The day has come at last when I can show you the cover of Brave Hearts, my newest book. This releases on January 19. It is a stand alone in Paige Tyler’s Dallas Fire & Rescue Kindle World. The hero is the great uncle to Shadow, Taye, and Tracker from the After the Crash series.

Brave Hearts

Isabel Ybarra. A soldier who lost her leg in Iraq.

Dusty Wolfe. The medic who saved her life.

When they meet again in Dallas twelve years later, they’re not who they were. Dusty is an EMS with Dallas Fire & Rescue, with dreams of someday having a wife and family. He just needs to find the right woman. Isabel, now the owner of a yarn store, has left her dreams of love and a family firmly in the past. She’s happy with the peaceful life she’s built. She doesn’t want any reminders of what she left behind.

Dusty has finally found the right woman, and he refuses to be ignored. Her quiet courage and brave heart are irresistible to him. He will do whatever it takes to win her love. If that means signing up for her knitting class to get her attention, he will. Can he figure out the difference between knitting and purling? More importantly, can he convince her that he is her future?

“Hello, World!” is usually the title of the first blog post anyone makes on WordPress. It’s been so long since I made a blog post that I thought that title was appropriate.

I wanted to make posts, but I didn’t have anything to say. I didn’t think anyone wanted to hear me whine about the day job, or complain about my health issues, or grumble about my upstairs neighbors, or gush about how adorable my cats are. OK, maybe posting about the cats would have been alright, if you like cats. But if you don’t … well.

Here is what I’ve been up to these last few months:

• Sneezing and hacking. Stupid sinus infection is back and it likes living here. It’s not moving out, no sir. Biaxin? Augementin? We laughs at your puny antibiotics! And hey, as the cherry on the top of your misery, here’s a yeast infection. Have a lovely day.
• Writing. Deleting. Changing the middle. Changing the end. Re-writing. Deleting some more. Re-writing… Brave Hearts was supposed to be a quick little story for fun. Somehow it took me months to find the story. That hasn’t happened to me before, and it was hard on me and my self confidence. I’m not sure what exactly happened, but after writing about 70,000 words and deleting 50,000 of them, the story finally came together. I am really happy with it now. It is with the editor at the moment. That story releases in January.
• Knitting. I completed a glamour wrap, and some hats, and and wrote a hat pattern. The heroine of Brave Hearts owns a yarn store and she teaches the hero to knit. One of the things he knits is a simple hat for his mom. That pattern will be included in Brave Hearts. I’ll also post it here when the book releases.

What is up next?

Tomorrow I start my Christmas novella Under A Christmas Star. This book is going to be published under my own name, Terese Cascio, and it will be an inspirational contemporary romance. I plan to write from November 26 through December 31, 2016. If it’s done, yay!! If it’s not, it gets put away for a few months. The story begins the day before Thanksgiving and ends on Christmas. I thought writing it between those times would make it easier to get into the spirit of it. So far it is too warm and sunny to feel Christmas-y. *sad face*

On January 1 I begin writing Victoria’s Cat. Victoria has her sights set on Marty Madison. It’s not that Marty is running away from her. He thinks she is absolutely gorgeous. But after a “subtle” hint from her dad and brothers, he decided it was better for his health to keep a little distance between them. He figures that won’t be hard, since he has to go to Omaha for the legislative session which lasts 4 months. But the mayor of Omaha/President of Nebraska has called for all the communities in the area to send a representative to the legislature. Guess who goes (along with a bodyguard of brothers) to represent the Clan?

I hereby swear to post more often. Even if it is just pictures of my cats. 🙂  I hope everyone has lots of good books to get you through the holiday season!

Happy Reading!

I’m back from Lori Foster’s

Reader & Author Get Together!

As always, I had a fantastic time. My first time at RAGT was in 2011, so that makes 6 for 6. If this was baseball, that would mean I was batting 1000. I think this is one of the best reader events out there. This is the only one I’ve ever been to, but I still think it is the best. Why is it the best? It’s small enough that there is time and places to hang out with authors and readers. It’s big enough that there is always something going on to do, but if you want to just sit down in the ballroom and relax you can do that too. I got to spend time with some of my favorite people like Paige Tyler, Janet Juengling-Snell,  Monette Michaels, Joni Anderson, Janet Rodman, Wendi Zwaduk, Jennifer Sapa, Linda and Mary Ellen Faneuff… There are just too many to name! And this year Tina Holland, my fellow LSB author and local critique group member, came to RAGT for the first time. I think she liked it a lot. Who wouldn’t?

The raffle baskets are awesome! The Science Fiction/Fantasy basket my friend Jessica and I put together was pretty popular. It had the Star Wars quilt I made, the first season of Sherlock on DVD (not specifically fantasy, but Benedict Cumberbatch!!! Need I say more?), a Firefly Monopoly game, and gift cards to both Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Jessica and I both put in a large number of tickets but didn’t win anything. I was disappointed, but as Jessica said, it was a great donation to One Way Farm, and how would we fit any winnings into the car for the drive home? It was already stuffed to the gills.

