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There is nothing like a cancer scare to make all the other problems in the world look small. My surgeon just called to say that all fifteen of my lymph nodes were clean as whistles and the very tiny primary cancer site is really responsive to radiation. Furthermore, he thinks he can go in and scrape out more of the tonsil tissue, thus reducing to a minimum the amount of radiation therapy I'll need.
YAHOO!
Today I woke up with my husband's arms around me. I felt wrapped in the love of friends and family in three time zones..
Before I went into surgery I took the risk of asking the anesthesiologist to recite three positive statements as I went into and out of my general anasthetic. They were: My surgery will go well and my body will begin to heal immediately. My surgeon will find all the carcinomas and extract them cleanly. When I wake up I will feel happy and be able to speak, swallow, laugh and go to the bathroom. (This last revealing my true inner peasant.)
I don't know what did it but I came out of surgery feeling better than I have in ages. I decided I'd like to go home and enjoy the company of my family. My doctor said that would be fine. Within hours I was lying on my couch, getting foot rubs from my friend Umi and then Julianna while Jane massaged my temples and told me how wonderful I was. John built a fire, my sister and brother made me laugh, my daughter sparkled as always, and I felt my life couldn't be more complete than that. My surgeon called and checked on me, and told me, incidentally, that he was reading DIANA LIVELY and really enjoying it. I think that might have been when I asked him to marry me. As my sister, the nurse, said, "Are you sure he's a real surgeon? He's way too nice."
I keep wondering if I might be dreaming, since I feel no worse today than if I had a minor sore throat. Better yet, my usual state of guilt about the world and what I should be doing to improve it has lifted to allow me to simply be. My new religion is this: we can ask for good wishes to be sent, and the healing energy of love is even better than the superbly miraculous state of modern pharmaceuticals. For all of you out there who've emailed and prayed and sent me smoothie recipes and promised to kiss my neck, bless you. There is a god and s/he lives in the quantum mechanics of hope and grace winging their way towards those we love.
The hardback comes out in June. Money back guarantee. If you aren't perfectly happy, send your book to me and I will write you a check. Scout's honor. (Even though I flunked Girl Scouts, I'm still your girl.)
Here's the cover: to which I am indebted to the talented design team at Atria, a.k.a. a beautiful woman named Jeanne. As for the title, which was the brainchild of my editor, Emily Bestler, it's perfect, which you will discover once you've inhaled the novel..
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Books are born in strange places. This one was conceived in the front seat of a car.
No, not that kind of conception.
My friend Julianna was driving. Our daughters were chatting in the back seat.
I was talking about an article I’d written for McCall’s about two young girls in Arizona whose parents had died within months of each other. “Did you know that in some states, if there isn’t a will, the kids can be sent to foster care?”
The girls in my story weren’t so unfortunate.Download Who will take my daughters Their mother had named her best friends, another pair of sisters, as the children’s guardians. ”Just make sure you chose someone to take over if something happens to you.”
From there we talked about difficult it would be to chose which couple among one’s siblings and friends would best be suited for the job. Where did one couple’s permissiveness slide into overindulgence, another’s consistency into unbearable strictness? The idea of dying was hard enough, but figuring out which couple would most love your kids in your absence? Impossible.
We paused in our conversation just long enough for my brain to settle on yet another catastrophic possibility. “You know what would be worse?” I asked. “What if I died and John (my husband) married someone awful? I’d have no control at all!”
Another pause. “Unless,” I continued. “I could get him to agree that if he remarried, my sisters and friends would check out the bride. Make sure she wasn’t some kind of wicked stepmother.”
And thus was hatched the idea of EVERYONE SHE LOVED, a novel that explores the faith one woman placed in her dearest friends, the care she took to protect her family, and the many ways in which romantic entanglements will confound and confuse even the most determined of planners.
Now, here is the funny thing. Really funny, except, as my friend Jane Mcpherson pointed out hypochondria is supposed to be funny.
About a month ago I noticed a bump on the right side of my neck. I googled bumps on necks. Found that my bump seemed to imitate a perfectly harmless fatty lipoma. Didn't freak out. Eventually went to my doctor to figure it out. He put me on antibiotics to see if it was an infection. "Come back in three or four weeks. And let us know if it gets any worse.
