I have fallen off the radar over these past several months. I think transparency matters here because I have prided myself on communication, but I fell off the face of the planet. It has been a rough year. I had been dealing with a troublesome knee—one that was operated on back in April. The idea was to rid myself of pain, which plagued me 24x7. Sleep was impossible. Standing and maneuvering in my kitchen became tricky. Forget walking up and down stairs or trips to the grocers without the threat of the knee buckling. I had had enough.
Surgery went great in late April. I awoke from my anesthetized slumber and immediately pumped a fist into the air with gratification. It was over, and I could not wait to focus on physical therapy. And for six days, I knocked it out of the park; each day revealed incredible progress. I did things I could not do a day ago. Progress was moving by leaps and bounds. I could not be more enthusiastic about the progress I was making.
Then Day 7 happened.
It sounds almost biblical, but the seventh day was a rest day. While I sat on the couch with my knee elevated, I noticed something didn't feel right. My knee began to painfully expand from spontaneous, internal bleeding, requiring an ambulance ride to the hospital. It would be the first of four serious setbacks—two of them hospitalized me—over three months that tested my fortitude.
The damage was done, beginning with that internal bleed, and a sequence of events ensued that, eventually, culminated in me having a second knee surgery in early August.
I am happy to report that, as of this blog, I have encountered no major setbacks. In fact, today, I rode my stationary bike for the first time this year. After fifteen glorious minutes, I found myself reflecting on all it had taken to get to this point—all the doctors, therapists, and support from family and friends—and a tear rolled down my cheek. Climbing Mount Everest would have been a walk in the park compared to what I undertook over the summer.
I recently experienced no severe pain for an entire week, something that has eluded me for over fifteen years. It felt weird at first, but when the next day came and went, I began to realize being pain-free was not alien. It was normal.
It will take several more months of hard work and dedication to rehabilitate. Just gotta keep fighting the good fight, and I am very willing to do that.
Karma Update
I began working on the Karma outline last year right up through the night before my knee surgery in April. I wanted to pump out as much as possible through the major turning point in the story, which takes place in a graveyard in Mississippi back in 1952. Our protagonists chase down a fortune stolen by their late, abusive Uncle Lloyd. The guy was a serious jerk when he was alive, and they can't seem to get them out of their hair even in death.
In those days, African Americans were buried in Black cemeteries. Yet somehow, their devious uncle managed to bury his wealth in a mausoleum in a White cemetery.
What fun would it be to just hand it over? If our girls and their friends want it badly enough, they would have to earn it the hard way. Thus, it was important to make this quest as action-packed, scary, and difficult as possible. After some time strategizing, the best approach was to implement an 11:34 crossover. While our friends deal with armed guards and their ferocious dogs, another visitor enters the fray. Enter one nasty demon at 11:34 at night. In the end, someone dies. And what happens to the treasure? You know I can't give that away. You will need to read the book!
The outline is over 120 pages, 34K words long.
