ended up at Arby's which is, in fact, "good mood food."
It was a very busy store and I used up the very last of my energy for the day without realizing it. By the time we left, I was barely able to walk and carry an orange cream milkshake at the same time. (It was such a good milkshake.) I couldn't be that close to the "Staples" office supply store without certain feelings emerging. Since I looked up fetish in the dictionary and learned it is not a dirty word by definition, I have admitted to my office supply fetish. She talked me into waiting for an upcoming sale at her store but I reminded her that my favorite pen in the whole world is sold at "Staples" and not her store. She went in and bought me a 12-pack obligingly after she realized that we wanted the same thing. She wanted to keep me out of what might as well be the Heroin Emporium for me and I didn't want to take another step.
When we got home, she found an old school primer. I don't know what age group it was intended for but there was an essay justifying the study of literature even for those who planned careers with nothing to do with the subject. That makes my guess high school since it was printed in 1966 before college was so nearly universal. I found the section on poetry and was genuinely delighted. Yes, the textbook aspects were as annoying as the editors suggested they might be but the poetry was delightful. I read a poem about cherry blossoms that was short, pleasant on the tongue and revealing of a small part of human nature.
I'd never enjoyed lyric poetry before with my admittedly limited efforts linked exclusively to the narrative form. Why am I interested in poetry? There has always been an all but forbidden link to the romantic in poetry for me. I think of sitting close to a certain someone (aka Melissa but I had the image before I knew her) reading aloud so that the words helped form some sort of mood. I don't care if your minds are in the gutter because I know my image doesn't change whether I'm too sick to react to a thousand mostly naked dancing girls or if my mind is in the gutter with you. Romance, comfort and solace have always been linked very closely for me.
It only took a few short poems before my eyes were closing and I was worried about dropping a hardback book on Maddie who was asleep on my lap. She seemed to like it when I read to her. I went upstairs to take a short nap to escape the pain and then Melissa awakened me at 8 PM. It was too late to do more than the barest exchange at the bookstore so I told her the truth. I wanted to sleep more than anything. By 2AM, I was stiff from lying in bed for too long. Our mattress is too hard or something so that my hips and the sides of my gut feel bruised after so many hours in bed.
The beginning of yesterday didn't really fit in the beginning of the story like it should so I'm going to put it here. After hours of trying to get to sleep, I reached a point where I suspected (correctly as you know) that I had lost the chance to sleep and have a productive day. Therefore, I spent some more time working on my latest novel effort with the working title "Twice in a Lifetime." My last writing session broke off suddenly when the story went to a place so dark you would think it had to be the product of an evil imagination but it was inspired by a number of stories I'd been told in confidence. Even blended together so that I doubted the actual people could recognize the tiny fragments of their own lives, the story was too hard to write.
As I've done recently, I took some inspiration from Stephanie Meyer when my own life experience failed me. Instead of vampires, I used my knowledge of military matters to create a corporate paramilitary team. Instead of my protagonist having to watch helplessly while the second love of his life struggled with horrors he could not help, I made them external. The "bad guy" became a physical threat and so Peter the protagonist called in the cavalry. As the now outgunned potential threat of an unmarked van (that could have been harmless) fled, the couple was whisked away in armored black SUVs. As Melissa put it, "is there really any other color for them?"
It was quite the breakthrough for me because I've been writing a lot lately of what I thought a friend had called dumb girly stuff back in high school. It turns out he had said boy'n'girly stuff at the time but I had taken note of something Melissa had said far more recently. As I complained about "Twilight" movies leaving the novel plots behind to include pointless violence, she noted that there had to be something in it for the boys. She explained that I'm unusual in my long held preference for character development with little action. Throwing in a little action that will integral to the story and not tacked on will expand my potential readership.
That writing was fun but it used up a little too much energy. I got to use the other side of my brain as I picked the perfect weapons mixture for a covert team that wants to use weapons that will minimize collateral damage if there's a fight but will intimidate their way out of the fight in the first place. If you're a Stargate fan, you might recognize the P-90 but you might not realize that it's a real gun. I'm sure the show used it because it looks cool but police and some military units use it because it won't shoot through people and walls to kill the wrong people so easily.
