Getting back to normal — and writing, of course

The past few weeks have been somewhat surreal for me. As I've mentioned before, my father has been suffering with interstitial lung disease and heart disease for a few years. He went into hospice care before Christmas, and last week, his suffering finally ended when he joined my mom in heaven. As anyone who has helped their aging parents through an illness understands, I have been dealing with a mixture of sadness, grief, and relief ever since. I suppose, in a way, I've already been grieving for him for the past year, starting the first of the many times the doctors told us there was no way he would survive the week, but he did and then improved. That was my dad — tough as nails, and a real fighter. He wasn't big on giving up easily, and I think he liked proving people wrong, too. I learned a lot from my father, and I'll miss him terribly. But I am comforted knowing he and my mom are catching up on all of our shenanigans now. God bless their souls.

Let me get real and overshare for a minute because I'm a writer and that's what I do. Because my luck has a weird and somewhat sadistic sense of humor, the day before my father passed away, I saw a doctor for a very painful knot on the back of my leg. The morning my father died, I was being scheduled for "urgent" surgery to remove said place on the back of my leg. I put it off because of the funeral, and a couple of days later, I was face down on the operating table having my leg operated on. Right now, I have an open hole the size of a baseball where they cleaned out a serious infection. Actually I might be exaggerating on the size because I can't see the thing, but I've seen pictures and, whoa mama, it looks huge...and gross, but don't worry. I won't share photos even though I have some. You're welcome. Anyway. I'm supposed to be on bedrest because the culture showed I had a pretty serious MRSA staph infection going on, probably picked up during one of my many visits to the nursing home where my dad spent his final days. Plus, the wound is open and has to be packed every day by my best friend who finds things like open wounds interesting — weirdo — and did I mention my immunity is compromised, probably because I did that thing a lot of adult children do when they're helping care for their sick parents and let myself get run down, but whatever. I've been a mostly good girl and stayed in bed the past few days, resting, even though I might have snuck out once or twice to see a movie because cabin fever is a real thing. I'm not used to having free time on my hands, so I'm going a bit bonkers, if you want to know the truth. Even Dusti, my beloved furball, is freaked out because I'm here all of the time. I'm not kidding. She stares at me like I'm an alien.

The good news is that I've been writing a lot these last few weeks, including when I was keeping vigil at my dad's bedside near the end. I feel very rusty, and unsure of myself, but I'm writing and fully expect to have something finished soon. At least, I hope so. Plus, I'm on some good painkillers right now, so the words are just flying onto the page! 

Without my father to care for, I suspect I will have more time to devote to writing overall, so even when I do return to work full-time in a couple of weeks, I will have plenty of time in the evenings to write. For those of you who have written asking when more books will be out, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for giving me even the tiniest encouragement. I appreciate your patience, and I hope to have book news sooner rather than later. I know I've said that before, but now that things are getting back to normal for me, I think you can trust me this time.

I hope.

Bless you all for hanging in there with me. Seriously.