Dear Visitor – 2018-2022
Thank you for coming by. A quick update…health is doing well. Still clear of the cancer and the brain-fog has been lifted.
Currently, I’m working on weekly blog postings, not sure if I’m going to go back to daily blog themes. I do post daily thoughts on my dedicated Facebook page and share those throughout social media. Might go back to sharing writing prompts on specific days.
https://www.facebook.com/WriterChristineSteevesSpeakman or search for @WriterChristineSteevesSpeakman
I tackle my storylines by working on each story on their specific day, may take longer to write, but it keeps their voices quiet so I can work. Yes, being a writer is to know the voices are fictional and are your own voice. Keeping sane as a writer is also to openly recognizing there are voices telling you the story and that you will argue with different mental parts of yourself.
My trick to keep new stories from crowding in? I keep a journal for just first lines or titles, nothing more goes in there. It’s one way I warm up my brain. Plus, I’m ignoring two Nanowrimo stories which I didn’t finish…might find room on the weekends for them. Hmm, might be three.
That would make twelve stories on the go, maybe fourteen if I count the teen mysteries separate from the children stories. I have quite a bit of catch up writing.
Oh, and I made a commitment to have my poetry published in 2021. The aim was to submit a poem a month, but I forgot January was creeping close when I made this promise. I still have time in February.
Short stories. I want…will…see those come to print in 2021. Goal…at least six.
And all this doesn’t include my alter-egos Theadora and Melody. Or my reviewing. Or my Direct Sales.
It’s a good thing I like being busy. I missed being busy.
Talk again, soon.
Where have I been? May 2019
Below was written while I was in the hospital, I believe, it’s been nearly a year since I walked out. Today’s May 23 2019 and there’s more to tell of my story, but that’ll come a bit later…
Fighting for my life. Lymphoma to be exact. Relearning to use my legs…and toilet. Hey, never say I’m not blunt and open.
The summer of 2017. Thought burning heat at groin joints, back of neck, hands and feet were strange menopause symptoms.
September 11, 2017. Doctor visit and blood work…menopause or something else. I know my family doctor (and me) knew it was going to be cancer. Why not. It’s not like I’m invincible or special to avoid something that is so common. I’m just lucky it turned out to be something “they” believe can be cured. I’m looking for remission, maintenance, living with it. Cure? I’ll take it, but call me too realistic to hang onto that one simple word.
So, I’m restarting everything. Working from my hospital bed to keep the mind and fingers moving. Tomorrow, I should be starting round three of six chemo treatments. The rest of the week could be hellish, but I need to keep concentrating on therapy to move and eating. The close to hundred pounds I’ve lost isn’t what I ever looked for.
The hair loss…I’ll rock it when I acknowledge it.
What has me nervous is about two weeks after round three I’ll have another CT-scan in order to see if the spots on liver and spleen have either shrunk, shrinking, or gone.
What’s it like fighting cancer? Not much different than any other day except for being more tried, loss of appetite, not free to move as one wishes. It’s life and I’m being taught to use all the colours in my crayon box. To look around and open my eyes that too much time has already gone by with us saying…let’s do this, that, the other thing…and end up not doing any of it. There will always be something going on, but when you’ve been forced to be quiet and still you quickly learn the something is nothing.
How did I end up here? On way to a normal clinic visit I stepped down the stair landing and my legs said…nope. They just collapsed under me…moments after I had just walked to the stairs.
Ambulance ride here and up to a ward and first round of chemo.
Wild ride of a dream that was no dream. Why was the one nurse telling me to stay in bed? Wacky dream. Oh crap. I really am upside down on the floor beside bed, bare butt in the air, legs dangling, and catheter showing for the world to see.
No dream. I did it twice. Woke up in panic with second. Don’t remember trip to new area but no more of that drug. People pay to feel that out of themselves? Freaked me out.
Then pneumonia either following or followed by low oxygen. Did you know our oxygen levels should be 93% for our body to function healthily? Down to ICU…not the one my dad died in years ago, but one for us critical patients who need more oxygen than the other area is allowed to handle. At one point I was breathing on my own but with 80% added by machine. Six days later I’m back “upstairs” breathing all on my own.
Now I wait for round three.
