Wake Me Up When September Ends

I can't believe it's September already! Where did the time go?? These last few months have been crazy, to say the least! One minute it's June and we getting ready to go on vacation with the kids, and celebrate my birthday the next, school has started and I'm chauffeuring Manda back and forth to school. Sometimes it feels like I've just awoken from a very long sleep...yet I'm still a bit tired.

Have a seat, and I'll tell you all about it.

It all started when we got home from vacation at the end of June. We'd gone to Utah, up in the mountains, and I figured my exhaustion was due to that....have you ever been up in the mountains at 9000 feet? It takes your breath away....literally! So, anyway, after we got home I was feeling drained, but didn't pay much attention to it. July 4th was coming up, but we didn't really have anything planned so I was pretty much vegging at home and getting in some reading. Also, I had just finished my novel, House of Cards (which I'll tell you about later) and I was letting it 'gel'. Anyway...on the night of the 4th, I got a message on Facebook from an old friend who told me that she just saw on the local news (of my hometown) that my best friend's 27 year old son died in a drowning accident. I was devastated! I called her on her cell and spoke to her for a bit, then called my aunt and spoke with her. I wanted her to be there for Dani since I was 20 hours away. After I got off the phone I told my husband what happened and he told me to book a flight so I can be there in person. (Have I mentioned what an amazing man I married??) So I got to Port Arthur that Saturday...actually flew into Houston and drove to P.A. I was still feeling pretty crappy, but played it off as jet lag...it was a four hour flight because of layovers. I stayed in town for five days, staying at my cousin Michelle's house and spending as much time with Dani as I could. When I got home that Thursday I was still very exhausted and again, played it off as jet lag and lack of sleep the whole week I was gone. I thought I was coming down with something because I couldn't eat, or sleep and was just....blah! I tried to rest, lived on watermelon and cantaloupe because the were the only things that didn't taste like paste and tried to get my act together because I was leaving for California on the 23rd---ten days from when I got home---to attend the RWA conference. I was also in charge of setting up the literacy signing and still had a lot to do. So, the Saturday before I was to leave, I was feeling really awful and weak, so I asked my daughter if I could use her glucose meter to check my blood sugar. Let me just say, two months earlier my doctor told me I was borderline diabetic...borderline...which meant to me...I was close, but no cigar. But something told me I should just check my sugars....so I did....and, yeah...they were high. 535 to be exact! Being the queen of denial that I am, I checked again, than waited an hour to check again. In the meantime I was texting back and forth with my cousin, Michele, who's an RN. She told me to go to the ER and get checked out and get some insulin. So...after some hemming and hawing and waiting for the monsoon to die down, Manda and I went to the ER. (We were the only ones home and she didn't want to stay alone during the storm.). Needless to say, I was just as bad once I got to the ER as I was before I left the house. The doctors and nurses weren't too happy with me....for good reason. Manda has type 1 diabetes, so I should have been aware of the signs. They hooked me up to an IV

....and it took three nurses and 6 tries because I was so dehydrated! (picture, courtesy of my daughter because she was enjoying not being the one to get stabbed. haha)

Then they told me they were going to watch me for a couple of days until my sugars stabilized. Uh....no, I was going out of town in two days, they had to get me out within 24 hours.

So....bore you yet??? Suffice it to say, they kept me overnight. Now, to make the rest of this long story short.... I made it to California, still sick and taking pills for my sugar, spent 7 days there, got home, hopped a plane for Wisconsin for my niece's wedding, got home, sent Jeremy off to school and my husband off to Pittsburgh (something to do with his work), got the house as clean as possible and did some shopping because my sister and niece were flying in to spend ten days with us (yay!) and my sugars were still in the 400 range and now my blood pressure was dropping to 80/60. *sigh* So by the end of the week I made an appointment with my doctor and he put me on insulin shots, which I have to take once a day with the pills, which are twice a day. My sugars have pretty much stabilized and my BP is back to normal and I'm feeling human again. And, just in time too, as I am starting a new path in my career....new for me, that is.

In November I am going to be self-publishing my newest novel, House of Cards!! I'm very proud of this book because I feel it's my best work to date. It's definitely my best writing! Sometimes I even go in and read and think "Wow, this is good! Who wrote this??" hah

The book is a thriller, with the hint of a romance, and takes place in Brownsville, Texas. It's about Jesse Pena, a young woman who's trying to prove that her brother-in-law murdered her pregnant sister, but she's having a hard time getting anyone to believe her because she looks crazy half the time. And the brother-in-law has made it known to the press that Jesse and her sister are borderline schizophrenic. I recently had the cover done by a wonderful friend and fantastic author, Robert Gregory Browne, and I couldn't be more proud of how it turned out. I hope you'll look for it in November. =)