I went camping.  At an RV park on the north side of town.  My brother-in-law loaned us a camper, which was a good thing as there was a trench down the middle of the hall.   Continue reading →

Here’s a quick update on what’s been going on in my neck of the woods.

My wife had her first week of radiation this week.  It went well.  Hopefully, the next five weeks will go as smoothly.

The second week of March is going to be something of a challenge.  The sewer line under the house is cast iron and has corroded away in places.  We’re getting a new line installed, which means breaking through the slab.  The fun never stops at Casa Keith.  My brother-in-law is loaning us his camper, so we’ll be living in it that week.  Fortunately we’re on Spring Break that week, so school won’t be an issue.  My wife’s radiation treatments are in the middle of the day, so they will continue without interruption.

Things are settling into a routine.  I’m hoping to get back to writing fiction on a semi-regular basis this week.  I got two rejections, one yesterday and the other this morning.  Yesterday was from a small press publication.  The editor liked the story but liked others better and encouraged me to submit the next time they are open for submissions.  This morning was from a major publication in a different genre than I usually write.  The rejection letter was from the editor, not a form rejection.  She liked the story but didn’t think it would be a good fit for that particular magazine.  However, she did ask me to submit again.  I must be doing something right.

Blogging has slowed down, and that probably won’t change a lot for the next month or so.  I want to spend what little free time I can wrench from my schedule to devote to reading and fiction writing.  I’ll post a review from time to time, but it will be of something I’ve been reading for pleasure, not anything by request.  The only exceptions will be stuff I had previously committed to review that I haven’t yet.

This is an update, and it’s going to be a rather negative one.  Feel free to skip if you like.  This post is personal and has nothing to do with books or fiction writing.  Academic writing will come into play.

My wife had her lumpectomy on the 2nd.  Everything went fine, and she came home that day.  We will get the results of the pathology report on Wednesday, the day after tomorrow.  My in-laws came up from where they live, a city three hours drive away.  My father-in-law stayed through Saturday, the fifth.  It was the last time I ever saw him.  My mother-in-law stayed through the next week.

I went to Costa Rica on Sunday the sixth.  This was a business trip that had been in the works since before my wife was diagnosed with cancer.  The university at which I’m employed opened a branch campus there last fall.  Physics was being taught for the first time this spring, and I was helping set up a lab.

While I was gone:  Monday night the sewer line under the house backed up; my wife had to call the plumber on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, my mother-in-law was running errands in my wife’s car (formerly known as the Out of Town Car) when a guy ran a red light and hit her.  No one was hurt, but the car isn’t going to be going out of town until the insurance is settled and repairs are done.  My car wouldn’t start later that day for some reason, but it works fine now.  Fortunately my son has a car.

Thursday night I opened my work email to followup on a prior conversation with my department head. I found an email from a sales rep at a textbook publisher.  I am coauthor on our lab manuals.  The sales rep claimed she had met me and my coauthor before.  Maybe, maybe not; I don’t remember her.  The email was addressed to both of us, and the sales rep told us that they had taken our lab manual, scanned it, added some figures, and printed it.  They had also created an ebook version.  They had had a meeting with some of the faculty earlier in the day and discussed bundling their version of our manual with their text book. She was sending us a copy for our convenience.

Uh, no.  This was all news to me and my coauthor.  This was done without our knowledge or consent.  And we won’t give it.  I said as much in a sharply worded email (after I cooled off enough to maintain a level of semi-professionalism) to the sales rep.  She had CC’d three other people at her publishing house.  I made sure they were included in my response.  I haven’t heard a response from them yet.  If anyone knows a good intellectual property attorney in west Texas, please let me know.  I hope it won’t come to that, but I want to be prepared.

I thought my life couldn’t get any worse until Friday evening when I was packing to fly home at dark-thirty the next day and got a text from my wife telling me my father-in-law had passed away.  This was unexpected, as he was supposed to have come back and picked up my mother-in-law over the weekend.

Obviously, this has been hard on everyone.  Because of some issues with family members being able to get here for the funeral, it won’t be held until the weekend.

I don’t know when I’ll get back to posting on a regular basis.  It probably won’t be for at least a week or two, although there may be the occasional Save My Sanity post.  I will be back, but don’t be surprised if there is some radio silence for a bit.

As you might guess, I am not having Happy New Year.

My wife had her lumpectomy this morning.  We had to be at the hospital by 6:00, and I think we were ten or fifteen minutes early.  She was given a room in pre-op.  After some waiting, they sent her to radiology to have some type of dye injected into the lymph nodes.  I asked if she was going to glow in the dark.  That would be an interesting side job, being a living night light to a child in a wealthy family, don’t you think?

