Week 16 - Public Service Announcement

 

Update – pretty slow last week. I spent most of my time on paid stuff. The big news is, a publisher I was considering for the detective book had an open call, so I put together a submission package (synopsis and first three chapters) and sent it out. I think they got it. The autoresponse email said, “Thank you for your interest” and discussed dates and general facts, but said nothing to confirm they’d received the thing. I sent a second copy just to make sure. I may be in, I may not. I won’t know until next year; that’s how long they said it’ll take to go through all the subs and make a decision. Which is fine with me, since all I have at the moment is a handwritten first draft and about a third of a typed second draft. But now I’m on a deadline. Whether I get chosen or not, whether I even made it in or not, makes no difference. By the end of the year I’d better have a finished product. Then I can decide if I want to wait for word or start querying agents and publishers. Or self-pub if I don’t hear back from anyone by the end of April 2025. I pretty much win no matter what.

My viewership still consists mostly of Hong Kong-based  bots, though the Chinese contingent is growing rapidly. So have the views from the US; who knows, some of those may even be actual people. And my viewer from Switzerland is back. Hey, buddy! (waves) I’ve had a couple hits from Germany as well, and a big block of “Other,” which I suspect includes Russia. Well, we are coming up on a Presidential election. I did my bit at the primaries by writing in “Bozo the Clown” as my choice for Prez. No matter who wins in November, I’ll have been right.

And now, on a more serious note…

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This one’s mainly for the ladies, though you guys may want to stick around. If you have a significant other, it could concern you too. Two weeks ago I had my first follow-up to my hysterectomy. I have to do two of these a year for at least the next three years, to make sure they got all the cancer. So far, so good. The doctor told me I don’t need Pap tests any more since my uterus was removed. I haven’t bothered with Pap tests in years, so no loss there.

However, there was the matter of the cyst on my left ovary—the size of a grapefruit, so I was told—which, fortunately for me, turned out to be non-cancerous. Would that have turned up on a Pap smear? The doctor said no; Pap tests are only for uterine cancer. There are no preventive tests for fallopian/ovarian cancer.

I had to let that one sink in. Some form of pelvic cancer, possibly ovarian, killed my aunt almost 30 years ago. That’s all I could think of when I was diagnosed with the Big C. Pap tests only catch incipient cancer in the uterus. I’d been walking around with an ovarian cyst for who knows how long. I could have been getting Pap tests for years and it wouldn’t have saved my life had that cyst been malignant. Those tests don’t cover the ovaries. You need an ultrasound for that, which I was only given in the pre-tests before they did the D&C to check my bleeding womb. That’s when they spotted the cyst.

You’d think a growth of grapefruit proportions would have made itself known, wouldn’t you? That’s what I thought. But here’s the thing about the female body: that part of it is designed to expand because that’s where the babies grow. You get cancerous growths in the Easy Bake Oven and the Oven stretches to accommodate them. If you’re pre-menopausal, people will assume you’re pregnant. Or, because you’re a woman of any age, they’ll decide you’re just getting fat. Because there was no pain or bulging or discomfort of any kind, and me being sedentary to start with, that’s what I assumed. The pain, etc. hits when the cancer starts spreading beyond the reproductive parts, and by then it may be too late.

I was damn lucky. My cancer was a slow-growing sort, and my uterus warned me early on by trying to expel it, which is where the blood was coming from. The cyst only got found because they needed to examine the whole Easy Bake Oven to see what else was there. My aunt was clearly not that fortunate.

Ladies, I present this tale to you as a warning. If you’re getting regular Pap tests, see if your doctor will also perform an ultrasound, maybe every couple of years or so. Especially as you start aging and gaining weight becomes a fact of life. Yeah, it’ll cost extra and insurance may not cover it without good reason, but better safe than sorry. Or having to go through a hysterectomy and follow-up radiation/chemo. Or dead.

Sorry to be such a downer, but if this post helps even one woman, in Hong Kong or elsewhere, I’ll have done my good deed for the day. Who knows, I may have just helped save the life of my reader in Switzerland. That makes it all worthwhile. See you next week.

Grab Bag

So much for the weekly blogs. The writing, on the other hand, has actually begun to pick up. Too bad there’s about to be a break again. This post will be a selection of what’s been happening, what’s about to happen, and what I hope happens afterward. Hang on, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

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First up, my medical issues. Any of you of the male persuasion reading this, proceed with caution; I’ll be discussing the downsides of owning a female reproductive system. Ladies, stick around. This could be of help to you at some point in the future.