I did my third fashion show at RAGT. Lori Foster caught us and did an impromptu filming of each model. Fun! Check it out here: https://www.facebook.com/lorifoster/videos/10153648932642966/

And of course Paige and I had to play with Dean and Sam! Most of us had our picture taken with one or more of the hunky cut outs. 🙂

Another super fun thing is the goodie bags. Everyone who registers and comes gets a tote bag full of swag. Pens, mirrors, lip balm, BOOKS, screen cleaning cloths, notebooks and more stuff! More than I can use. Stay tuned for a newsletter going out later this week. I’ll be having a contest to win some of that swag.

And now I need to kick my writing into high gear.  Dusty Wolfe and Isabel Ybarra, prepare to fall in love!

That’s the wrap up of the 12th Annual Reader & Author Get Together. I’m already counting the days until next year!

Once again it has been too long since I made a post. I have not fallen off the end of the earth, I promise!

Life has been a little crazy lately. I was diagnosed with diabetes a few weeks ago, and since then my life has revolved around exercise and learning how to eat. I can’t tell you how much I mourn the loss of eating half a package of cookies at a time. But on the other hand, I’m feeling much better already. I have more energy, more enthusiasm for things, and I’ve already dropped a few pounds. I’m doing fairly well with managing my blood glucose. I started out with my numbers in the 120s to the 170s, and now it is usually in the 90s to 120s. That’s practically normal! I don’t even flinch anymore when I have to press the button to poke my finger.  🙂  Of course, I’m not happy to be diabetic, but I’m glad to have the chance to make changes in my lifestyle. I’ve feeling pretty well these days. Except for work. The day job is just a teensy bit stressful right now. Just a teensy bit. *cough*

Anyway, just wanted to drop a quick line to let you know I’m still alive and kicking, and to give you a heads up that I’ll be sending out a newsletter tonight with a super quick contest. I will introduce the new website (Ta-Da! Isn’t it beautiful?) and gave a giveaway for TWO $10.00 Amazon gift cards. Who can’t use an Amazon gift card, huh? If you’re like me you’ve been buying birthday, shower, wedding, and graduation gifts left and right for the past couple of months. You deserve a gift too!  So if you get my newsletter, check your email tonight. If you don’t get my newsletter, why not? It’s easy to sign up; just look on the right and fill out your info.

Ciao for now, and Happy Reading!

If you are considering going through the process of becoming desensitized to aspirin but are a little uncertain or even nervous about it, let me tell you about my experience with it at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. I am obviously not a health professional, and this is only my story. I know some others are thinking about it and wondering what exactly to expect. This is sort of long and meandering, so you can skip about halfway down to get to what happened during the actual procedure.

First of all, why did I do it? I have AERD, or Aspirin-Exacerbated Respiratory Disease. This is also called Samter’s Triad and Aspirin Triad. It means I have nasal polyps, asthma, and I am allergic or sensitive to aspirin. Sinus infections are a regular event for me. I have had multiple sinus surgeries to remove the polyps, but they come right back within a few months. I have no sense of smell due to severe inflammation and polyps blocking the air’s path to the olfactory nerve. It’s been decades since I took any aspirin or Advil, but the last time I accidentally ingested aspirin (Alka-Seltzer Plus. I didn’t read the label carefully) I ended up in the ER. My chest was so tight and my throat so swollen that I couldn’t get air in or out. Mega scary, and I’ve been very careful since then to only take Tylenol for pain.

I had my last sinus surgery on April 16, 2015. I developed a sinus infection in mid-May. I was put on antibiotics for 3 weeks. In late June the polyps were beginning to return. By the end of July they were back in force. The ENT put me on a very high steroid regimen and recommended Aspirin Desensitization. She explained that I would be carefully fed small amounts of aspirin in increasing doses until I had a reaction. By the end of it I would not be allergic anymore and would take aspirin every day for the rest of my life. The very thought of the process scared me senseless. All I could remember was the horrible sensation of not being able to breathe twenty years ago. She also explained that salicylates, the main item in the aspirin that made me so sick, were also in many other foods and products. Even though I didn’t react to them the way I did to aspirin, their effect may be cumulative and could be adding to the inflammation in my nose and sinuses. If I could be made to tolerate aspirin, I had a good shot at taming the inflammation and keeping the polyps small. After thinking about it, I decided it was worth the risk.

The nearest place to my home in Fargo, North Dakota, USA that would perform the Aspirin Desensitization was the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, USA. It’s about a six hour drive for me. Several friends who live in Rochester offered to put me up so I wouldn’t have to spend money on a lonely hotel room. James and Becky Littlefield, Garret and Gayle Bitker, and Jason and Liz Coltom all offered me a guestroom. I am so lucky to have such wonderful friends! These are all people I know from the SCA, my historical recreation group. I decided to stay with Jason and Liz because I looooove all their beautiful kitties!

