You don’t really think about your health until it is in danger. Then you wonder if you will ever get better. I am having to force myself to be active right now. So I am up for an hour or so and then crash for an hour. If I want to try and do something in the evening I have to rest most of the afternoon.

Today I am going to use my up time to work on my website. It needs to be updated and I figure at the rate I am working it is going to take me a week or more to accomplish the change.

Thanks to everyone who has kept me in their prayers.

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I met with the Dr. Yesterday. I am slowly — slowly getting better. We just don’t know from what. He wants me to make sure I eat consistently and drink a lot of fluid. I am also to be active for a minimum of 4 hours a day. That can be physical or mental. I am to slowly build that up without overdoing it. Hard balance act.

Even with all of that it is going to be weeks in recovery.

I will try and start out each day with the blog and then spend an hour or so working on one of my books. Then I will rest for a couple of hours and go on to something physical. The goal is to get better as quickly as I can. Still it is going to be a long summer of recovery.

I want to thank everyone for their prayers and warm thoughts. It really helps.

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I have spent the last 6 years writing. I try and write everyday, even if it is only for a half an hour. But with this illness, I haven’t cared if I write or not. I had several weeks where I didn’t even care if I did anything but lay in bed.

Today, I feel like writing. It may only last a few minutes, but it is still an improvement.

We like to try and compartmentalize our lives, but that doesn’t really work in reality. I write! Writing is a part of what I am. It isn’t something I leave at the house in the morning or leave at work at the end of the day. It is just something I am and do.

What is it that you do? What defines you?

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I stated out with a reaction to a medication and everything just cascaded from there. I would feel good for an hour or so and then descend into misery. It was getting to the point that I would so exhausted I had the shakes. The reaction to the medication should have run it’s coarse in a week or so, but instead of feeling better, I got worse.

They have run numerous blood test with no conclusive results. Now waiting for another set of blood cultures. I am so exhausted I am not even able to drive now. There was some indiction that things may be leveling out.

This post has taken over an hour to write. Hopefully I will be able to do one tomorrow as well.

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I had a good sleep last night, didn’t soak the bed with sweat, but woke with a headache. My low back hurts, eyes hurt and run out of energy quickly. I am not interested in writing, watching TV or reading. My attention to things is slower. This is not the way to feel and I don’t wish it on my worst enemy.

I had a dream that got stuck in recycle the other night. Every time I woke and then went back to sleep the same dream played again and again and again.

This too is the life of a writer. It isn’t alway feeling great. I try and glean something out of it that may make my stories feel more realistic.

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I am surprised that 2 pills can take so long to work out of my system. So, eventually I will be back on track.

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In the mean time, I put up with it, drink a lot of water and get rest.

Maybe that is why they call what doctors do a practice. They can try to make the best decisions for you, but in the end it is an expensive educated guess.

I am now feeling well enough to start writing. That was the hardest part; I didn’t even want to write, (eat, move, work). I have been going through a paper version of my book, making more corrections.

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Depression

People think that depression is a choice, not something that can just happen to you. “Buck up,”; “Get over it”; “That’s loser talk.” So if it happens to you, don’t admit it. You are setting yourself up for ridicule and questionable stares. So having said all of that, I have to finally confess that I have been dealing with depression. Over the last month it has redoubled on me. For what ever reason, it really took a dive, dragging me with it. It is one of those things that I grew up with, that you were never supposed to admit. If you do, it is a sign of weakness. Interesting isn’t it. You are down and can’t get up and then you push yourself further down if you admit you are down. Maybe that is why people don’t get help.

If you are a Christian, then there is even more of a stigma. “Just turn it over,” meaning that if you do that and you are still dealing with it, you failed. That helps a lot! Or too many times the idea of dealing with depression is really dealing with “mental illness,” doesn’t that sound great in our day and age. “Be careful of him, he has mental illness.”

Bottom line, I don’t care what other people think about it. I am living with it and I am getting help for it. If that makes me weak, then fine I am weak. If that makes me faithless, well take that up with the source of my faith.

We each have a road to walk. We each have come from someplace that is more complicated than any of our friends or coworkers know. How we process everything is unique to us.

I guess what I am saying is if it is broken get it fixed. If you can’t fix it yourself, get help. Everyone around you will appreciate it.

It doesn’t mean that you don’t make changes in your life to try and root out the source, but sometimes it takes time and you need help along the way to get there. The image that comes into my mind is trying to find a box of screws in the dark basement, but you are too macho to use a flashlight, you have to find it in the dark. Stupid idea isn’t it.

If the help I have gotten works, then the blogs will be back on a regular posting. If it doesn’t work, I will still try and post regularly, but no guarantees.

Have a great day.

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In his works he wrote about the war between England and France in Tale of Two Cities. He also wrote about the tyranny of the rich and the suffering of the poor as well as exposing the Work Houses in Oliver Twist.

The writers of our TV shows have done the same thing. One show I liked as a kid was Star Trek. Now when I look back at it they dealt with racism, political injustice, vanity of women and lust of men. The Simpsons is one of the most politically charged cartoons I have ever seen. Saturday Night Live laughs at current events.

It will be interesting in 10 years to look back at my books and see how much I added that reflect current events that I am not even aware of. I know bullying is a big thing in our news and that is also in my book in several places.

Books tell stories of things that are important to us. They take us to a place where most wrong is righted, the bullies loose, the poor are revenged and the ruthless are removed. These stories touch us in real live situations. My sister-in-law makes a big deal out of not reading fiction. I think she looses a great deal of knowing what is going on around her. Fiction, stories, books, and music all have a place in our lives to enrich us and help us to look at life with new eyes. I think a social anthropologist of the future is going to be buried in literature that show them the heartbeat of our society. We see the stories, they will see the longings, desires and injustice of our time.

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Then I find that there are mistakes in it, but people say the still liked it, but doesn’t go anywhere.

The next book comes out and sells even less. So far I am in the red triple digits between the two.

I have revamped the web site several times and added blogs. Started two more books for the series.

There are people I work with and go to church with,  who don’t even know I have written books.

It would be easy to give up, but I can’t. I have to write. Maybe my head is on wrong, but I have decided rise or fall, I will keep writing. Keep trying to get the attentions of my potential readers.

I have learned that two things happen to people who don’t give up, they either make it or end up in the loony bin. I have coworkers betting on the loony bin, but I have decided to bet on making it.

It is continuing when you want to quit, to give up. I wondered if I had the ability to do that, but when I look at what I have already accomplished in my life, I have to say that I do.

Over the next two weeks I hope to have the books available for the Nook and iBook. And then I will start working on finishing the third.

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