I’m Still Around

It has been a long time my friends. Since my last post a lot happened. From Christmas through New Years there were more hospital visits and possible liver donor possibilities. Then, in mid January, I went into a coma. It was very surreal. I can’t remember much before the coma and the next thing I remember was sounds that seemed like they came from Sesame Street and the voices of nurses or doctors. I would get flashes of visual memories, but it just added to a more dreamlike, surreal feeling I had because I didn’t know what was going on. When I finally came out it took me a while to realize it was all real and not a dream and I was in the hospital.

I spent some time there because of the coma and how bad my body was getting. But finally, at the end of the month, I got my liver transplant. If you want even a minute idea of what it feels like to go through such a thing, read Gord Rollo’s The Jigsaw Man.

I’ve only just gotten home in the last few days. There are a lot of adjustments to be made and progress to get myself even to close to where I was before all of that. So, things can easily get quiet around here the next few months. I have to focus one me right now to make sure I stay healthy. But this isn’t the end of things for me. I have a lot of stories I can’t wait to start writing and I’ll have my articles over at Choate Road every other month (the next one in March). Keep an eye it and I just to thank every one that have left wonderful supportive comment here.

No Clever Title: Why I Was In The Hospital And the Foreseeable Future

It has been a rough few weeks from me. I just came out of the hospital on Thursday, as some of you may know already, and there were some major developments.

I have been dealing with some pressure pain for about a week before. I thought I was just connected to red meat, since I would get on the nights after eating it, and wasn’t all that put off as earlier in the year I had that bout of time were red meat was just unsettling in my stomach. All that changed when I went to my nephew’s birthday.

The night we got there, we went to a nice Mexican restaurant. I got all my food with chicken, trying to keep my nights as pain free as I could. But that didn’t matter, I spent the rest of the night with diarrhea and the pain came back.

Now, just before we left I did notice that my skin was getting a little jaundice again. It’s not thing new, just something that happens from time to time and usually goes away. I had blood tests done not to long ago that I receive copies of that even said my bilirubin level was a little higher. After that first night, though, something drastic happened. It’s hard for me to remember which day it was but before the weekend, I was yellow. I haven’t been that yellow in my life that I can remember and I don’t think even as a baby I was. Not just my skin, but my eyes too took a lemony hue. The pain would now come after eating everything along with feeling nauseated with all food.

Little to say, we contacted my liver specialist and set up and appointment for the day after we got back. We got to the appointment and the liver specialist wanted to run a bunch of different tests and procedures that would take too long to do out patient. So, I was admitted to the hospital by 4 pm.

Over the next few days, after blood tests, ultrasound, chest x-ray, paracentesis, endoscope, flex scope, and triple phase CT scan, it’s determined that what has happened was combination of ascites building up and causing pressure and a further development of my liver cirrhosis. My bilirubin levels are the only thing that seemed to have changed since the earlier blood tests and they didn’t just change, but sky rocketed. From a 4 to a 24, effectively changing my MELD score from 15 to 22 (the past the 20 “really start to think about a new liver soon” point)

In one way, it is good. It caused the hospital to get their act together and finished the process to list me. With my MELD score and blood type I’m at the top of the list so I could literally have a new liver at any point. I’ll be getting as close to the normal life as I have dream of for a long time.

But there is a lot of that it is going to make difficult. I have to stay within an hours distance from the hospital as we can get a call for transplantation at anytime. So, my whole plan for conventions next year has to be put on hold. Even if I do get a chance, I will need to go with someone as I’m now deemed not fit to drive myself. Deadlines are going to be fun too do to the spontaneity of the situation too.

So, fellow readers, I want to say that at least for the rest of the year not much new is going to happen here. I’m still discombobulated from my stay. So I will be resting a lot of the time. I do apologize and hope to make it up to you as soon as I can. The Christmas contest, I will have to post pone though the entries already submitted will instantly be added to the list when I do another contest. I have no idea yet what it will do to my Scattered Tales blog I plan to launch in January. I will try to x-post any decisions on both it and here.