In mid-September I went down to Rochester believing I would have the procedure then. My first appointment was the afternoon of Tuesday, September 15 with Dr. John Hagan. I thought Tuesday would be the general assessment and maybe some tests, and then Wednesday and Thursday would be the actual procedure, but it turned out that my polyps were too large. Dr. Hagan wanted them smaller, before the “aspirin challenge”. I guess the larger the polyps the larger the risk. But that is my guess, not a stated fact. So on Wednesday and Thursday I had some tests (breathing tests and blood work) and he wrote prescriptions for prednisone, flovent, singulair and budesonide rinse. Luckily, I’ve met my insurance cap for the year, because the budesonide rinse is nearly $500.00 for a month’s supply! A new date, September 29-30, 2015 was set for the actual desensitization.

The instruction sheet they sent me told me to not eat or drink anything after 11:00pm, and to check in at 7:45. I was to bring food and water, and any games or books I wanted to keep myself occupied with for the 8 to 9 hours I would be there. I arrived at the Desk 15L in the Mayo Building at the Mayo Clinic promptly at 7:30am, with my kindle, knitting, and lunchbox attached to my shoulder. I was a little nervous, to be honest, and being made to wait until nearly 8:30 made me even more nervous. Two nurses led me to a small room and took my vitals, and administered a quick breathing test to establish a baseline. They would do the same thing throughout the day, each time they gave me aspirin. An IV port was put into my arm, just to be on the safe side, so any meds could be instantly administered in the case of a rare severe reaction. All the nurses and techs were deft and professional. I barely felt the IV going in.

The first aspirin came not in a pill, but a nasal spray. I’d never heard of that, but I had one sniff in my right nostril around 8:30. No reaction. Then at 9:00 I had one sniff in each nostril. The nurse, Kelly, said they expected any reaction to be light, and usually it occurred before noon. Probably sneezing and congestion. Rarely, she explained, did anyone have a severe reaction, although the longer I went without a reaction, the more severe it was likely to be. 30 minutes went by with no reaction. She then gave me two sprays per nostril at 9:30. Still no reaction. No reason to worry yet, she assured me cheerily.

Then at 10:30 she gave me three sprays per nostril. About ten minutes later I began sneezing, my nose clogged, and my eyes got scratchy. Yay! A reaction! Hardly anything, really, more like getting a cold. They called Dr. Hagan to come look at me. Everything was going according to plan. The symptoms died down in less than a half-hour. At 11:30 I was finally given aspirin in pill form. 60 mg (which is less than a baby aspirin) in a gelcap-like white capsule. Oh, boy, a little wheezing. Nothing bad. If I were home I would have used my albuterol, but it wasn’t scary. More congestion and sneezing. The doctor came again and listened to my lungs, ordered a hit of albuterol for me, said he was satisfied, and went away again. I asked to go to the bathroom (they escort you down the hall and back, I suppose so you aren’t alone if you suddenly have a bad reaction) and I noticed spots on my face in the mirror. I pointed them out to my nurse escort, and she walked me back to my little room and called the doc again. He came and looked at my face and agreed that yes, I was having hives. Hives apparently is an unusual reaction, but nothing to worry about. I was given Allegra and albuterol and told to sit quietly. There was a break in the action once the reaction was gone, and I was allowed to eat my lunch. At last! I was pretty hungry after not eating for 14 hours.

At 1:00 we repeated the 60mg capsule of aspirin. No reaction. At 2:45 or so they wrapped the IV port in gauze to keep it from getting snagged, and I was released from Mayo. Day One of the Aspirin Desensitization was complete, and had gone as expected. I drove back to my friends’ house. Jason, Liz and I went out to supper that night and had a great time walking around the mall in Rochester. I felt fine.

The next day I returned to the little room at Mayo and the nurse, this time Michelle, took my vitals and gave me the usual air flow test. At 8:30 she gave me a capsule of 150mg of aspirin. That is about half the amount in one adult aspirin. We waited three hours. No reaction at all. At 11:00 I was allowed to eat the lunch I brought. At 12:30, she gave me a 325mg aspirin. That is the amount of a regular adult aspirin. I still had no reaction. Dr. Hagan came in to talk with me. The aspirin challenge went exactly as it should have, with me having a mild reaction to aspirin at around 60mg, and then no more reactions even at a higher dose. He has put me on 650mg of aspirin twice a day for life. That is two regular adult aspirin in the morning, and two at night. I am on the Singulair for another month. He wants me to continue with the budesonide rinses twice a day. I plan to do that for as long as I can afford them. We’ll see what happens when January comes around and I’m starting all over with my insurance. 🙂 And in January I need to travel back to the Mayo for a follow up. Possibly he’ll reduce me to 325mg of aspirin a day at that point. If I miss taking the aspirin for 2 consecutive days I’ll need to completely stop taking aspirin and come back for another desensitization procedure.

That was only yesterday and this afternoon I was able to smell the laundry detergent in the grocery store. The scent wasn’t sharp or clear, but it was definitely there. I was seriously nervous about going through the Aspirin Desensitization, but it turned out to be very easy. If you are like me and have suffered for years with nasal polyps, sinus infections, asthma, and aspirin sensitivity, maybe this aspirin desensitization could help you. It’s only been a day, so I can’t speak for the long term, but right now I’m feeling hopeful. And I haven’t felt that way about my sinuses in decades.

Feel free to leave a question in the comments, or share your own experiences. Knowledge is power, and I would have liked to know what to expect before I did this.