Meeting up with Menopause

Eve was a domineering bitch who wore the pants in her relationship.  Oops, no pants not even a fig leaf at that time.  Adam was a weak-willed lily-livered simpering idiot.  If he had stood up to Eve and said, “No, put that damn apple back we are not supposed to eat it,” the world would be a very different place today.  For a start it would be one large nudist colony.  But more importantly, women would not be experiencing pain in childbirth.  Hand in hand with that we would not be having a monthly period.

Hormones, moodiness, irritability, and the worry that this month’s flow might be heavy and leak out are definitely a curse that Adam should have been afflicted with rather than Eve who just made a small suggestion.  She didn’t really expect him to grab that apple and take a bite.  He should have been principled and followed the rules.  Look what his lack of character caused!

Since the age of twelve I’ve been cursed every 28 days.  The only times I’ve missed on the 28 day cycle were the times I was pregnant.  Regular and like clockwork the dreaded lurgy arrives every month without fail.  When I turned 50 I thought I’ve done my time paying for Adam’s sins, it was time for menopause.  I eagerly awaited the onset, looking forward to the first signs of a hot flush, jealous when friends and colleagues started menopause.  No such luck.  Every 28 days it arrived.  It.  The thing that shouldn’t be mentioned out loud.

This month it didn’t arrive on schedule and I have to say I feel a little sad.  It’s like when you wish like mad for something and it happens it’s a bit of a let-down.  It’s not even an anti-climax, it’s just that it’s a realization that I have started on the next chapter of my life – old age.  I’d never previously equated menopause with old age, just the relief that it would be no more monthly periods.  But the fact is, it does mean the end of a chapter of your life and the start of the very last chapter of your life.  There is something so final when you put it like that.  I’m not sure that I’m psychologically ready for that.

This past holiday season I have had two operations and experienced more pain than I could ever have imagined.  Continuous chronic pain 24 hours a day now heading into week 5.  The remarkable thing, is that the trauma from the pain turned my hair grey basically overnight.  The pain aged me and I wonder if that’s what caused the onset of menopause, or if the good Lord upstairs decided that I’m going through enough on the pain front, He’ll just make me miss the 28 day cycle this month.  We’ll only know next month. But after years of wishing for this day, there is a part of me that wishes it will arrive again like clockwork next month so I can delay old age just a little longer.

Cindy Vine is the author of C U @ 8, Not Telling and Defective, all available on Amazon as kindle books and paperbacks.

Life in the Pain Lane

Doctors are not 100% truthful.  Well it's not as if they actually lie, they just negate to tell you or warn you about how exactly painful their op is going to be.  This of course leaves you unprepared psychologically.  You think it's going to be a quick and easy procedure.  But 5 weeks later and you still have plenty pain and limited movement.  Pain sucks.

As you can see, pain does not bring out the best in you.  It saps your energy, causes discomfort and kills all creative thoughts you might possess.  In short, pain kills your ability to think and write.  So no I have not been on holiday rejoicing on the extra time available to work on my book Hush Baby.  For the most part I have been laid up in bed knocked out on painkillers.
Why I thought an arthroscopy in the shoulder would be only slightly painful, I don't know.  It's like when the doctor explains the procedure to you, he makes a tiny hole and inserts a camera, that doesn't sound very painful does it?  Unfortunately that silly camera picked up 5 different problems that needed to be rectified immediately.  This meant 5 holes in the shoulder, 5 times the pain and the procedures included shaving off pieces of bone, fixing a frozen shoulder and repairing a torn tendon.
As if this wasn't enough, 2 weeks later I was back in hospital for a breast reconstruction.  This was a very new technique that sounded painless when the plastic surgeon described it to me.  Haha is all I can say.  After that op I felt like I'd been trampled on by 30 men at the bottom of a rugby scrum.  They took 500g of fat from my sides, shook and stirred it like a martini, converted it to 250ml of stem cell rich lipo-filling and injected it into my breast where they had to remove the implant after I went into septic shock last year.  And the plastic surgeon says we'll have round two of that procedure in June.  Charming.

I did get to have breakfast with Jodi Picoult though, and listen to her interesting and entertaining talk on wolves.  Definitely a highlight of my otherwise miserable Christmas holiday.  The lesson to be learned is do not embark on two big surgeries in a two week period.
The weather has been beautiful most of the time, I just haven't been in a condition to enjoy it.
Hopefully my shoulder will be sorted and will be back to normal in a couple of months.  The shoulder surgeon said it can take a year to come right.  As I said before, charming.
So do I have any new year's resolutions?  Survive, dig deep and survive.  That's all I want for 2013.
Have a good one!

