It took forever and a day, but I finally have insurance approval for major surgery to repair my stomach. Yes, that noise you just heard was a flare of brass instruments, and maybe even a mobile drummer, marching down the street, New Orleans-style.
Quick refresher: I have hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, and it brought friends, of note today, a massive hiatal hernia, gastroparesis (paralysis of the stomach), and esophageal ulcers. The effect on my digestive system and lungs has been devastating.
I was first told that I needed surgery when I was admitted to the hospital last September. Since then, I have been hospitalized for the exact same set of problems four more times. There were always other things insurance wanted me to try first, none of which worked, before giving the go-ahead.
I was on the verge of throwing a goat into a volcano as a sacrifice when finally, I got a call from the surgeon’s office, and my insurance has approved the procedure! No goats had to be harmed for this. Maybe they knew I was thinking about the goat, and they like goats, so they said, “We better hurry up before poor Nonna the goat ends up in Etna.”
My surgery will be on August 19th. It is a pretty life-altering procedure, but I’ll finally, eventually, be able to eat a lot of the foods I’ve had to cut out, leaving me with an extremely bland and limited diet. The recovery is long, about 2-3 months, but I expect to be back spreading prepper sunshine in a week or two. My surgeon is taking some additional steps because hEDS makes my soft tissues quite delicate, and we want to make sure the stitches stay where they’re supposed to.
New book: I Hope the Apocalypse Has Comfortable Seating
I’ve been pretty quiet lately because I was working on a couple of books at once. The Tower is almost finished, and my goal is to get it up on Amazon before my surgery.
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But, drumroll! (Where is that drummer when I actually need drumming?) The other project I’ve been working on is complete!
This is a PDF book called I Hope the Apocalypse Has Comfortable Seating: What I’ve Learned About Prepping with Disability, Chronic Illness, and Aging.
This is a book that I’ve been thinking about for a while as my life has changed dramatically. Slowing down happens to all of us eventually. For some, it comes from getting a little bit older every day. For others, disability or chronic illness steps in and makes life challenging sooner than expected.
The point is, we have to adapt our emergency plans for this. We live in a world where our actions affect others, and the people who love us want us to survive whatever danger comes our way. Obviously, a long-term apocalypse would leave us more vulnerable than most, but quite a few old, sick, and/or disabled people will survive a lot longer than a week. We don’t want our lack of planning for our cantankerous bodies to put the folks we love at risk.
Note: Right now, I have no intention of making this book available in paperback. It could be considered offensive to laugh in the face of things that make us gimpy, and I think everything is better when greeted with a sense of humor. So this is it. Ebook or no book.
The OP Summer Fundraiser
I decided to pair this launch with The OP Summer Fundraiser. When you go in to buy the book, you can name your price. If times are tight for you, you can get it for as little as $3. If you want to donate more to The OP, just put that amount in when you buy the book.
The Organic Prepper is completely reader-funded now. There are no display ads, no big corporate backing, and no algorithm fairy sprinkling money on the porch. The site keeps going because readers decide it is worth keeping.
So if my work has helped you, encouraged you, made you think, or kept you company over the years, this is a wonderful way to support it.
And, on a personal note, even with insurance covering the majority of the surgery, the costs around it are going to add up: special foods, parking, medications, recovery supplies, and all the little expenses that gather like a gaggle of hungry goblins around a medical event.
I could really use your help.
Go here to support The Organic Prepper website.
You can also become a member of my Patreon account for $5 a month if you want to add some ongoing support for the work done here. Patreon members get personal letters, ad-free articles, behind-the-scenes notes, and early fiction previews from the Pink Recliner Literary Industrial Complex.
Thanks for stopping by!
Love,
Daisy
One Response
Hi, Daisy. I hope that the surgery goes well.
The apocalypse is one of the few spectacles in which I’d prefer the balcony to the loge. And the background music would have to be apocalypso.