health

KEEP MOVING FORWARD

/ tinfoilhat / Leave a comment

I had, shall we say, a rather unique month of July 2025.

Early in the month, I started writing the rough draft of my next novel, CALEB’S REIGN. This will mark the third and final entry in my epic werewolf trilogy. I’m looking forward to writing this, but I’ve lived with these characters every day since 2020. I want to move on to other things and tell other stories. I’m getting antsy to move on with my art, but I cannot in good conscience do that until I finish this trilogy and complete this initial phase of my writing career.

Then July 15 happened.

In the early morning of July 15, I experienced a medical emergency. As I turned in my chair to get up and go make coffee, I was gobsmacked with intense and prolonged vertigo that was so bad I could not walk. It gave me motion sickness like I’ve never had, and I’m a retired sailor. Between 0730 when it began and 0900 when the paramedics arrived (I called 911 on myself), I threw up a total of seven different times – including three times that was nothing but dry heaves.

They took me to St. Anthony’s Hospital in Gig Harbor, one of the finest facilities in Northwest Washington. A CT scan showed an occluded vertebral artery and evidence of my having a stroke. So, they admitted me, then did an MRI, which is more sensitive and more definitively diagnostic than a conventional CT. Turns out the stroke was a lacunar stroke to my right cerebellum, the part of the brain that handles (among other things) balance and proprioception. But it was an “old” stroke. The scar tissue was healed over, so there’s no way to pinpoint when in the past my stroke occurred.

After several more tests and a long, detailed conversation with my doctor, we determined that my poorly controlled high blood pressure had contributed to the occlusion, which led to my stroke, and in turn, fed my high blood pressure even more. We also determined that my vertigo (and the nausea and vomiting) was caused by damage to my vestibular nerve in my middle and inner ear. And the cause of the nerve damage? Radiation treatments for my Stage 4 cancer eleven years ago.

Cancer – the gift that keeps on giving.

Long story short, we figured stuff out, got it under control, put me on some new medicines including another BP med and a blood thinner, then got me scheduled for follow ups and some specialty care over the next several months.

Needless to say, his has put a bit of a crimp in my writing schedule. I have pressed on and continued to work as best I can. But I have to work around these new limitations. And that’s the important part. Pick myself up and keep moving forward.

Regardless whether these health challenges prove to be temporary or permanent, I WILL finish and publish CALEB’S REIGN. I owe it both to myself and to my fans. The release date I originally set for myself is October 2026. As of right now, I think I can stick to that schedule as long as nothing else happens to me. But I will need to crank out at least 1200-1500 words per day to finish the rough draft before year’s end and be editing/revising by New Years.

I’ve experienced bouts of dizziness and vertigo ever since my radiation treatments. Only now, they’re much more frequent. Since my right vestibular nerve is perpetually pissed off at me now, it makes sense. So, I ordered some canes this morning. They arrive tomorrow. But these are not just regular canes, oh no. Perish the thought! True to my own funky bohemian sense of style, the three canes/ walking sticks are themselves each a work of art. One top is a wolf’s head, one is a functional brass compass, and one adjusts to become a working telescope.

And that’s the lesson, my friends. That’s the takeaway. Find a way to turn the bad in your life into good. Turn a setback into forward progress, a defeat into victory. I am reminded of a scene in the movie, ROCKY BALBOA (2006, written and directed by Sylvester Stallone) where Rocky is talking to his son: “It ain’t about how hard you can hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. THAT’S HOW WINNING IS DONE!”.

I agree with this assessment. People who are successful at ANYTHING are compelled to keep moving forward. They know that if they don’t, then just like a Great White shark, they will sink to the bottom and die.

I want to keep being successful in both my work and my life for as long as I possibly can.

Take the hits and keep moving forward, my friends.

SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG

/ tinfoilhat / 3 Comments

Well, It’s certainly been a while since my last blog post – December 2000, to be exact. A lot has gone on in the world since then. People have been born; people have died. Some wars ended, others have begun. As much as people claim that we live in unprecedented times, I must respectfully disagree. While some instances and circumstances are new, the underlying humanity involved remains the same: greed, lust, vengeance, power, love, hatred.

And, as it also so happens, a lot has gone on with me as well. I’m a few years older, and I managed to publish two (2) new novels. BLOOD RED MOON came out Oct. 2021, and JUST BEFORE DAWN: a NOCTURNAL novel, came out Oct 2023. I am currently working on ALPHA MALE, a sequel to BLOOD RED MOON and the second installment of my werewolf series, which I think of as, “The Caleb Jacobsen Saga”, after the main character.

As some of you know, I suffer from the after effects of my bout with a Stage 4 Throat Cancer, which the medical types refer to as a “head and neck cancer”. The radiation that killed my cancer also fried my thyroid, leaving my with hypothyroidism. It also fried my left Trigeminal Nerve, leaving me with a chronic pain condition called, Trigeminal Nerve Neuralgia. Neuralgia means “nerve pain”. It never goes away, it is simply a matter of degree of pain. I am on painkillers (including opiates for the really bad days), and will be for the rest of my life. What fun! Further, the chemo that killed my cancer also gave me a permanent case of what medical types called “chemo brain”. It fucks with your short term memory. Long term memory is largely intact. I can tell you where I was 30 or 40 years ago, what I was doing, and who I was doing it with. But I walk also around in a fog half the time, trying to figure out what word to call something I’m holding in my hand or recalling what I had for lunch yesterday.

Yeah, it sucks, but what am I gonna do? Living sure beats the hell out of the alternative, so I take my meds, suck it up, and continue to march.

Because giving up to me is tantamount to failure, and for an ex-military type like me, failure is simply not an option. It is NEVER an option.

So daily chronic pain, chronic fatigue, and periodic surgeries to keep an open airway notwithstanding, I keep going. I keep writing. I have accepted that novels are my main focus now at this stage in my career. This is because novels are where I exert the most control and oversight. Novels are also where I’m making most of my money; where I’m winning international book awards (BLOOD RED MOON – Best Horror, Creatures and Monsters at BookFest Fall 2023), and writing Amazon bestsellers (JUST BEFORE DAWN, Oct 26, 2023).

That’s not to say I have given up on my Hollywood aspirations. I am still incredibly fortunate to have major Hollywood representation for my feature film screenplays by Judy Fox Personal Talent Management. She is tasked with trying to find someone who will buy and finance my scripts. Not an easy task these days as the business, financing structure, and distribution landscape of Hollywood is changing rapidly. Seismic shifts in the business equate to most financiers (who are as conservative as a banker in a three-piece suit when it comes to THEIR money) sitting it out until they can see for themselves how the dust will settle.

I get it. If I was a film financier, I would keep a tight grip on the purse strings, too.

But I do have a couple of things coming up in 2024 that may shift the tide in my favor. First, a movie I did help finance about 18 months ago, BROKEN INNOCENCE, comes out in the summer. Secondly, a script I sold ten (10) years ago just got shot last November. I cannot divulge any info on it as of yet, but the film is in post production as of this writing, and we can reasonably expect a global digital distribution to multiple streaming platforms sometime in 2024. So with this happening, it may help move the needle on one or both of my scripts that my Manager is actively shopping.

Stay tuned.

Well, that’s about it for today. My main goal was to create a new blog post. I want to get back into the habit of posting monthly from here on out. As always, i try to maintain a positive attitude for myself, and an encouraging one for others.

We’ll talk again soon.