After my last blog (link here if you missed it), I thought I owed it to everyone to give an update. It’s a little challenging as, even though cancer has entered my life through my children, it’s not my story to tell. At least not from the center. I can share how it’s affecting me though, as that is my story.
Upon entering Canada after my flight from Vegas, I realized, in all the hubbub, that I’d forgotten about ArriveCan. For the uninitiated, ArriveCan is an app the Canadian government introduced to gather Covid information from travellers before they enter the country, in an attempt to make it easier and streamlined.
Oops.
As everyone on the plane passed me by, I struggled to download the app, and it didn't help that I'd forgotten my apple password. At the same time my family WhatsApp group was lighting up. After what felt like a really long wait, the diagnosis for my soon-to-be daughter-in-law had been confirmed. She has osteosarcoma.
I’d rather not relive the emotional stress of that travel day, so I’ll jump ahead to now.
Our brave kids on their engagement day.
We’ve had our tears and faced our fears and now we’re all in a “Let’s do this” mode. I’m so proud of Jordan and Chelsea, how strong they’re being together, facing a tremendous hardship even before they’ve had a chance to really start their lives together.
She is my son's love. And I love her like the daughter-in-love that she is.
This experience has bonded them and us together.
It’s their dream to start a family together one day, so they’re holding off on chemo to get the treatment they need to give them a better chance of making that happen. Chemo will begin sometime around Easter. I’ll give updates on how that progresses, but for now, we have a WEDDING to focus on, less than a month away. More on that to come as well.
So many emotions!
As part of the writing community, I’ve become Facebook friends with many authors I’ve never met in real life. A couple of years ago, author EC Stilson posted that she had cancer. Since then she’s been sharing her journey on-line, writing with an engaging style that shows both the challenges she faces and the hope she possesses, prose so delightful and insightful that a publisher has signed her up to publish her memoir.
I never knew at the time, how her posts about her life would become so personal for me. Even in the midst of pain, there is joy.
You can find her on Facebook as Elisa Beth Magagna. I highly recommend you do. https://www.facebook.com/ecwrites
Her book isn’t available yet, but I’ll let you know when it is.
In book news I’m working on edits for Murder at the Circus and writing the first draft of Murder at the Boxing Match. I’ll post more on that when I have a cover ready.
Amazon has put Death at the Tavern, the first Higgins & Hawke mystery on sale for 1.99 in the US and CA stores for a limited time, so if you’ve been waiting to jump into Haley Higgins’s story, now’s a good time.
And in Haley Higgins news, I’ve decided she’s going to return to Ginger Gold’s world in 1927-28 for a few more books, so stay tuned for more news about that in the near future.
Thanks for checking in, my friends. I hope all is well with you and yours.