I'm getting far afield here but there is a point. Even a bad day like yesterday with crippling pain and dizziness that kept me in bed can have all sorts of high points. I got to eat roast beef, curly fries and drink Diet Dr. Pepper. I am no longer using my very last good pen and frantic about its potential loss. Maddie left a nice warm bed to come downstairs and sit on my lap in yet another show of affection for me. Now, I'm going to post this and try to fill today with as much good as I can.
Belgian Independence Day is approaching and there's a beer sale. What can I say? I know what I like.
Also, Melissa went on a brief vacation with her side of the family but without me. This was by my choice. Their goal was to see a show I would have hated and travel is just plain bad for me. Unfortunately, I learned there's some truth to calling Melissa my better half. I was hopelessly dysfunctional without her to the point where an extended trip probably would have killed me from the sheer neglect I'd have put myself through. How to do better surviving on my own is a topic all disabled people should take seriously.
In addition to those serious topics, I have kept myself very busy. Was I doing something too important to sit down and write something that might help someone else survive better? No. I was keeping myself very busy because the broken chair makes it nearly impossible to relax comfortably while out of bed. If you think that frustrates me, you should see how Maddie the cat reacts to not having lap time for her naps. That got coupled with the great flea invasion of 2012 so that it seemed the world was conspiring against my favorite grey kitty.
Then there were days like yesterday. Melissa was off yesterday and we had a whole day's worth of agenda to complete after Melissa's fourth straight closing shift. Unfortunately, my reversed sleep schedule took a day off on Wednesday. I'd hoped to sleep Wednesday night but it didn't happen. By the time she woke up (very early for her) on Thursday, I was at the end of my rope. My goal was to make a quick trip out that accomplished one or two things but I had a severe headache, extreme touch sensitivity and I was twitching like a madman.
While I was no longer up for a productive trip, I hoped that Melissa would get us some breakfast before I could get worse. Then I might feel better enough to take a little trip and knock one thing off my list somewhere. The cat is out of the bag about the Barnes and Noble "Nook" e-reader that the in-laws bought me. I had tried to keep this information away from them but it never worked worth a damn. The ratio of hours spent on the phone with customer service to hours spent reading was approaching 1:1 and I am very bad on the phone.
This leaked to them with the expected bad feelings but they actally felt guilty about it. As I had snapped to a tech on the phone, my in-laws don't have money to burn. It was very impressive that they had purchased this thing that is relatively easy on the arm muscles to use. I'm trying to get over the guilt associated with someone deciding to make buying me something a priority and move on with life. They were kind and kindness should not bite you on the ass. Melissa and I decided that the way to make this gesture work was to exchange the Nook for an upgraded version that didn't suffer from early adopter bugs and pay the upgrade costs ourselves.
While we were at the bookstore doing this, I was going to spend as much time as I could stand checking out a variety of books that I wouldn't normally consider buying. My interests are already what you'd have to consider eclectic but I'm always interested in broadening those horizons. I never thought that I'd be a tea drinker or someone who listens to symphonic music so I wanted to give poetry reading a try. I'm old and mature enough to no longer be afraid of being that guy who reads poetry and all so why not?
Unfortunately, Melissa doesn't go from zero to full speed in two seconds flat on her days off. While she put way too much thought into the concept of breakfast, it became lunch time. She revealed a hidden agenda of wanting to get me out of the house which I opposed with an asterisk. The asterisk is the always available "do it because you love me and trust me" exception. She invoked that quietly and we ended up at Arby's which is, in fact, "good mood food."
It was a very busy store and I used up the very last of my energy for the day without realizing it. By the time we left, I was barely able to walk and carry an orange cream milkshake at the same time. (It was such a good milkshake.) I couldn't be that close to the "Staples" office supply store without certain feelings emerging. Since I looked up fetish in the dictionary and learned it is not a dirty word by definition, I have admitted to my office supply fetish. She talked me into waiting for an upcoming sale at her store but I reminded her that my favorite pen in the whole world is sold at "Staples" and not her store. She went in and bought me a 12-pack obligingly after she realized that we wanted the same thing. She wanted to keep me out of what might as well be the Heroin Emporium for me and I didn't want to take another step.
