Priorities

I've spent the past few days looking at the photos so many of my author friends have been posting on Facebook from Left Coast Crime, one of the major conferences for mystery writers, which this year was held in gorgeous Vancouver, BC.

I did not go. I am eaten up with envy, and maybe a little grief. I did not sign up to go this year because I'm afraid to travel, especially to such a distant location, because of my husband's iffy health. He has suffered a host of problems over the last decade, and I've had to cancel out of so many things at the last minute that I've become gun-shy. I keep thinking I shouldn't anticipate trouble, but just go ahead and sign up for everything I want to do and let the chips fall where they may. However, once you've had to abort a couple of non-refundable several-hundred-dollar conferences you tend to lose confidence in the future.

As it turned out, if I had made arrangements to go to Vancouver this year, I would indeed have had to cancel at the last minute. Don's eyes are going bad. On March 21, his one good eye went all fuzzy and a trip to the eye doctor resulted in emergency eye surgery the next day. Since the surgery, he has not been able to see clearly out of the operated-upon eye, which means he can't drive or read. Things were getting worse instead of better, and of course the surgeon is on vacation. So we called his office and they referred us to another glaucoma specialist who did some voodoo and told us that if things don't improve soon he'll have to have another operation. He had an appointment with the surgeon today (Wednesday), and we did indeed have to drive up to Phoenix for another emergency surgery. Finally got home about suppertime and we're now sitting in the living room staring at the walls, one of us sore and the other tired out. Thursday morning we'll be having a post op exam, and Friday the first surgeon will be back from vacation and we get to see him.

I can't think beyond that. I hope his eye problems will be over, and I expect they will at least be improved. But it's hard not to worry about the worst-case scenario. What if he loses his independence? The very idea kills my heart. Not to mention any idea of a writing career.

Don and I have only one another out here in the wilds of Arizona. We have friends, of course, but no relatives we'd feel comfortable taking advantage of. Don needs me, and I'd do anything for him. So my priority is always him, which means that any thoughts of doing what is necessary to promote my writing tend to go by the wayside. Time to learn effective ways of online promotion. Any suggestions?