Welcome Gentle Readers

This blog tends to wander from its main purpose -- updates on my fiction. I do have updates and excerpts of my work. But I also write about my obsessions -- food, friends and pop culture and my weird life in Los Angeles. Enjoy!

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Waiting Rooms, Craig and Vague Updates


The funniest part of the last diagnostic test of this cycle was presenting Craig as my responsible adult to the charge nurse. I wasn't sure if they were going to accept him as such after he said that his relationship with me was high priest. As she detailed the things that I shouldn't be doing under sedation(working with heavy machinery or making big life decisions), I could see his nimble, twisted mind thinking of how he could perhaps get me to do all of those things. There were a few construction sites in my neighborhood that left bulldozers unattended. I have no idea what happened after they wheeled me away on the gurney. What I do know is that something happened that everyone in reception knew who 'Mr. Craig' was and that he was with me.

The most interesting part of the the test was the wait for the doctor. I was on the gurney all drugged up and ready to go while he was hunched over the PC screen riveted by something. I should have known what the hold up was. I've seen this behavior often in the two years I've been coming to LA County USC for treatment (yep, it has been two years already). He was reading my entire history. Since I've been involved in the Appendix Caner community and hear a lot of stories similar to my own, I forget how rare this illness and the treatment are. The doctor looked stunned when he turned to me. He talked about how much I had been through. That surgery wigs out a lot of surgeons. He said with amazement that I was doing very well. He even revealed that all my tests were clear (I don't actually see my oncologist for another two weeks, so I didn't know until just then). The test itself was anti-climatic. 

On the way home, Craig entertained me with 1950s songs about coal mining (16 Tons) or the way mob nicknames are generated. The latter he'd learned from a textbook on organized crime he got from the Archive. It seems that they don't just come from one's demeanor (bugsy) or weapon of choice (bats) or body part one likes to remove (thumbs). My favorite was a nickname given to an enforcer with a missing finger. The judge put the nickname 3 Fingers Brown on the court papers. He really didn't like the baseball player who had that name. Unfortunately for the mobster, it stuck. Apparently, I was still loopy enough to find all of this highly amusing.

I still have a set of blood tests and a couple of doctor appointments, but the bi-annual evaluation is over. I now have to push for my docs to deal with the side effects from the treatment that are still keeping me from a life filled with more normal activities. There are a whole lot of exciting things coming up in which I would like to fully participate. But overall, that day and the news was very, very good.

In Other News

This week had a whole lot going on. There was a lot of running around assembling legal documents and writing bios and reviewing all manner of reports and proposals. My Manga team finished the first draft of the title we've been working on since December. I'll be blogging about that this week. Jon and I are collaborating on a pitch with another writer. That means Jon and I are doing our usual dance of balancing the scifi minutia with the character development and the core romance. It was really interesting doing that dance with a third writer involved. It's going very well though it involves a whole lot of emailing.

I know that none of the above was specific, but that can't be helped. We're still prohibited from publicly detailing most of the projects going on right now. I have a tentative start date on one of them. If that holds, I will be free to talk about at least one of them very soon.

I'll have some cooking videos and other stuff up by next week.

Stay tuned.


No comments: