Pretend this is me.

Hi there! :) Honestly, after this weekend, that headline really does sum it up. And, if you want to know the details, you’ll simply have to click on the link, because I’m way too gimpy busy a really lazy bastard. Ah ha ha ha …

So … today I managed to finish a review. Plus, I wrote more words in the shitty first draft of the chapter of the medical book, giving my perspective as a stroke survivor with dystonia. I’m sure you want to know what they are, right? If not, go read another blog. Now! Ha ha ha …

I promise not to bore you with my shitty first draft anymore, after this, okay? I just thought there were some funny parts in this one.

Okay … here we go:

In trying to sum up my feelings about being a stroke survivor dealing day-to-day with dystonia, the first image that came to mind was of Gregor the cockroach in Franz Kafka’s novel, The Metamorphosis. As if my life had turned into an eternal struggle to understand that there simply was no justice in the universe.

            I think this must be the way all survivors of life’s calamities must feel. Having to bear physical disability as a result seemed like salt rubbed into the wound. On top of which, this disability directly affected my means of making a living and my greatest passion, i.e., writing.

            When you suffer an illness, you normally expect medical treatment to provide relief of some sort. With dystonia, I came to realize that the medical profession didn’t have an adequate treatment plan or even an adequate day-to-day medical management plan to address all of the various problems, including the physical, mental and emotional damage caused by my condition.

            The difficulty of dealing with this was compounded by the fact that no one really noticed I was suffering. So, I often felt unable to communicate my grief.

            Nonetheless, I didn’t want to be defined by my disability. I wanted to simply live and work. Certainly I wasn’t looking for pity. But an acknowledgement of my suffering would have been nice.

            After I had my stroke, my recovery seemed so miraculous. I remember walking around the CCU, feeling so blessed. But then I looked at all the bed-ridden patients around me, and I felt so horrible.

            After I had my stroke, I suffered a period where I couldn’t sleep at all, along with a great deal of emotional lability, which is the tendency to react emotionally to the slightest thing. So, when I’d go to the hospital for rehab for the minor deficits at that time, I’d actually cry if I heard an announcement of a Code Blue or need for CPR.

            Mind you, I wasn’t exactly wet behind the ears when this happened. I was a practicing attorney for nine years. And I knew from experience that horrible things happen when people make the wrong choices. I also knew that life wasn’t fair from growing up poor.

            My family didn’t live in a nice white neighborhood with a white picket fence around the house. And my Dad was a writer, who wasn’t always there for us. But he always encouraged me to be a writer. So, that was my therapy. I found solace in my work.

            At the time I had my stroke, I was a freelance writer and I’d just signed a contract to have my first novel published. While I was in the hospital, my husband had to cancel a speaking engagement I was supposed to attend. In addition, I had a deadline to submit a monthly article. I was released from the hospital, seemingly unharmed by the stroke. So, when I got home, I got in touch with my editor and asked for an extension, because I’d had a stroke. She asked me if I’d rather have someone else write it instead, but I refused. I told her I could do it, if I could just get a little more time to turn it in.

[Blogger's note: at this point, I started laughing so hard, I almost couldn't go on. Imagine calling your editor and saying, "Hey, can I get an extension? I've had a stroke." Ha ha ha ...]

            I could have easily accepted her offer, but to be honest, I was afraid of being replaced. When you’re a freelancer, you need to be dependable. I didn’t want my editor to think my health had been compromised. As far as I knew, I had recovered from the stroke and I was going to be fine. Needless to say, that didn’t turn out to be the case. I had the rug pulled out from under me five or six months later when I developed symptoms of dystonia in my left hand and foot (the side affected by the stroke).

            My first response was to seek treatment from the neurologist who’d evaluated me after I left the hospital. She diagnosed my condition and recommended I see a movement disorder specialist, and engage in physical therapy.

            All this time, I was still freelancing and writing fiction. I poured myself into my work, because I was getting so little relief from medical treatments. And it’s hard to simply relax and enjoy life, when your body is constantly moving against your will.

            While my movement disorder physician was a most empathetic person and I felt lucky to have her as a doctor, my physical therapists seemed relatively clueless about my condition and state of mind. One even took this weird tone with me, when I asked, “Will this ever get better?”

            Her response was, “You’ve had nerve damage.” And she said it so matter-of-factly that I felt like an idiot for asking. Then, I wanted to slap her silly, because no one should talk to a suffering person like that. Least of all a person who’s treating suffering people.

            To make matters worse, my first novel went out-of-print nine months after it was published when the small press that released it went out of business. Talk about having the rug pulled out from under you.

            At first, my treatment consisted of Botox injections, some medications, and physical therapy, until the physical therapists basically threw up their hands and said they couldn’t do any more for me. As if they’d done anything for me in the first place. Pretty funny, huh?

            The Botox injections are a less-than-ideal treatment for my problem. The toxin weakens the muscles in my hands and arms, so my fingers end up even less controllable. After the shots, instead of clenching, my fingers hang limp and useless from my hand. My grip is a joke. Except not entirely. Parts of my hand still clench. It’s weird. Dystonia is weird. Right now, as I type this, the left side of my hand is limp and the right side is clenching like crazy.

            And I deal with this every single day of my life. For the rest of my life. And I’m a writer. Not fun.

            Needless to say, I wasn’t a very happy camper. The only thing I could think to do was laugh at my calamities, because I was so ridiculous. And my life was so ridiculous, so I began blogging about my life as a writer shortly before I self-published my first novel. I called the blog, “My Life on the Mid-List” in homage to Kathy Griffin.

Well, so far, so good. Now, I just have to write about 7 times more words and I’ll be done with the shitty first draft. Nothing to it. Ha ha ha …

Oh, BTW, have I mentioned?

It’s official! Available in print from Renegade Press. (That’s my press!) I just got my copies in the mail today. :D

Please, pretty please, click on the image to see the awesome words beneath my name. Yay! :)

Didn’t get to the young adult novel. But there’s time for that. Priorities.

Meanwhile, here’s something we should all think about over the holidays. Because, for all we know, we only go around once in life. And you’re the only one who can grant yourself a real life. So, don’t blow it.

Even the great and powerful Wizard of Oz Amazon was thrown for a loop by the cosmos weather. Ha ha ha … #iamfoolish

Really? I had no Internet this weekend, and I got a whole shitload of reading done, like you wouldn’t believe. :)

Does this sound at all familiar? Ha ha ha …

PS: Look who’s taking a different tone. :)

Well done, Joe. Well done. Ha ha ha … #iamfoolish

Take the money and run. Ha ha ha #iamfoolish

I got what I could out of the deal. Whatever the fuck that’s worth. Ha ha ha … #iamfoolish

But I couldn’t sign up with Amazon’s exclusivity program. I guess I’m just a renegade. Ha ha ha … OMFG!!!!

The Birth of Renegade Press

I hope you all have a nice Fourth of July! We’ll probably stay home, because the fireworks are so crowded, and I don’t really  feel like dragging my gimpy ass to a horribly crowded fireworks display.

We’ll probably stay home, watch Perry Mason and (if we’re really lucky) listen to our drunk neighbor come outside and yell, “Happy birthday, America!” That’ll be way more fun. :)

On that note, I’d like to share this video I stumbled across about John Lydon that truly intrigued me. Enjoy! :)

PPS: I’m such a fucking moron, I totally forgot to mention that all my books are half off in July on Smashwords. Click here to access the books and enter SSW50 to get the discount. Let’s pretend this is a real postscript and not an update, okay? Ha ha ha …

PPPS: Let’s pretend this never happened, too. RIP, Posey. :(