Life... sometimes gets in the way

Hello Readers!

I know it's been an awfully long time since some of you heard from me. I've just started getting distress emails from some of you, wondering if I'm still writing and when the next book in your favorite series is coming out.

Unfortunately, life got in the way for my family starting last October. It has been a really rough year for us. My honey became extremely ill with a sickness that no one could figure out. It affected the rate of breathing and oxygen saturation, and the only thing I could do was sit, watch, worry, and make sure Honey didn't pull off the supplemental oxygen at night. I found it impossible to sleep for long periods of time, too afraid I'd wake up and Honey would be gone. The doctors didn't know why, but even on supplemental oxygen it wasn't fixing the problem and the levels were in such a dangerous category that simply going to the bathroom was too much for Honey to do alone and there was a good chance of organ damage and/or failure starting.

We spent a lot of time at the doctor's office and the hospital, having procedure after procedure run with all results coming back normal. During one of the heart procedures, they finally put on something to monitor the CO2 level instead of just the oxygen level. The CO2 was extremely high. The nurses expressed a little worry over it, but not a whole lot. They did the procedure, Honey's heart was fine, and the doctor sent us on our way telling us to work on weight loss and there was nothing more they could do for us.

Luckily, our regular doctor would not give up. She said Honey was the same weight for the last several years, so it couldn't be the weight causing the problem and she continued searching for someone to help us. By chance, we ended up getting together with a pulmonologist who is semi-retired and doesn't take new patients, but when he heard about it, he agreed to take us on. When we saw him and talked about things, I remembered back to that CO2 level being so high and no one ever doing or saying anything more about it. A bulb went off over the doc's head and he immediately sent us for a different blood test to check the arterial gasses in Honey's blood. When the results came back, the doctor was sure he had the right diagnosis.

It's a very rare disease with only about 1000 cases worldwide. Apparently, Honey's heart and lungs and everything else work great. It is a problem in the brain where the sensor doesn't tell the body to breathe in enough oxygen or push out the carbon dioxide, something that is effortless for the rest of us. Honey has probably had this since birth, but it had reached the critical stage where the blood was so full of CO2 that there wasn't room for any O2, which is also the reason the supplemental oxygen didn't really help. Due to other issues, we've had to get some surgeries and a few things taken care of before starting treatment, but we are finally in the home stretch! There is no longer danger of Honey's organs shutting down anytime soon and I am finally getting back to work. My migraines have been in overdrive this entire time, which isn't surprising, but I'm finally getting back into a good routine where I can sleep at night and so I've also been able to start getting my writing routine back to what it was before.

So, if you are wondering whether I'm going to finish the Love Under Fire Series and give Carlos his romance, if you are wondering what the heck is going on with the Agents in Love and why book 4 never came out this year, if you are eagerly watching for that next McCallister's Paradise book... I have to apologize. Everything is pushed back by nearly a year now, but I will be getting to them all eventually. I also started a new series that is written in first person, something I never thought I would do. I actually love it and it has made me excited about writing again, even with everything going on in my personal life.

I will be working on getting back up to speed, having more books come out on a regular schedule, and also stay in better contact with everyone through this blog, newsletters, Facebook, etc. I know I've been absent for a while. I just really couldn't deal with everything and I was hanging on by a thread mentally, hoping it would all work out but almost to my breaking point. Thankfully, my family has been super blessed in order to have found that doctor and have him take the case, and we are just grateful that our lives can get back on track.

Again, I apologize for the long break between books. I hope you'll be patient and stick around while I play catch-up and work on getting you the next installment in whatever series you've been waiting for.

My eternal gratitude for your continued love of my books. I do this for myself because I love writing, but it thrills me that you are all out there reading and anxiously waiting for the next one! I love writing, but you all give me a reason to continue.