Holiday Madness

You may remember a post I did last March titled A Case of the Megrims, where I wished I was doing research for either a story or my Regency Resource pages, but instead I detailed the problems our son was having with a sinus infection.

Unfortunately, that was just the beginning. The CT scan the day after that post showed positive for a sphenoid sinus infection. An MRI in May still showed signs. After a prednisone taper, he had a moon-face and far too much extra weight compared to pictures taken a year previously. A trip to the allergist revealed mold and dust mite allergies resulting in two daily prescriptions. But finally, he was feeling better. We had a good 4-5 weeks in May and the first bit of June. Then he caught a type-A flu just in time to miss his 5th grade promotion ceremony and promptly shared it with me. This was likely swine flu, but we both recovered.

The boy spent the summer and beginning of the school year in and out of headaches, usually triggered by the heat. We won’t talk about the utter failure of Boy Scout camp where the heat reached 112˚F and we ended up with a single merit badge in art for $300. So, except for the heat, we thought we’d start 6th grade with this behind us except for a few bad days scattered early on in the year.

Then came the end of October with the Santa Ana winds. No local wildfires this year, just lots of dust and dry heat. The first week of November, I could sense something was different. The raccoon eyes were back and his personality was fading fast. I took him to the pediatrician and told him it was just like before. Double dose/double round of antibiotics later, and no improvements just a climbing absence toll.

Finally, at the end of November we were scheduled for another CT Scan. Yup, same thing. So we next scheduled an ENT visit. She didn’t think the infection would cause headaches, but based on the 3 scans, she recommended surgery, which we assumed was next and we really didn’t want another round of prednisone. So, he’s been out of school about 6 weeks. Guess how long it is until his surgery is scheduled. Another 6 weeks.

We have a meeting next week with the school nurse, counselor and maybe some teachers to see what we can do to catch up on this quarter that he’s missed. The problem I see, is even with what little he’s managed to finish, I’m not sure he’s going to retain any of it. Especially since, we have no interim relief.

We also have an appointment with a neurologist since he seems to get classic migraines with this non-classic location. However, the pain-relief meds he gave him, aren’t doing jack-squat for him. Progress feels very slow and it’s very stressful to watch the life sucked out of my kid like this.

So… what’s all this mean for me as a writer? I may get some sort of story fodder from it, but mostly I have a lot of distraction on my hands. This at the same time I really, really want to finish this manuscript. Oh.. and toss in the usual holiday madness of decorating, baking, shopping, and parties. Yeah… progress on the manuscript is slow.

I started tracking my wordcount back mid-October. I’ve managed to add an additional 25k to the novel, not a great daily or weekly average, but it is forward progress. Will I make 90k by New Year’s Eve? Doubtful. Will I finish the story as I have it laid out? Possibly. Right now, I’d need 1800 words a day to make 90k by then. However, my story looks like it’ll run about 350 pages, and I’ve been averaging 225 words/page. So that sounds like 78,500 words total. Not bad for a first draft with lots of dialogue runs and lots of places that need some more emotional punch.

Kinda like why I always wondered why Chris Baty picked November for NaNoWriMo, I’m kind of wondering why I stacked the deck against myself here. But you know what? I don’t think it matters when you choose to work, there’s always going to be some external force that will be much easier to blame for your procrastination. Just write it.

Happy Holidays to everyone!