Great Detective Story

This is a police procedural par excellence, with more twists and turns than in that David Bowie classic Labyrinth.  A villain with an agenda set on revenge and a dogged police inspector with the uncanny ability to think out of the box.  You can't go wrong with this read.

Book Blurb:

What would you do if you had been falsely imprisoned and if while in prison your wife and your children had been brutally murdered? Samuel Maxwell, the Prophet, decides to spend his time plotting out his plan for revenge against the greedy men responsible..

The Prophet stops at nothing to avenge the deaths. Will Inspector Duke Becker and his squad from Special Investigations Homicide be able to stop the Prophet and the reasons behind the killings before more die? 

Bio:

Gary L. Kassay born on March 20, 1956 in the Bronx, New York.  Married to high school sweetheart, Eileen on May 6, 1978.  Two children, Jason Kassay born March 30, 1980 and Samantha Kassay born January 6, 1986.  Eileen Kassay passed away on May 14, 2003.Worked as an x-ray tech for six years at Brooklyn Hospital and then joined the New York City Police Department, Transit Police.  Trained for the K-9 unit and worked until injured in the line of duty forcing early retirement.  Next worked in the field of commercial photography, starting in customer service, then becoming the assistant manager, manager and then with two partners buying Diversified Photo located on Long Island. 

Although retired at the time, he worked Ground Zero after 9/11 for several weeks.

In 2004 left business to two partners and moved to North Carolina  where he met his second wife Raella. Married on September 10, 2005 in Maui, Hawaii.  Worked for Homeland Security as a TSA officer, and then as a Lieutenant for Guilford County in charge of the Social Services Building.

In 2008  he moved to Casper Wyoming where he currently resides.

Online Links:

Twitter: @GaryKassay or www.twitter.com/GaryKassay

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/gary.kassay?fref=ts

Website: www.garykassay.com

Finding new authors

I don't know about you but I object to paying more than $10 for a kindle ebook.  I think that charging more than that is being just plain greedy and I don't want to feed and encourage that greed.  Feeling in the mood for a good gripping suspense thriller after trying to plough my way through a top-selling badly-written erotic romance and giving up, I looked to see what I could find on Amazon.  Forget Sandra Brown, Kathy Reichs, Faye Kellerman, Patricia Cornwell or anybody of that ilk.  All way too overpriced.  This of course is good for indie authors like Nancy Thompson.  Mostly indie authors set their prices realistically making their books affordable.
The Mistaken by Nancy Thompson was gripping, fast-paced, emotional, full of unexpected twists and turns.  What more could you possibly want from a suspense thriller?

BLURB: Tyler Karras is an honest man, a transplanted Brit living the American dream, but his charmed life takes an unexpected turn when his brother, Nick, is coerced into joining ranks with San Francisco’s Russian mafia. Ty intervenes to secure Nick’s freedom, yet only succeeds in incurring their wrath. With no choice but to accept Nick’s new life, Ty returns to his own, but his dreams are dashed when his wife—pregnant with their first child—is killed, the victim of a reckless crime. Despondent and bitter, Ty macerates his grief in alcohol. From the depths of the bottle screams a voice, howling for vengeance. His target is a stranger, the woman who drew his wife toward her death. He doesn’t know her, but he’ll find her, and when he does, he will make her pay, for a deal has been struck with Nick’s Russian associates, enslaving her into a life of bondage. But as Ty moves forward in a cloud of alcohol, he mistakes the wrong woman for his intended victim and now all his plans have gone straight to hell. With his eyes made clear by the stark reality of his mistake, Ty is driven, compelled by remorse and a relentless sense of guilt to make amends and protect Hannah Maguire, the innocent woman whose life he has derailed. He vows to keep her safe and out of the Russians’ hands, but they’re holding Nick as leverage to force Ty to complete their deal and turn over the girl. Once again, he must fight to free his brother, miring all three lives in further jeopardy. But Ty can’t do it all: Save the girl, his brother and his own soul. One of them must make the ultimate sacrifice.

 BIO: Nancy Thompson makes her fiction debut with The Mistaken. She is an interior designer and California transplant, currently living with her husband near Seattle, WA.
 ONLINE LINKS: Goodreads- http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/7809425-nancy-s-thompson Website- http://nancysthompson.blogspot.com/ Twitter- twitter.com/NancySThompson Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/nancy.saling.thompson Book Page- www.sapphirestarpublishing.com/themistaken BUY NOW LINK: Amazon- http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009R3SYC2 B&N ~ http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-mistaken-nancy-s-thompson/1113472607?ean=2940015514162 • Amazon paper book • Amazon Kindle copy Giveaway: 5 Ebooks Rafflecopter a Rafflecopter giveaway