I'm here! It's been nearly a full year since I've posted on this page--and I'm sure all sorts of friend bloggers have assumed I've given it up for good--but I'm here.
I posted on my Not Writing Anything Anymore blog a few weeks ago, resolving to make blogging on both blogs a priority. But then life threw in the biggest of big wrenches, and I had no choice but to switch to what is more important: my husband's welfare.
My husband, on his way to run an Olympic length triathlon in Arkansas, ended up in an emergency room in Alabama with acute pancreatitis. Three weeks later, after a CT scan, tons of blood tests, and two ultrasounds, doctors concluded its cause was a 3 cm cancer tumor in the pancreas. Filled with anxiety (for the prognosis for pancreatic cancer sufferers is extremely bad), we went to the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, FL, where they determined his cancer was operable (thank God!), and where, a little over a week ago, he underwent the Whipple procedure. (It's a BIG surgery--look it up online, and you'll see how serious it is). Through his fight, he's adopted the mantra of his favorite college football team: Fight On! I've even ordered shirts and hats with the saying on them, for him, his friends, and our relatives to wear.
A week later, we were heading home from Jacksonville when the doctors called, and the news is now much more positive. The cancer was caught far earlier than it usually is, and after six months of chemotherapy, Richard will most likely live a long life without pancreatic cancer ever returning. Yay!
Our lives have been turned upside-down, though, and I found that even reading was impossible while I watched over him in the hospital. It was only when tests of the tumor were complete and we were given the great news that I could even concentrate on reading a book again. Now it's time to put my focus back on writing.
Richard was told by a friend who had beaten ovarian cancer that he had to concentrate on more than the cancer, and she told me the same--I had to have more to do than support him and rehash the cancer stories over and over. So that is what I am doing. I'm getting back to my mermaid novel, back to painting (I have accumulated several castles I want to paint), and back to playing piano. All three will soothe my soul through this, making it easier for me to soothe Richard's.
If you've read through this whole thing, thanks for visiting! Hopefully I'll have worthwhile stuff to share with you in the future!
