I’ve never been a big fan of the phrase “it’s not fair.” I mean, after the age of about 12 or so.

As an adult, what does the concept of fair mean anyway?

When you are a kid, fair means that if Billy gets a cookie, Sally gets a cookie. Balance is maintained. Everyone is treated equally.

However, as an adult, I know that life can never be fair for a number of reasons.

First, we’re all given different abilities and different liabilities. To assume that somehow something isn’t fair means that somewhere along the line things were fair and this new thing upset the balance.

There’s this ad for some skin care product that shows a woman looking in the mirror and seeing redness on her face, stomping her feet and saying, “It’s not fair.” I really don’t like that ad. Hence, my inability to remember what product it was for!

It’s not fair that she “suffers” from red splotches on her face? In the grand scheme of life, she has it made, if you ask me.

About ten days ago, I sat in a chair I kinda knew I shouldn’t sit in. When I had my sciatica pain, this was a chair that aggravated it, but the pain was gone and my husband sits in the twin of this chair to do his writing so I wanted to be with him. I stood up at one point and felt a twinge in my hip. I thought, “Okay, then. I won’t sit there again.”

By bedtime, the sciatica had returned with a vengeance. This time, however, I was unable to get comfortable even lying down, which made sleeping problematic. I took the Lortab my doctor had prescribed for the pain which doesn’t actually knock me out. It makes me relaxed and feel good but I don’t sleep. So, I combined it with a Unisom one night and had the delightful experience of not sleeping in the bed but falling asleep as I walked around the kitchen, thus, scaring myself when I startled myself awake. Really, really fun.

After three nights of not sleeping, all while still not taking my thyroid meds and on the low iodine diet, I ranted and raved to my husband and to God that “It isn’t fair.” My Beloved just listened like a good husband and understood when I said I wasn’t mad at him, I was just mad at the situation.

My in-laws have a Select Comfort bed and my father-in-law suggested I spend the night at their house sleeping on his side of the bed, where he has things set very soft. I did sleep better that night but interestingly, the next night his wife, my mother-in-law, was admitted to the hospital for an emergency appendectomy!

My daughter asked if I was going to sleep at their house that night and I said it wouldn’t really do for me to be there while he was at the hospital with his wife just because I wouldn’t want him to come home, forgetting I was there, and … well, it just wasn’t a good idea.

I slept sitting up a few nights and that helped. Then we bought an inversion table. This seems to be helping some and I saw the chiropractor yesterday. She said I needed to go back to the stretches she gave me to do and we’ll knock this thing out again.

Last night, before I went to bed, I did my stretches, hung upside down for a bit, took a pain pill (no sleep aids though) and went to bed. I did sleep better although I was up twice in the night. The pain pills don’t knock the pain out for the 6 hours I’m to keep between doses. I knew I wouldn’t sleep well on the meds, but I knew I’d be relaxed and at that point last night, that was enough.

Today, I’ll call the physiatrist again, as well as a few other doctors and I need to check in with for myself and the Boy. I’ll go on my Lenten discipline walk and I’ll go back to the edits of Sword & Illusion. I’m in a better frame of mind after a night of not walking around the house all night. Maybe I can get the book done this week.

I am once again undergoing a treatment for the thyroid cancer I had removed Fall 2008. This time I’m going to have another radioactive iodine scan to see if any of the thyroid tissue has grown back.

The good news is that it’s a low dose of radioactive iodine, so I won’t have to be isolated.

The bad news is that I’ve been off my thyroid meds for four weeks as of tomorrow. Today is a bad day for me.

While I’m THRILLED the Saints won the Super Bowl, I find myself pretty depressed today and the only reason I can come up with is the lack of thyroid meds in my system.

My weight’s been going up. I’m also on a special low iodine diet in preparation for this scan, which means, in part, no dairy, no chocolate, nothing baked outside my house. While it sounds like a healthier diet, as I can have all the fresh fruits and veggies I want, my weight has gone up. I’m almost back over 170 which I don’t want to be.

I’m reading my husband’s book for him – critiquing it. I haven’t started working on a new book for me yet, but I have been thinking about it.

I’m just hovering on a fairly deep depression. I understand now how those who are clinically depressed could have trouble doing anything. That’s exactly how I feel right now. I would love nothing more than to crawl back into bed and stay there.

Of course, I’m a mom, so that’s not an option. I have to go pick up my son from school and we have to go to the grocery store as I forgot something on my last run. A couple of things.

Maybe after that, though, I can sit, read Beloved’s book, and find my happy place again.

SWORD & ILLUSION IS DONE!

Okay, now that the cheering and celebration is done, a little disclaimer.

The book, first draft was finished about 3 or so years ago and it went through a massive edti/rewrite/set aside period that included my husband reading the whole book and making comments. Then I went through the whole book again and found a MAJOR plot problem at the end that I sort of knew was there but had put it out of my head saying, “oh, it’ll be okay. No one will notice.”

Of course, they would and it messed up the great ending I’d wanted.

So, we had a big brainstorming session which led to major plot changes/fixes/etc.

So, that led to major rewriting and getting to a point where I edited and fixed each chapter individually and then he would read it and “declare” it finished.

THEN a month or so ago, I got to about the halfway point and had over 90,000 words declared finished or nearly so. We talked about cutting the book in half as it had come to a point that felt like an ending. Not to the whole story, but to that part of it.

When I decided to do that, it required a few more chapters/scenes to tie up a few ends and put a period on that part of the story, so that’s what I’ve been working on.

Last night, I packaged it all up (all chapters in one document run through spell and grammar checker) and handed it off to him.

He did tell me that he found a few minor problems in the first chapter, but when he’s done with it, I’ll take one last run through and start sending queries to agents.

I am getting my rights back to Attack of the Queen as that’s the first book in the series and while I love that Wings published it, I think I’m ready to move my career in a different direction.

Yay for me!