P. A. Matthews

Hello Everyone;

Since I last wrote here, much time has passed. Some days and months passed quickly while parts of time slowed to imperceptible increments with almost no measure.

As many of you know I’ve not been well, battling several things happening in my body I am unable to control. Well, really, I can’t control anything so why pretend I can?

Looking back, there were many times I wanted to write and explain my circumstances, yet between extreme exhaustion and not wanting to bore anyone with my illness, retreated from much of life and most of my friends. For that I am sorry … the friends part that is. Life continues at its own speed despite me participating.

When last I wrote, I was waiting for news of cancer in my thyroid. After waiting months for appointments, tests, results, the surgeon presented me with lots of information, most of which he almost resented communicating. He was an absolute jerk. From the first word out of his mouth he was combative, and since I’d been through so many doctors and test outcomes I decided I’d just confront everything he said to me, much of which was inappropriate on his part. I left with the knowledge I probably didn’t have cancer of the thyroid (after him telling me if I were to get cancer thyroid cancer would be the best to have since it was extremely treatable.) Good to know if I had the ability to control which cancer invaded my body.

After an hour with him, untold rude remarks, him leaving the room and me trailing after him to ask if we were done, he asked me when he should set the surgery date. Umm … what planet did he hail from that made him believe I was hip to him slicing and dicing my throat and trying to save my voice? I told him I’d let him know and never looked back. So at this point I probably don’t have cancer but will ultimately find out when my thyroid is removed and the biopsy is sent to pathology.

As I sit and write I am concentrating on not dwelling on the surgery which happens at high noon Monday the 14th. For the several year’s journey to get to this point I can only pack my bag for the overnight stay and pray for the doctor’s abilities and God’s guidance in his life. By the way, this surgeon is a wonderful man of faith, and has answered all my questions with great patience and given me hope at a time when most of my health and hope have evaporated. His parting words to me when I left his office this week were, “We’re going to take good care of you. I’m going to do everything I can to save your voice. This is the first step on a long road to get you back to good health.”

Speaking of the voice, that really is a major concern. This surgeon confirmed what every doctor has told me. We talked a lot about that concern as he explained how the vocal nerve lies alongside the thyroid and it just depends if the nerve is clear or wrapped around other nerves and blood vessels. I may have a voice, it may sound totally different, it’s a good chance I won’t be able to sing or if I can my range will be limited. Or if I’m in the unlucky 1 to 2 percent my voice will no longer exist. But he assured me someone would be there to work with me to get even a small sound back. I have to leave the fear there because fear is a demon which steals everything good in our lives.

The surgery was supposed to happen a few months ago, but like everything in my life, oddity happened. I was on the way to work and was in a rear end fender bender. No real significant damage to the car, or seemingly to me. Suffice it to say the 18 year old without his license or insurance wasn’t happy when I finally called the police after him begging for me not to. Such is life.

The headache continued for three days before I said uncle and went to see a doctor. The diagnosis of a concussion wasn’t surprising, but that I walked around and tried going to work a little confusing to me why I tried to be Superwoman. Pain pills didn’t work, nothing worked to take away the pain. A C.A.T. scan was performed. The results looked weird and I was sent to a neurologist on a search and find mission. The neurologist, an absolutely fabulous woman, gave me a thorough exam and explained I passed with flying colors … oh but there were questionable things on the scan so I needed an M.R.I. just to make sure I could go into surgery. Yeah, me too doc, I don’t want to die on the table because my brain isn’t working.

Had the M.R.I. and went back to the neurologist. Apparently the test showed the same problems and she didn’t know why. A grey area in my brain that was patchy. I looked at the pictures as she explained the scan. When I asked her if I should be drooling, she looked at me and told me I shouldn’t be functioning. Okay, that was unexpected. But she said obviously you are highly functioning and I’ve only seen this in one other case so it looks like that’s how your brain is formed. Sounded like a weather report to me – grey and patchy with a chance of drooling. I don’t mean to make light of brain issues because they aren’t a laughing matter. The concern on her face was real, the pain in my head real, the worse news to follow. She pulled up the next set of pictures, the ones after the grey patch which the radiologist didn’t like. She asked if I’d ever had strokes. I said no, why? Apparently there were too many white spots all over my brain which shouldn’t be in someone my age. Holes in my brain. Scarring with no apparent reason. So many questions, so few answers. Did I suffer from migraines? You betcha, since I was ten. She seemed to think this is what had killed the small blood vessels in my brain and scarred the tissue. Brains don’t grow back, hence the egg in the hot pan announcing this is your brain on drugs. But new neural pathways can form.