I put off thinking about it much until I was getting ready to leave for Christmas in New Hampshire. Packing for me is very much like that Jack Nicholson scene in AS GOOD AS IT GETS. I lay everything in neat lines on my bed and obsess over what I might be forgetting. I also obsess about dying, since I'm blessed with a fear of flying, based on some weird inside out inversion of my childhood. My father was a fighter pilot and flew in a precision flying team that was the precursor to the Blue Angels. I never thought a bit about it until I had children and then I started to feel I HAD to control the plane. Keeping it in the air was difficult, let me tell you. Anyhow, the panic had a domino effect. I looked at my neck again and called my doctor's office (fighting yet another phobia, dialing a number to talk to a stranger who I am perfectly sure will be greatly inconvenienced by having to talk to me.) My doc fit me in, looked at the lump and said "hmmm."
I said, "I'm kind of flipping."
"Let's get you looked at next week," he said, since it was Friday morning.
"I won't be here next week!" I cried.
Through the first of many bureaucratic miracles, my doc got me into see an Ear, Nose and Throat doctor that very day. That doctor stuck a tube in my nose and a small needle in my lump, for which I was obsequiously grateful. Now that I was revved up with the end-of-days terror, I wanted to know as soon as possible what this hideous thing was.
I waited for the results through Christmas eve, Christmas, and then the weekend that followed. Got a call on my way back home (on the second death-defying leg of the journey). The doctor said the fluid looked fine. "But let's schedule a CT scan." That procedure was followed in quick succession by another biopsy, this time guided by ultrasound. I waited three days for the results and then a phone call from my new doctor. "I have bad news," he said. "The cells are definitely malignant."
Since then I've had a PET scan and am scheduled for surgery today. They will remove the lump, which is now called a "mass" and biopsy the area around the base of my tongue which they suspect is the primary site of the mass. I've just had my last sip of water at midnight and tomorrow I go to the hospital for a few days. I hear I might not be able to speak. Far worse, I may not be able to eat!
Here's the good part. I won't die, I just won't. But I will be scared to death of dying despite my confidence that you don't fear plane crashes simply for no reason. One last bit of irony, if you're up for such things? The first work I ever published was a piece about my sisters and I, and detailed my family's colorful past with carcinomas. Download Curran Sisters Magazine Articles
Despite such a past, I'm truly shocked to be attacked by cells tinier than minnows' eggs and (I'm sure) even less organized than the Democratic party. (Of which I am a faithful and perfectly characteristic member.) Until next post, in which I promise to detail the most embarrassing and awful parts of having to wear one of those butt-flashing robes, I remain, yours in the life-imitates-art world of head and neck surgery and the perfectly lovely life of the mind.
Brenda Janowitz is a lawyer who also writes novels. To which I must ask, how in the world do you manage both? The cocktail theme is pretty dang cute, I think, as are the covers to these legal mysteries.
By the way, if you'd like to enter a contest to win either of Brenda's books, please send me your email through the contact me button and whom ever it is that gets drawn will get a free fun read.
I usually post the amazon link to books but I beg of you, please try and get this at your local bookstore. These lovely meccas may soon become extinct if we don't shop at them. So Go, Go, Go!
Here is my interview with Brenda:
If I had to offer two bumper sticker explanations for my novel, they’d be “Appearances are deceiving” and “Mean people suck.” Tell me what your slogans would be, and why.
“Be careful what you wish for” would have to be one, since Brooke thinks that everything is going to be great when she lands the biggest case of her career. She’s in for a real shock when she learns that her adversary in court will be her perfect fiancé, Jack….
The other slogan would have to be “don’t get drunk at your bachelorette party.” Okay, so, I know that that’s not a real slogan, but trust me, once you read the book, you’ll understand….
Your two favorite movies over the past twelve months and why?
I absolutely love movies, so this is such a hard one for me! How do you narrow this down?! I recently saw ROLE MODELS and thought it was absolutely hilarious. Paul Rudd is just so incredibly dreamy, and he’s also hysterical. (Paul, if you’re reading this: call me!)
BE KIND, REWIND was another one that I loved. (If you don’t laugh out loud when Jack Black sings the GHOSTBUSTERS theme, then you’re just not human.) It was a comedy with a ton of heart, and Jack Black just always puts a huge smile on my face. (Jack, if you’re reading this, call me!)
What was the one thing you learned in getting your book published that you were really surprised to find out?
That writing the book is the easy part! I had no idea that once I finished writing my book, that the real work would then begin. As you’re writing your first novel, you tend to think that that’s the hard part—that once you finish, fame and riches await.
In reality, it’s a long road to getting your grand opus published, and there’s a lot of blood, sweat, and tears involved with getting it onto book shelves and then marketing it.
Presumably, fame and riches will be there at some point, but it’s a hard long road to get there!
If you had to pick one and only one condition (beyond computer or pen and paper) that would allow you to write would it be: a. solitude b. caffiene c. sleep d. food e. sex or f. ______.