Shortly after she got back, the anesthesiologist came in, went over some things, and they wheeled her out.  I went down to the waiting room and hung out with my in-laws.  There was one scary moment, and it was only a moment, when I got a call from the operating room.  They were simply calling to let me know things were going well.  Once I realized there wasn’t a problem, I appreciated the update.

The surgeon removed the tumor and the three lymph nodes closest to it.  The whole thing took a little over an hour an a half.  We were home by 2:00.  My wife is doing well, and so far hasn’t experienced much pain.  They told her that will change tomorrow.

My wife and I would like to thank everyone for their concern, well-wishes, thoughts, and prayers.

Happy New Year, everyone!

People tell me I should be making resolutions.

Why?  Aren’t most resolutions broken within days/hours/minutes?  Why would I want to set myself up for failure?

Still, in the interest of going along with the herd, here are a few of my resolutions.

1.  I resolve to write more this year.  I resolve to finish what I write, including projects that have been back-burnered and new projects.
2. I resolve to put something up for sale before the year is over.  In other words, I resolve to start self-publishing.
3. I resolve to read more.  I resolve to read what I want when I want.
4. I resolve to not read only works by women/gays/left-handed redheaded stepchildren/[insert group du jour here].  I resolve to not read books based solely on the author’s gender/skin color/plumbing/ethnicity/mental illness/sociopolitical agenda, no matter how critically acclaimed the book/story/screed/ransom note is.  OTOH, I may not read anything by any of these if some nag starts lecturing me on why I should based solely on the reasons listed above.
5. I resolve to read what I want when I want and resolve to choose my reading material based solely on story.

I think that about covers it.  Oh, wait, I left one thing out.

I resolve to try to be less cranky.

In past years I’ve ended the year with a recap of what I thought were the best books of the year and possibly a summary of any key events.

This past year family and work responsibilities prevented me from reading as much as I usually do.  On top of that, much of what I did read was older stuff.  There wasn’t a lot of new work that appealed to me.  A good portion of what did is still in my TBR pile.

So this year, I’m going to reverse things.  I’ll let you tell me what I should have read.  Please list any works, short or long, in the comments that you think stood out or were required reading.

Yesterday we saw the surgeon who’ll be doing the lumpectomy, and today we did lab work and paperwork at the hospital.  The surgery is scheduled for January 2.  It hit Kathy that today was the last thing to do before the surgery.  The next thing will involve general anesthesia and cutting.  That made her a little nervous, but for now she’s not freaking out.  She really doesn’t like anesthesia.

As far as what comes after that, we’ll have to wait on the pathologist’s report.  In addition to the tumor, the surgeon will be removing the three lymph nodes closest to the tumor just to make sure the cancer hasn’t spread.  The whole procedure will take about an hour and a half.  Of course we’ll be at the hospital for a lot longer than that.  We have to get there at six, and after checking in, the first thing on the agenda is X-rays.  If I understood the surgeon, then they’ll work us into the surgery schedule.  This is an outpatient procedure, so we should be home by the end of the day.

As usual, prayers are appreciated.

I made reference to a medical situation the other day.  Things have developed to the point I can say something with certainty.

My wife went in for her annual mammogram a couple of weeks ago.  They can do these things in 3-D now. They can tilt, rotate, and spin the image with just a click of the mouse.  Ain’t video game technology grand?

There was a small spot that wasn’t there last year.  They did an MRI and a biopsy.  My post was from the day before the biopsy when we met with the doctor.  The results of the biopsy came back yesterday afternoon.  It’s cancer.

We’ll meet with the doctor on Monday and have an appointment on the 18th with the surgeon who’ll perform the lumpectomy.  At this point, no one is freaking out.  They caught it early, and I expect they’ll be able to get everything.  We’ll know for sure on Monday, but the nurse told my wife she should expect to beat this and that she wasn’t going to die.

So that’s what’s going on.  I’m not sure who this is going to affect things.  I’ll probably miss some work here and there.  I’m still waiting on the university to tell me when (or if) they’re going to send me to inspect the labs at the new Costa Rica campus.  Depending on the timeline we get on Monday, I may cancel that whether the university likes it or not.   Blogging, reading, and writing?  That remains to be seen.  I may blog everyday or multiple times a day just to have an outlet for stress.  I may drop off the radar for an extended period of time.

Right now, we’re doing fine, although a little tense.  I’ll post updates as we learn more things or if there’s a big shift is the situation.