With a new prescription and an order for more tests to determine blood clotting factors (since we wanted to keep me alive on that operating table) I left her office after receiving two large shots in the back of my head (occipital lobes) to deaden some of the screaming pain. The tests came back marginally well, new tests for RA and Lupus, plus a C.T. angiogram of my brain however prolonged the surgery. The lupus test came back positive, I went to a rheumatologist who stated I probably didn’t have lupus but the thyroid was acting so odd with my diagnosis of hyperthyroid (I’ve had all the symptoms of hyperthyroid and hypothyroid) that he felt that was the auto-immune disease I was fighting. The angiogram was a test I really don’t want to retake if I can help it and I feel for people dealing with cancer or undergoing treatment where they inject heated things into your veins. I kept singing ‘You light up my brain’ as I entered the lab. The I.V. was hooked up and the test begun. About ten minutes into the test, the tech grabbed my head from behind and said not to move, he was administering the iodine dye.

The dye makes you suddenly hot with the sensation of wetting your pants while the scan spins around you. I’ve never quite experienced a test like that except one where an isotope was injected into my arm and the tech had six minutes to make sure the crap traveled the right way through my veins. This fiery brain concoction hit my head like a hot hammer and spread across my lungs and to my heart with rapid pulsing. For a few minutes I merely gasped while trying to get cool. Then ten minutes later the test was over and I was weaving down the hall in a stupor. My neurologist called yesterday and gave me the good news that she couldn’t find any misaligned blood vessels or blood flow around my brain and I could have the surgery Monday. Next month I go back for a check-up with her since the headaches haven’t really gone away. If they can’t figure out what’s going on new tests might happen, like a spinal tap to determine MS or something else. But at least I’m cleared for surgery and with a sense of relief that my brain isn’t going to explode while on the table.

I will be happy to finally have the surgery and hopefully get off some of the medication I’m taking. Between the extreme exhaustion of the thyroid disease, all the prescriptions to regulate my blood pressure, speeding heart, deep depression, and brain pain has left me dragging to the point where some days I get up and go back to bed after only about five hours. But I’m hanging in there.

Needless to say all this has affected my writing. I thought (so foolishly) that after the debacle of the Riley series publisher taking a hike, I would blow the new novel out of my head in a few months. I think most of the ideas got blown out another area of my body. Well I’ve been floundering for almost six months with only about 17K written to show my lackluster effort. Hopefully having surgery will allow me to put things behind me a bit more and on to the next chapter in my life as well as Riley’s life.

On a happy news front, I have submitted “Kingdom in a Glass” and it will be published in the premier issue of the Mind’s Eye Magazine in January 2010. I put a poem “Punished” on one Ning website on a whim because the poem is so acerbic. The site owner liked it and asked if he could publish it in the next issue of Cold Coffee Magazine, which came out December 1. I agreed and that poem can now be found between the pages of the magazine and as a download.

I can honestly say a lot has happened this past year. A rollercoaster of emotions have left me as exhausted as this lump in my throat. I’ve been angry, hurt, felt insane, giddy, exhausted, had two hours one day when I felt like I did when I was younger and more normal, been in untold pain, and have cried a million or so tears. I think the crying jags are the worst, but I’m getting through them with a little help from the pharmaceutical companies. Here’s to little pills.

I’ll close with something I’ve often said. You cannot control anything except how you react to the circumstances you’re going through. You cannot change what you are not willing to acknowledge. Sometimes things just aren’t your fault and give up trying to make them your fault. God is always in control of the situation and if you can honestly relinquish that control you can make it through things you thought impossible.

Take care, my friends. I miss you much.

Hopefully I’ll be back in the near future. I promise not to take so long this time if I’m able to communicate.