To all my friends and family that have been by my side through this last week and everything so far up to this point, I can’t thank you enough. You all remind me what I fight for and try to accomplish each day of my life. I’m hitting a real low point now, but hopefully it will be one that won’t last too long and I can bounce back and be the happy-go-lucky horror jester you all love.

Again, I apologize to all my readers if this starts affecting my writing, either blog or stories. All I want to do and just write stories and ideas you all would enjoy and it is frustrating when something you can’t control get in the way.

I adore you all,

Grand Master Scare W

W. D. Prescott

It’s Over

After a long talk, Bellupino and I have broken it off. We decided that we couldn’t be burdens to each other if this is going to be the outcome of it all. I can’t be the reason that cause hurt in her life again. I care about her too much. Sometime caring means letting go. which is what I have to do now.

Goodbye my angel.

A New Nightmare Before Christmas (Contest!)

Well it’s that time of year, again, people a shopping like it is the zombapoclypse, and holiday cheer is just a catch phrase to disguise the actions of those possessed by demons of greed. Now, I like the holidays, so I want to bring back a little genuine cheer this year. Two lucky winners will receive the last copies of Tainted : Tales of Terror and the Supernatural, signed and inscribed to them (if they wish).

Here is how to enter:

Take your favorite holiday movie and in a comment to this post, change the title and tag line to make a holiday horror movie.

As always, winners will be drawn randomly. You have till Dec. 19th to enter.

Everything Else Is Gravy

It’s Turkey Day! So, let me start by saying Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

Now, like almost all holidays that aren’t centered around a war, revolution, or good cause, there is always the debate of how to celebrate, should we celebrate, what can we change to make the celebration less offensive.

Reasonable debate? Sure, all debate is reasonable. A debate that is really going to change much? Something in me says not really.

Maybe it just my traditionalist nature in relation to celebrations talking, but I think you can celebrate the meaning behind a holiday without having to always draw back to the origins of it. Sure, the way we are taught about Thanksgiving is a Disney-ized version of the history. In today’s mind set and ethics, it was horrible what happened and the stat of something that is far from a gold mark in our history.

But does that mean that the reason we celebrate is just as tarnished? Seems like a black and white answer in a world seeped in shades of gray.

We live in a pretty selfish time, or at least is seems a lot more selfish than I remember. Thanksgiving is a day where we look back on the year, and, hopefully, for that brief twenty-four hour period, and reign in our selfish tendencies and acknowledge everyone and everything that keeps us going, striving to succeed, and supporting us through good and bad times.

In dishonorable acts, honorable intentions can always overcome.

This year has been a crazy one, and amongst that insanity, I have a tremendous amount to be thankful for:

- My family: They are a mainstay, but as there have been almost extreme highs an lows this year, I can’t help but be incredibly thankful they were there every step of the way.

- Old friends: Old connections reestablished, even if for just moments in the span of a year, but each one precious as they remind me of when I come from and how far I come since the first time we met. They are memories or past and portents of the future; islands of understanding that I always have frequent flyer miles to travel and find some piece of mind when needed.

- New friends: I have been lucky to meet a plethora of new people, who bring new ideas, new visions, and new experience into my life. From writers to ninja moms, they all have a spot in my life these days and I’m a so grateful for their friendship.

- Bellupino: She started as a friend for a good while, but it feels like we have been together for longer. Each day is filled with emotions I didn’t know one could feel and conversations that never want to end. There are even those moments of silence where we both know there aren’t words to express what we want to say. For her to be in my life I will be thankful, not just today, but everyday of my life.

So, as you are sitting, enjoying the cornucopia of a dinner and fighting of the trypophan, look around and see the people that are there with you and have been. Give them a spontaneous hug or a playful elbow to the side and a smile and let them know you are thankful that they are there.