So goodbye to 2017, a year that started out in a bad place but ends rather more favourably.
This time last year I was seriously unwell, in and out of hospital, with a crashed immune system and had had to postpone my scheduled cochlear implant. The decision to put me on Ibrutinib at the end of Jan turned things around; my white cell counts recovered to near normal levels though at the expense of considerable joint pain. I was able to resume a social life, albeit restricted by my deafness. That changed in the summer with my successful implant. It is not my original hearing back but provides a good level of functional hearing, though it is overwhelmed by high noise situations, and listening to music doesn’t currently work.
The reviews for Exile and Nandor continue to be gratifyingly positive though not accompanied by any substantial sales. It was great to be shortlisted for the BFS Best Newcomer Award for Exile and gave me a reason to go Fantasycon, though the con crud I picked up there turned into a chest infection that eventually needed IV antibiotics and week in hospital to shift it.
My ‘faery serial killers in the New Forest’ contemporary fantasy novel remains unsold, though it is currently on an editor’s desk at a major publisher. My current work-in-progress, a ‘more epic’ fantasy adventure is now over halfway in first draft and crawling slowly forward.
A major issue in the second part of the year has been the decline in my mother’s health. She is 96, but back in the summer was still mobile enough to be taken out for a drive into the forest or to the beach. This is no longer the case. She does not move from her bed without a lot of assistance and needs considerably more care than last year. She did not know me the last couple of times I saw her.
At the close of the year my own health is again in question. A blood test just before Christmas showed an alarming drop in my white cell count. My consultant feels the Ibrutinib is responsible for the drop and has taken me off it. With injections of a bone marrow stimulant my count recovered and I will have another bone marrow biopsy next week – oh joy! – that will determine the future direction of treatment. It may be that I will have a period with major medication in 2018. That would get the year off to a good start.
martinowton 