A Day of Extraordinarily Good News!

Yesterday was just a super fantastic day. It started out with the cover of Dragonborne being posted on Samhain’s website! Which meant I could share. Yay.

Then I downloaded the finalized version of Ink in the Blood to my Sony so I could read it while waiting at the doctor’s appointment. Double yay.

And finally, for the win, we got the letter from the college that said my husband has officially graduated.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life it’s that days like that don’t come around too often, so I did everything I could to bask in the glow of happiness and soak in the all-is-right with the world feeling. And to help continue the basking, here's the link to my excerpt from Ink, which is being released in just over a month! The last line is one of my favorites from the story. It’s actually the reason I chose this as the excerpt. Hope you enjoy the story clip and are having a fantastic day of your own.

I Can Breathe Again! (This time for realz)

I’m always amazed at level I take something for granted until I’m suddenly unable to do it. Once I pulled a muscle in my neck and literally couldn’t pick my head up off the pillow. I remember lying in bed thinking of how easy it should be and trying to force my muscles to move, but nothing. It was like I’d suddenly forgotten how to blink. Something that should be automatic was now impossible. Fortunately, some muscle relaxers, pain pills, and good old fashioned rest got me through it, but it was a feeling I never quite forgot. And one I got to experience all over again last month.

I’ve always had mild breathing issues, but nothing my rescue inhaler couldn’t take care of. That is, until early December. We still aren’t sure what happened, but I noticed I was taking my inhaler way too often and it wasn’t helping. So I made a doctors appointment. After all, breathing is rather important. Since then I’ve had two prescriptions for oral steroids (no fun), at least three follow up appointments (the last one is hopefully today), chest x-rays, and an appointment with a pulmonologist (who prescribed Advair). And finally, after about a month and a half, I can breathe again! Sure, while I was on the oral steroids I could breathe, but I didn’t feel like myself. I was very meh about everything and always felt tired. Then after two days of being off of them I couldn’t breathe again, so I’m not counting those days :).

I don’t believe there’s a great moral lesson learned in this post. True, I still take a deep breath every once in awhile just to marvel at how easy it is, but I know that will fade into the background after a couple weeks. Really, I can’t be expected to appreciate every blink that happens without issue, can I? But today I am very happy, so I wanted to share.