fool for the city

I want to thank all who left comments and emails; both Bob and I were really touched. This has been one of the weirdest weeks, not in the immediate sense of a hospital right in our faces, but those days are coming.  For now, I'm just trying to get back into the swing, keeping distracted by the work.  The work...  What a weird November!  I haven't felt this out of whack for NaNo since we moved house in 2008.  I'm writing, but it's disjointed and sporadic.  Tempered with football games and a few teary moments, but for today, we have a plan and here's the gist: Bob's having surgery sometime after Thanksgiving, either the following week or the next, up in San Francisco.  At the University of California San Francisco Medical Center, Bob's goiter will become history!  Why so far away?  Well, that goiter, while not invading his chest, has a lengthy grasp on his windpipe.  Our Silicon Valley doc recommended an equally able chap forty-five minutes north, and we'll meet him next Tuesday afternoon.  While Bob's condition isn't life-threatening, it's not feasible for this to continue.  This goiter has run its course, its reign nearly over!

I'm pleased that things are moving along, but I won't lie; that we're heading to the city is daunting.  But only in the travel, winding up freeways, hopefully not getting lost.  Silicon Valley is pretty extensive, incorporating several cities, San Jose the biggest.  Over 1.5 million call the South Bay their home, around 800,000 in San Francisco.  But driving around those two areas is like night and day, and I'm not even bringing San Francisco's hills into it.  Silicon Valley is vast but easy to navigate, or maybe it's that I know it.  It's my backyard and San Francisco is some gaudy playground we visit a few times a year.  But within weeks we'll know one area intimately.  And then, hopefully, we'll never visit UCSF again.

That's up in the air not to do with Bob's goiter, but my dad.  He might be a candidate for bone cancer treatment at that facility, which we'll learn in the new year.

This year, oi!  Is it over yet?  By the end of the year, Bob's goiter will be dust and I'll be done with NaNo; I hope I'll be done with NaNo.  Penny Angel has been coming along; I've lost myself in all of Penny and Mike's troubles, easier than considering reality.  For God And Country has languished, due to time and brain constraints.  I can't focus, can't breath deeply enough to haul two stories outta my head at once.  There was a reason why in 2007 I said I'd never again write concurrently.  Four years later, it's slapping my face.

Because it's hard enough pulling one novel out at a time.  Trying a second simultaneously is like yanking my guts out through my nose.  Or Bob's goiter, take your pick.  The Silicon Valley doctor took a look at the cat scan and said, 'Well Bob, that's quite a goiter you have there.'  Yup, that's right.  It's pressing on his trachea and screwing with my gray matter.  And my heart; at times this week I have felt wrung out.  We all have a threshold and when it's crossed, at least for me, I turn to goo.  Squishy and running off the edges of the table, hoping someone will sop me up before I get too fragmented.  Too oozy to write, think, feed the hummingbirds.  I need to fill the feeder today, wash some towels, have to run to the Silicon Valley doc and pick up a CD with the cat scan results on it to take with us on Tuesday.  Need to collect Bob's car that's been in the garage for two days.  Need to vacuum, but Jay can do that.  She and Bud have been terrific through this, cooking and cleaning and letting their parents spill all over the place.  Then they scoop us up, placing onto the sofa, finding a live football game or even a repeat from last weekend.  Raiders and Chargers last night live in San Diego, the Packers and San Diego on Wednesday night from Sunday.  Chargers lost both games, and I totally sympathize.  They're probably feeling a lot like me, scratching their heads and going, 'What the hey?'

That's how I'm feeling.  But at least we have a plan, another competent doctor in the mix, and the knowledge this will pass.  Like a bad football season or a rough month of NaNo, this too will all pass...