On September 22 I had a number of tests, including a D&C, to determine why I’d been bleeding from my uterus off and on since March. My reproductive organs had retired well before I did, way back in July of 2004, the date of my last period. Any time you have blood leaking out of your vajayjay after going through menopause, get it checked out. Especially if said menopause happened almost twenty years ago. I wasn’t told this directly by the doctors, but I think mine was due to polyps in my womb. That’s usually what causes vaginal bleeding after the bulb burns out in your Easy Bake Oven. One of the things they planned to do down there while gathering test samples was remove any polyps they found. They must have found some and removed them, because after four-five days of pseudo-menstrual bleeding following the surgery (this is normal and no cause for alarm), everything dried up and I’ve been fine since. Not even spotting on the undies, which was a major pain.

All of which became irrelevant, because the doctors told me they found cancerous/pre-cancerous cells in the tissue samples they removed. There’s also a growth on one of my ovaries that showed up during an  ultrasound. That could be benign, or not. Doesn’t matter. Given my age and the fact the Easy Bake Oven ain’t ever going back to work anyway, there’s no point in further tests or chemo treatments. Easiest, cheapest and safest solution is a total hysterectomy—uterus, ovaries, whatever other cancer cells they may find down there. My regular doctor mentioned this when I got my initial tests and said it usually takes care of the problem. My doom-and-gloom neighbor said there might be additional chemo (she had her hysterectomy back in her 30s). I’m hoping that won’t be necessary.

So, come Tuesday, I’ll be getting spayed. I never bothered having kids so I’m not stretched out enough, so they’ll be removing the equipment through my stomach instead of through the vaginal area. This means a couple of days in the hospital. Luckily my most recent paid assignment is due the day before, so no work conflicts. I’ll have to take a notebook and some pens in with me so I can write longhand during my stay. I did that during my hernia surgery back in 2004 and it worked out fine. Be interesting to see what I produce while under the influence of pain meds. As long as I don’t have a talkative roommate, this may work out pretty well.

Once my non-functioning reproductive system is removed, I’ll no longer be biologically female. Some states may not allow me to use the ladies’ room any more. On the other hand, with that and the adoption of the proper pronouns, I may now qualify to be a writer at Marvel Comics. There’s a silver lining to everything.

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About the paid work mentioned above: that’s been another stressor these last two weeks. In addition to doctor visits, I got two assignments in the same week, the second due the day before surgery. The first is done and out; the second will be taking up my weekend. Bet I don’t get a thing for the rest of the month. This is good; it gives me time to work on my own stuff. This is bad; the paid work’s been helping me cover expenses, and would really help out with the medical bills that’ll be headed my way shortly. Hope I get something in November. I really should have been writing instead of playing computer games over the past two years. Yeah well. That’s on me. This entire summer has been a wake-up call. Hopefully after this I won’t be interrupted by yet another medical issue.

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Finally, some good news. Not only did the sampling surgery catch a life-threatening problem before it could escalate, it jolted me out of a dangerous rut and got me writing again. And the writing’s taken off. I’m still on the Twilight Zone detective novel, but with all the changes I’ve been making to that slapdash pantser mess that was the longhand first draft, it’s like an entirely new story, and a far better one. I know the characters better now, what they’ll say and how they’ll react. It’s all coming to life. This always happens when I write a book, especially at my slow pace. By the time I get to the end, the beginning has aged long enough for me to see the flaws and come up with solutions. New ideas have had a chance to develop and can be folded into the plot to the betterment of everything. This sucker’s gonna be good.

One of those ideas surprised even me. My subconscious and I aren’t always on the best of terms, but this time it gave me a bonus. Towards the end of the first draft, written last year, I decided to include reference to the detective’s girlfriend, who he’d loved and lost two years before the story opens. It only occurred to me recently (I’m talking within the last month) that her name is an almost-perfect anagram of the name of another character who’s vital to the resolution of the current story. I can’t go into detail without divulging the plot and wrecking the ending, but it’s totally logical in context and makes perfect sense to the story. It had to be that way. I didn’t even see it and I’m the damn writer. Some readers are liable to pick up on it and figure out the twist, but I’m confident a lot of them won’t. Hell, I figured out the twist of The Sixth Sense from reading a non-spoilery review. Didn’t stop me from enjoying the movie. Wish I dared congratulate myself for being so clever, but then my subconscious would start grumbling and plotting what kind of a writer’s block to throw at me next. We really need to learn how to work together. And on that note, back to the grind. Enjoy your day.