Breakdown Body Update

Long time no blog. In the case of this blog, that's a good thing!

However, nothing is ever healthy for very long in my body.

I'm flirting with round 2 of pancreatitis. Haven't been able to eat much of anything for the last week. Luckily this all coincided with a GI doc appointment, which means I'm on track for surgery #2. After a preliminary HIDA scan and a trial with some different medications, they'll likely set a date to remove the gallbladder and fix the hernia.

Of course, there's no guarantee it will work.

But don't worry, there's a third procedure they can do. It's riskier but it might not work too!

I looked at the doc then and said, "So, basically it all sucks?"

Doc nodded. "Yep, it all sucks."

Later, the doc hit me with this gem, "Sometimes people don't get better from this. It just doesn't go away."

Awesome. I appreciate the honesty, I do, but the truth still hurts.

I don't want surgery, but the status quo isn't tolerable. I don't care about the pain so much, my concern is nutrition, energy levels (pancreas stuff tires me out good) and long term risk of serious need-to-be-in-the-hospital pancreatitis along with the increased risk of pancreatic cancer. There are risks all around, whether I do or don't have surgery and they all suck.

 

But there's still hope that the HIDA scan will show nothing of interest (like before) especially as all the cramping and spasming is starting to calm down. A dud test might stall things a while, which I can't find myself too upset about. I really don't want to have surgery. Stall away!

Rest of my health update: Asthma is okay. A little flaky now that the season is changing but holding steady. The eye infection finally got over itself. I realized I forgot to mention that earlier, sorry. It tried to fester for a week, but couldn't gain any traction and eventually got better. Adrenals are good, but I had a few over-the-top stressful days the last month and weirdly lost my appetite along with my energy while gaining a hypersensitive sense of smell. Felt very adrenal. Don't know what that means and I try not to read too much into it.

Writing update: I am now a USA Today and NY Times bestselling author. No lie. For those of you rolling your eyes and thinking of all my writing flubs here, get over yourselves. This blog has never been edited and it always features stream of consciousness writing. In fact, some of my reviews mention how 'clean' and free of errors my books are because I work damn hard to produce a decent product. (However, most of my readers are not grammar experts and probably wouldn't notice most errors anyway, so there's that.)

My last book was a breakout hit, but wasn't the one to hit the lists. It did, however, sell well enough to qualify me for pro level memberships in various writing organizations. Which is good because it expands my professional network. (Interesting data point: The USA Today and NYT book wouldn't meet the income qualifications. If you think the bestseller list automatically = $$$$, you would be wrong.)

I'm helping someone else get their book business off the ground for no reason other than I think it's interesting. I continue to work on my business stuff with my partner and am helping another author with their marketing plan. What I'm not doing much of at the moment is writing the next book. I think I'm a little burned out.