An Update From Maddy

So… back at the end of October I promised you an update. This is long and if you don’t want to read a description of my cancer journey, you should skip to the WHAT AM I DOING NOW? section at the end. Everyone else, buckle up. 🙂

Some of you may know that I was diagnosed with stage 3 colorectal cancer in July of 2020. We did infusion chemo, followed by radiation and oral chemo, and then surgery to remove the tumor, a section of my colon, and some of my lymph nodes. It appeared to be successful and I was deemed NED (No Evidence of Disease) as of March 2021. Very excited and feeling great, I started writing a fantasy romance called The Storm King. Quarterly CT and MRI scans in June, September and December looked good so the scans were extended to every 6 months instead of every 3 months.

In early 2022 I started feeling tired again. I put the Storm King aside. The scans in June 2022 showed Cancer had returned and was growing in my liver. Now I was Stage 4, colorectal cancer with mets to liver. That was treated with ablation in August 2022. They shot microwaves into the tumor and ‘cooked’ it. The scan in September looked good. I started a little freebie novella about Lobo and his mate, thinking I would put it out for Christmas 2022. Scans in December 2022 still looked good. I was once again NED.

But I didn’t feel well. I was told that was normal. My body had been through a lot so it would take some time for me to get back to “normal”. For instance, the chemo from 2 years ago had given me neuropathy. My foot from the ball to the toes were numb, and so were my fingertips. It’s hard to type when you can’t feel your fingers on the keys. My deadline for Lobo’s Mate came and went so I put it away.

In March 2023 I went to have my regular quarterly scans and they found a tiny spot in my lung they thought was suspicious. Too small to biopsy, we decided to take a wait and watch approach and see what the June scans showed. In June the spot had grown, so it was deemed to be cancer and I was sent to a radiologist to set up radiation for the lung. However, he detected a second, smaller spot in the different location in the same lung. He didn’t want to do radiation and then find out that more nodules showed up later. So we decided to wait until the September scans to see if any more spots showed up.

I HATE waiting. The summer of 2023 was miserable for me. I kept imagining the worst case scenario, where the September scans would show my lungs loaded with sinister little spots with glowing red eyes and fangs ready to devour me. But the scans showed only those two spots, slightly bigger, but just those two.

In October 2023 I had the radiation. It was not painful, it didn’t take long, and it was only 5 treatments. I was EXHAUSTED. I was utterly exhausted until about November 3. It was like I turned a corner then. I cleaned, I was social, I stayed up until my usual bedtime! The next scans in January 2024 will show if radiation was effective.

I don’t know what the future holds. Maybe the cancer is still growing in my lungs. Maybe it was come back in the liver. Maybe this is it and I am truly NED. God knows and time will tell.

WHAT AM I DOING NOW?

I have picked up Lobo’s story again. I love Lobo. He’s not good with words, but he’s found his mate and in true Wolf Clan tradition, he is going to protect her and help her even if she never accepts his mate claim. And she needs his help. She’s been living mostly on her own for the past three years since the plane crash, and a local farmer is done waiting for her consent to marry him. At 17,548 words, I am 3/4 done with the rough draft. My personal deadline for the rough draft to be complete is 12/2. Then it goes off to the beta readers while I play with cover art. Then I make revisions, format it and send it out in my newsletter by 12/22/23. I do not plan to publish it on Amazon or Barnes & Noble. This will be an entirely free novella just for my readers. I am not putting in a ton of history about the plane crash and what life is like in 2067 because only people who have read some of the other books will be reading it. Probably. I am writing this for you as a thank you for reading my stories.

I will be back in a few weeks for my annual Christmas Stocking Giveaway!