Tough one! All of those help, in different ways, but ultimately, it depends on the day for me.
The ideal situation would be to write in solitude, with a big cup of joe next to me, after a good night’s sleep after a crazy evening of…. great food. What did you think I was going to say?!
Do you have a favorite genre? If so, who are your three favorite writers? If not, who are your three favorite writers and how have they influenced your work?
I love to read, and I’ll read pretty much anything I can get my hands on. My favorite genre is commercial women’s fiction, but I do like to mix things up.
That having been said, I just can’t get enough of Marian Keyes, Emily Giffin and Laura Dave. I love the way they can all tell an engrossing story, while writing in beautiful prose.
What a wonderful title for a novel! It is equally descriptive for my state of mind. I've been trying hard to concentrate and get work done and instead I find myself hopping from one task to another, never completing any one thing and simply making messes all over the house. The taxes? Right. Oh, wait, Flexible Spending reimbursements, that's what I really need to do. But that gets me looking at my VISA bill and then I realize I really might need to look and see if refinancing rates have come down enough to justify applying for a new mortgage. But wait! There's more! The dog wants to go out, the phone is ringing, the Christmas cards from 1988 still haven't been answered and dang it if the laundry in the washing machine doesn't smell like sour milk after having been left there for three days. Oops, Nothing a little white vinegar can't cure. Except, of course, I'm out. Time to run to the grocery. What else do I need? Wow, this fridge is a mess and must be cleaned immediately.
You'd think with all that movement, I might at least be losing weight. But no. Instead, I've gained a couple of facial tics. So, Melissa Clark, please accept my apologies for being so late in blogging you. It's been a ragged month and I've turned to butter running around a tree. True story. And by the way, we have the same taste in books. CROSSING TO SAFETY, one of my hugely favorite books ever.
Melissa Clark, creator of that wonderful cartoon series, BRACEFACE, has written her first novel. SWIMMING UPSTREAM, SLOWLY is such a marvelous title for a book and her premise is both funny and slightly horrifying. I’ve always maintained that the best writers are those who can convince you to believe the unbelievable. From the readers’ comments on Amazon, Ms. Clark has done exactly that. Her story? A single woman is incredulous when her doctor informs her she’s pregnant. Why? It’s been two years since she’s had sex.
Lazy sperm do, it appears, exist, at least in the annals of scientific improbability, at least in the suspended world of fiction. And so unscrupulous researchers, aiming to make a name on their patients’ predicaments. To say nothing of all those people who 1) don’t believe her when she says she hasn’t had sex in two years and 2) all those people who find two years without sex an even more impossible feat than stowaway spermatazoa.
Here are some reviews:
Here are the Amazon and Barnes & Noble links, but if you can, please go to your closest bookstore and buy it because bookstores are in deep trouble, along with Wall Street, the car companies and Madoff's clients, except you can bet not one of their proprietors owns a jet.
Oh, and one other thing. SWIMMING UPSTREAM, SLOWLY has been selected as a Target breakout book. That's HUGE. Go Melissa!
Here's our interview:
1. If I had to offer two bumper sticker explanations for my novel,
they'd be "Appearances are deceiving" and "Mean people suck." Tell
me what your slogans would be, and why.
"Be Careful Who You Sleep WIth"
"Lazy Sperm"
2. Your two favorite movies over the past twelve months and why?
I loved "Diving Bell and Butterfly" and "Persepolis." Were those
within 12 months? "Diving Bell..." was just so inspiring and human
and tragic, and "Persepolis" was so creative. A great story told in a
fun medium.
3. What was the one thing you learned in getting your book
published that you were really surprised to find out?
The day my book came out I was expecting bells and whistles from the
publishing company. Instead I got crickets. (But bells and whistles
from friends and family, for sure!)
4. If you had to pick one and only one condition (beyond computer
or pen and paper) that would allow you to write would it be: a.
solitude b. caffiene c. sleep d. food e. sex or f. ______.
Lack of sex inspired the first novel, so I'd have to say without
solitude - as much as I grapple with it - I would never write anything.
5. Do you have a favorite genre? If so, who are your three
favorite writers? If not, who are your three favorite writers and how
have they influenced your work?
This is a hard one as the names and novels change often. In college,
I devoured everything Margaret Atwood wrote. I was obsessed with and
inspired by her. (I had the chance to meet her in graduate school,
but that's another story) Sylvia Plath's journals are just so perfect
at describing the excitement and anxiety around becoming a writer. An
author named Jim Harrison wrote one of my favorite books "Dalva" as
well as a beautiful short story collection, "The Woman Lit By
Fireflies".
