I finally finished the last of my edits to my first novel
Lilah in Love. There were a lot of setbacks along the way, especially these
last three months.
In October I was hit with a stomach ailment that burned my
stomach every time I stood or sat up. The doctor prescribed medicine for
gastritis which didn’t work, so I had to go back, still in terrible pain, to
get a different prescription.
On the way to the doctor, the Space Shuttle Endeavor flew
by! I was on hold with the doctor’s office and groaning in pain when, holy
bleep! It’s the Endeavor! I frantically hung up with the doctor’s office and
switched to the camera in my phone. We got a clear, close view of it. Twice.
Once on the freeway next to Griffith Park Observatory and the second when it
flew by the Hollywood sign. We were on the roof of the parking structure at the
doctor’s office the second time. It was directly overhead. Wow. It’s fortunate
that our doctor is in Tinsel Town. It made me forget about my pain momentarily.
The second set of medication didn’t work either, so I went
to see a gastroenterologist. He thought I had an ulcer, so my husband looked up
cures for ulcers and found out about cabbage juice. The Juiceman swore by it
and claimed that it cured inmates in Alcatraz back in the day. The cabbage cured
all of them, even the ones that had bleeding ulcers, so I was all for it.
I was supposed to drink 4 glasses of cabbage/carrot/celery
juice per day, but I only made it to 2 glasses per day at most. The stuff doesn’t
taste good. It smells and tastes like the front lawn, but damn if it didn’t
work!
I was previously scheduled for an endoscopy. That’s when
they put a camera down your throat to see what’s going on inside the stomach.
Fun times. At first they mistakenly scheduled me for a colonoscopy. Whoa! I
would not have woken up a happy camper after that!
A couple of days before my endoscopy, the pain went away.
Still, I wanted to know what the problem was, so I went through with the
procedure. The test showed no sign of an ulcer, so they went back to thinking
it was gastritis. Several hundred dollars later they said it was probably a
food allergy.
So now, out of the blue, I have a gluten allergy. What a
change in lifestyle! No turkey or pumpkin pie for me at Thanksgiving. No cake
or cookies at birthdays. Not even Saltine crackers or sandwiches for lunch. No
healthy oatmeal for breakfast, either. When I go to parties or out to eat with
friends I’m sure they think I’m no fun anymore. I’m lactose intolerant so that
limits me, too. Not that I ate a lot of these terrible carbs, but when you can’t
even have them on a cheat day you feel the loss.
People feel bad when they serve pizza at birthday parties
and I say I can’t eat it. I’ll just have the raw broccoli and carrots, thanks.
Oh, and I thought I could at least have chicken teriyaki since all the other
types of food are forbidden now, but I just recently found out that soy sauce
has gluten in it! I paid dearly for that with 3 days of excruciating stomach
pain.
So, October was spent in pain, our friends had bad ghosts
(not good ones) in their house that we had to help them get rid of, and one of
the guys we know turns out to be a child abuser! He beat his child that is the
same age as one of mine. Our kids know each other. We find out the child abuser
is also a wife beater. Someone we know called the cops and the guy got
arrested, but was out on bail the next day. Bail paid by the wife he beats!
Now, I don’t want to judge people, but damn that’s disappointing. From
everything I heard about this guy, I was afraid he was crazy enough to go
Columbine on all of us and the people we know. His 90-day probation is up this
month so maybe they’ll put him in jail. Otherwise, what can we do to prevent
him from taking his predicament out on all of us, the people who frequent the establishment
that triggered his arrest? Nothing. He lost his kids and his house over this,
plus he has cancer. That’s a desperate man with nothing to lose.
December greeted me with more drama. My young son horses
around with his brother, falls off the bed, and splits the back of his head
open. Traumatic event there. Blood pouring out of his head, ER, and one staple to
keep the gash from opening. It’s a good thing that I knew that head cuts bleed
a lot or else I would’ve been freaking out worse than I already was. I learned
that from watching MMA fights. They’re quite educational.
After that incident, I saw a stray dog outside my window as
I was editing my book. After it walks by 3 times I decided that God wanted me
to help the dog out, so I gave it some water. Good karma and all that. On the
third day, we decided to give the dog shelter in our back yard. I’m allergic to
dogs so we couldn’t keep the dog, plus we can’t afford a dog. It turns out that
this dog has poodle in her so I’m not allergic to her. What are the odds of
that? But still, I didn’t want a dog. There was a potential dog owner who was
interested in taking the dog. By that time, my husband and kids wanted to keep her.
I just knew their will would win out. The lady came by and thought the dog had
tumors so she didn’t take the dog. So now we have a dog and I’m still trying to
adjust to the change in lifestyle. We couldn’t have asked for a better dog,
though, so there are pros and cons to this.
And as a special treat to end the year of 2012, I blow my
knee out during a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class wrestling a lady a foot taller than
I am and of course, heavier. I thought I was doing pretty good until, ow, my
knee hurts. Big Mike at the gym introduced me to KT Tape and it works wonders.
What a great invention! I’m glad I found out about it, but it still sucks to
have a knee injury. The tape isn’t cheap either.
When is my luck going to change for the better?
Maybe it’ll balance out and I’ll win the lottery or one of
my books will become a best seller.