11/28/04 Forgive the spelling mistakes in this post, I’m currently in bed with my leg up and using my archaic laptop, with a spellcheck that doesn’t even recognize the word website. I had arthroscopic surgery on Wednesday, November 24th. The hard part for me was not being able to eat anything after midnight the day before, and only drinking water up until 10 AM the morning of, but I went to bed early and slept late so it wouldn’t be so difficult. I admit I was a bit nervous before going in for anesthesia but aside from the surgery room being as cold as an icebox, it wasn’t bad. He gave me the anesthesia in my IV and all I remember is being positioned on the surgery table before going to sleep. The funny thing is that the young girl who had surgery before me was Jim Plunkett‘s daughter. I had no idea until my husband told me that Jim used to be quarterback for the Raiders. That’s pretty cool, although not unexpected since Dr. King is currently surgeon for the Raiders. Jim’s daughter is ...

11/23/04 I got another rejection today. As with the other editors, they liked the concept of an Asian Chicklit but thought there were flaws in the writing. This one cited clichés, stereotypes, preachy Christian content, etc. So of course I sent off a whiney email to Sharon , spewing blood from my opened vein all over the computer screen. What am I doing wrong? Why can't I see what they see? What do I do now? I haven't heard back from her yet, but it finally occurred to me to take it to God (duh!) and so He got the full onslaught of doubts and hurt. And then I remembered what I had believed when I first started writing: any success has to come from Him alone. Doors open because of God's will, not solely by my abilities. If He wants me to be published, I will be. If He doesn't, then no amount of critiquing and writing classes will get me there. The memory of those idealistic days is hazy. I'd lost the fundamental core of why I picked up writ...

11/19/04 TANGLED TRUTHS by Gloria Clover I got this book as a gift when I met Gloria at the ACRW Conference in Denver this year. She's wonderfully down to earth and friendly, and I believe she might be negotiating another book with Barbour. http://www.gloriaclover.com/ From the back cover: NEIL HARRINGTON Tough, angry Marine Captain Neil Harrington finds himself grasping for the things he had believed he no longer wanted in life -- the responsibility of his late sister's twins, the love of a soft-hearted woman, and the forgiveness of a God he has vowed never to speak to again. ADRIAN D'AVIGNON Level-headed, even-tempered college professor Adrian D'Avignon has always feared the day her adopted children's biological uncle would return. She knew he would disrupt the even tenor of their lives; she never suspected he would wreak havoc on her heart, her security, and her solid walk with the Lord. Held together by the twins and a desper...

11/15/04 I went to Dr. Warren King today, an orthopedic surgeon, and brought him the MRI scans I took on Friday. His assistant Laurel (a very nice lady) did a few tests and said my MCL is torn, plus there is a little fluid in the knee cavity, but she didn't think my ACL was damaged. Then Dr. King came in, looked at the MRI, did a few stress and torque tests, and said my ACL is torn. Laurel verified this by using this weird beeping contraption that measured the amount of movement when my tibia is gently pulled away from my femur. The machine said I have 9mm of displacement on my right knee but only 2mm on my left. Yup, my ACL is torn completely. This came as such a shock to me. Everyone had said it didn't seem like my ACL was torn, because I didn't have the infamous "hanging leg" after the injury, and while my stability wasn't great, it also wasn't catastrophic. Dr. King pointed out that in the MRI my ACL is sagging a bit, which is abnormal and...

11/10/04 I went to Dr. Dianne Storey on Thursday. She's awesome! She's very matter-of-fact, blunt and efficient. "What hurts? When did it happen? How does this feel? Okay, your ligament and meniscus are torn because this motion stretches those, and that hurt you." She said to stay off the knee, keep icing it and taking the Motrin and Vicodin. She referred me to the Sports Medicine group so I could see Dr. Warren King, who did my husband's knee. She also referred me for an MRI herself, rather than having me see Dr. King's assistant, who would then refer me for the MRI. So I called and scheduled the MRI on Friday night, and the appointment with Dr. King on Monday morning. Dr. Storey also was nice enough to fill out the EDD form for disability insurance, up until the date I go to see Dr. King (he'll have to fill out an EDD form when I see him), and she faxed a doctor's note to work to document that I am injured and can't go in. I spent the day with a ...

11/6/04 I'm so pathetic. So inefficient. I had all this time this week to write, and what did I do? I worked on my website, on my Yahoogroup, bought Christmas presents, browsed online for books I convinced myself not to buy, posted in writer's forums that I'm not particularly active in... Lord, thank You for this free time. Please help me to make the most of it and to write for Your glory. On the knee front, it's quite a story. I'll just copy what I told Sharon in an email. I went to Urgent Care Thursday night, and the doctor took an X-ray and twisted my knee to make sure I was really injured (Just kidding, he was actually rather gentle). He prescribed Motrin and Vicaden (powerful stuff, huh?) and said to stay off it for a week, at the most I could only do minimal standing and walking. He also said to make an appt with my primary care physician, who would schedule an MRI (I had already called on Tuesday and she didn't have an appt available until next week Thurs...

11/3/04 Okay, I'm procrastinating. The knee is still pretty much the same. I have very limited movement back and forth and still no lateral motion (well, not without excruciating pain, anyway). I couldn't get a doctor's appointment until next week Thursday, but I got a chiropractor's appointment tomorrow and then I'll go to Urgent Care to get someone to order an MRI, hopefully. On the writing front, I'm doing well, I think. I'm using Randy Ingermanson's Snowflake (http://www.rsingermanson.com/html/the_snowflake.html) for the first book in my romantic suspense series, and I'm on step 3, preliminary characterization. It's taking me a while because I need to fully personalize ( Brandilyn Collins' "Getting Into Character," chapters 1 & 2 ) even the minor characters, since they'll have larger roles in the other books. It's tedious but necessary, since their inner values will influence what they do and how the plot shapes. So...

11/2/04 Well, Monday was easier than I thought it would be. Only a few side remarks from my supervisor questioning my work abilities. She surprised me--normally, I would have counted both the set of flasks and the plates, but she processed the plates so I only needed to do the FACS count on the samples. That took an hour, maybe an hour and a half away from my normal hood time. She even seemed genial at the end of the day. I think it was God working in the situation to help me. Thank You, my loving Lord and saving God. But Monday night at volleyball league, I went for a ball--no unusual motion, the same thing I've done before countless times--and felt something pop in my right knee. The inside of the knee has shooting pain whenever I torque it, although bending it back and forth is not painful. Luckily, my chiropractor Carol plays volleyball with me, so she took a look at it very soon after the injury. She did gentle stress tests and thinks the ACL is intact, but I'm not sure wh...