Forum: Author Hangout

It certainly doesn't help for me to have a less than totally understood fatigue syndrome, which turns out to be closer to sleep disturbance than, as had been suspected, depression. My writing, however, has been helping me with various emotional issues.

I have a work in progress, "Wounded Warriors of the Sexual Revolution", which has a major theme of healing sexual problems, as well as using sexuality for healing. While I'm deep in scientific medicine, I also do consider life forces and shamanic healing. The prior story, "Green Berets for the Sexual Revolution" also has a chronically ill character.

In these, I try to educate. For example, I have had a problem with erectile dysfunction, which turned out to be not due to the usual problems, but a pre-diabetic state. Had that been diagnosed much earlier, my life would have been much better. It interacted with my then-wife developing chronic illnesses, the treatment of which interfered with oral contraceptives. Condoms are not helpful with ED. At the time, it was difficult to get a vasectomy in Virginia -- I should have gone to DC.

I also warn that Viagra and related drugs (5-phosphodiesterase inhibitors), while fine for some people, could easily kill someone on my cardiac drugs. It scares me when I see fiction involving slipping someone, unaware, the "blue pill".

Crumbly Writer, I'm on my 2nd pacemaker, the first having worn out and needed replacement. You might be amused by the circumstances. For a number of years, I was a research patient/volunteer in the cardiology unit at NIH Clinical Center. Every so often, I went in for a week of inpatient studies, with the latest diagnostics.

One night, I awakened, at first frightened as I could see little but bright orange, as if surrounded by fire. As I came out of sleep, I realized that it was the long red hair of the night nurse. Her lovely voice reached my ears: "I want you...", which sounded interesting.

Alas, what she was saying was "I want you to wake up and stay awake until a cardiologist gets here. Your heart is stopping for 15 seconds at a time, only during sleep." She did, however, stay with me for charming conversation until the cardiologist got there, and didn't seem to mind that her skirt was riding higher and higher. At a research hospital, you may be the only patient for that nurse.

I had a variant of Sick Sinus Syndrome. The Class I recommendation is to implant a bradycardia pacemaker for sinus pauses > 3 seconds.

My pacemaker battery is due for replacement in an estimated 2.5-3.5 years.

You guys are making me fill healthy. I only have failing eyesight, lower back and knee problems.

I just had a third spinal laminectomy to help ease the pain caused by spinal stenosis. It just so happens that when I went into the hospital for the surgery according to the outline of my first story "Mayhem in a Pill," I was just about to begin a chapter detailing some physical torturing, I really didn't want describe torture while laying on a hospital bed and waiting for not only the surgery but the week or so of physical therapy.

I am home and 80 percent of the pain is gone so I can actually concentrate again. So I'm still having trouble getting back to writing about pulling out toenails one by one, so I switched chapters and started a third chapter in a row focusing in on young Tim and his fight toward football fame. It doesn't hurt the story in anyway and totally helps my state of mind.

So yeah, I'd say yes my health has impacted my story.

How much does your health or that of others near you impact your writing (beyond not being able to write)?

I can't remember the story or the author, but apparently the Author went through a particularly brutal breakup/divorce. That resulted in some serious abuse & pain & suffering for his main character that wasn't part of the original plot line.

Thankfully I'm relatively healthy, even though how long it stays that way is questionable as long as I don't start living healthier... ^^

My mood does influence my writing, however. Years ago I worked on a story, and when my personal life went bad I stopped writing on it. Otherwise I would have killed off all characters slowly and painfully. My mind still links this story to the bad times, so my previous attempts to restart writing failed miserably. I'll get there, however. :)