P

Braedon Carlisle is a handsome and, some might say, beautiful man or is he? Braedon is definitely not what he appears to be on the outside and the secret of whom and what he is and his unique and unusual way of life will change anyone who comes in contact with him. Braedon is not human and must find shelter during the day in order to survive. He is a vampire and his flock or children are his to protect and care for. Riley McCabe is the one person who he loves and will always protect. But, her secret life is just as unusual and if known to others would cause them to fear her and more. Spending time together and realizing that they need to be apart in order to sort out their feelings, Riley leaves his estate in England and returns home to Scotland. Before she has a chance to really decide what she wants to do, he reenters her life and she is enveloped back into a world filled with the supernatural and more. Riley has psychic powers that Braedon calls upon her to use in order to find out how someone close to him was killed. Sloan, as close to him as Riley, has disappeared or might be dead. He brings Riley back to where he was kidnapped in order to find out what happened and possibly, why. Riley agrees to use her powers and experiences the events of Sloan's death firsthand not realizing exactly what this would do to her and what the realities would be.

The reader becomes totally immersed in the events as if you are really there and experiencing the pain, agony and more that Riley experiences when she sees Sloan?s killer and experiences his death as if it is happening to her. Along with Braedon, his man friend Quinlan and one of his children or flock Desmond are there to protect both Braedon and Riley or are they? With Quinlan?s help and the promise of Braedon's protection the events that unfold will send the reader into a world that is terrifying, dangerous, and unsettling. Riley's secret as to whom and what she really is and what part she really plays in the death of Sloan are revealed at the very end of this book on the very last page. The author leaves the reader unsure as to what will really happen to any of the characters. Motive for murder is often revenge. Riley sees an old adversary in one of her visions and realizes that it is something from her past that has caused these events in what seems like her present and will definitely play a part in her future. I really enjoyed reading Myth to Life: The Rise of Riley McCabe and hope that the author will write a sequel. I want to know what will happen to Braedon and Riley and if they have a future in either one of their worlds. I want to know if her adversary will confront her and what will be the final outcome. I would highly recommend this book to a friend.

This review is wonderful and bittersweet. After requesting the review in January of 2009, my hopes of receiving a review seemed improbable since sites don't guarantee they will review your work. I decided I would take the request off my Outlook task list and close the book on this forever.

Prior to all this happening, I had also decided to terminate my contract with Mystic Moon Press for many reasons, but wanted to wait for "Blood Betrayal" to come out because there were people who wanted to read it. But I had finally decided if I was never going to be published again, I was satisfied with my decision to leave Mystic Moon Press.

Most of you know I became seriously ill in January, so dealing with termination of my contract as well as all the other inconveniences life throws at us got shoved to the back burner until I could physically deal with everything. Then the series took off at Fictionwise eBooks and I related all the great things happening there.

I decided it was time to terminate with Mystic Moon, then I received the wonderful review from Manic Readers the day after I closed the Outlook task. How is that for coincidence and a confidence booster? While in the process of writing my letter to Mystic Moon Press all hell broke loose and everything became a moot point.

Mystic Moon Press had scammed its authors, not paid them, took the money and denied culpability. The entire staff resigned. All the authors terminated their contracts. The owner remained silent throughout all of the turmoil and still remains silent.

Happily, though saddened for everyone involved except the owner and her cohorts, I can report the authors did accomplish something it would have taken attorneys months to fix. Just from last week Mystic Moon Press is out of business (until the owner changes names and starts scamming again) and the site has been taken down. Fictionwise no longer has the publisher listed and all the author?s books have been removed. Mobipocket is following suit. Hopefully, Amazon.com will bring up the rear in doing right by the authors but at least the "buy at" links have been disabled. There are so many affiliated sites and subsidiaries of these carriers that it may be some time before all works issued from Mystic Moon Press never exist.

I want to thank everyone who has supported me throughout my writing career and especially with my series "Myth to Life: The Rise of Riley McCabe." I have always said I cannot do any of this without you, nor did I wish to. Through you Riley has been able to have her voice heard and has proven what she has to say is interesting. But do not fear Riley McCabe is not dead. I am currently writing the first fill length novel in Riley's series (something I had planned all along) and can't wait to share more of her life with those interested reading, which I hope is everyone! Sorry, a little self-promotion there.

After the dust settles on this, and I am assured all my rights are back in my hot little hands, I look forward to picking up the manuscript once again and settling old scores with Riley's ancient and new foes. Who knows what evil lurks out there for Riley to encounter? I do!

Thanks again for all your support. Riley and I have had a rough several months, but thither onward, mon amis, we?re out of the gate and not turning back.

I'm carrying my sword high and running full force toward a new day.

Patricia

P. A. Matthews