When we got home, she found an old school primer. I don't know what age group it was intended for but there was an essay justifying the study of literature even for those who planned careers with nothing to do with the subject. That makes my guess high school since it was printed in 1966 before college was so nearly universal. I found the section on poetry and was genuinely delighted. Yes, the textbook aspects were as annoying as the editors suggested they might be but the poetry was delightful. I read a poem about cherry blossoms that was short, pleasant on the tongue and revealing of a small part of human nature.
I'd never enjoyed lyric poetry before with my admittedly limited efforts linked exclusively to the narrative form. Why am I interested in poetry? There has always been an all but forbidden link to the romantic in poetry for me. I think of sitting close to a certain someone (aka Melissa but I had the image before I knew her) reading aloud so that the words helped form some sort of mood. I don't care if your minds are in the gutter because I know my image doesn't change whether I'm too sick to react to a thousand mostly naked dancing girls or if my mind is in the gutter with you. Romance, comfort and solace have always been linked very closely for me.
It only took a few short poems before my eyes were closing and I was worried about dropping a hardback book on Maddie who was asleep on my lap. She seemed to like it when I read to her. I went upstairs to take a short nap to escape the pain and then Melissa awakened me at 8 PM. It was too late to do more than the barest exchange at the bookstore so I told her the truth. I wanted to sleep more than anything. By 2AM, I was stiff from lying in bed for too long. Our mattress is too hard or something so that my hips and the sides of my gut feel bruised after so many hours in bed.
The beginning of yesterday didn't really fit in the beginning of the story like it should so I'm going to put it here. After hours of trying to get to sleep, I reached a point where I suspected (correctly as you know) that I had lost the chance to sleep and have a productive day. Therefore, I spent some more time working on my latest novel effort with the working title "Twice in a Lifetime." My last writing session broke off suddenly when the story went to a place so dark you would think it had to be the product of an evil imagination but it was inspired by a number of stories I'd been told in confidence. Even blended together so that I doubted the actual people could recognize the tiny fragments of their own lives, the story was too hard to write.
As I've done recently, I took some inspiration from Stephanie Meyer when my own life experience failed me. Instead of vampires, I used my knowledge of military matters to create a corporate paramilitary team. Instead of my protagonist having to watch helplessly while the second love of his life struggled with horrors he could not help, I made them external. The "bad guy" became a physical threat and so Peter the protagonist called in the cavalry. As the now outgunned potential threat of an unmarked van (that could have been harmless) fled, the couple was whisked away in armored black SUVs. As Melissa put it, "is there really any other color for them?"
It was quite the breakthrough for me because I've been writing a lot lately of what I thought a friend had called dumb girly stuff back in high school. It turns out he had said boy'n'girly stuff at the time but I had taken note of something Melissa had said far more recently. As I complained about "Twilight" movies leaving the novel plots behind to include pointless violence, she noted that there had to be something in it for the boys. She explained that I'm unusual in my long held preference for character development with little action. Throwing in a little action that will integral to the story and not tacked on will expand my potential readership.
That writing was fun but it used up a little too much energy. I got to use the other side of my brain as I picked the perfect weapons mixture for a covert team that wants to use weapons that will minimize collateral damage if there's a fight but will intimidate their way out of the fight in the first place. If you're a Stargate fan, you might recognize the P-90 but you might not realize that it's a real gun. I'm sure the show used it because it looks cool but police and some military units use it because it won't shoot through people and walls to kill the wrong people so easily.
I'm getting far afield here but there is a point. Even a bad day like yesterday with crippling pain and dizziness that kept me in bed can have all sorts of high points. I got to eat roast beef, curly fries and drink Diet Dr. Pepper. I am no longer using my very last good pen and frantic about its potential loss. Maddie left a nice warm bed to come downstairs and sit on my lap in yet another show of affection for me. Now, I'm going to post this and try to fill today with as much good as I can.
Belgian Independence Day is approaching and there's a beer sale. What can I say? I know what I like.
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