Catching Idle Butterflies

Whew! & Amoebified Brain

About 12-15 years ago, my mom discovered she had bladder cancer. Luckily it was a low-grade cancer, so all they had to do was go in with a scope and freeze it out, and put her on a mild chemo drug for a few weeks.

It came back a few more times, but nothing life-threatening.

For the last month or so, Mom suffered from a bladder infection. Concerned that perhaps it wasn’t an infection, but a return of her cancer, they took a CAT scan. The doctors found what looked like a blockage in one of her kidneys. This was a concern because she has no function in one kidney and only 15% in the other. Luckily, through the marvels of human biology, a person can live quite healthy with only 10% of a single kidney.

Today, my mom had a surgical procedure where the doctor went in and took X-Rays from inside to get a closer look at her kidneys and bladder.

She came out clean, both her bladder and kidney look good.

My mom told the doctor to call me with the results, and I in turn called my step-dad, Tom. He sounded so relieved I thought he would pass out.

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Speaking of diseases, I found out yesterday I suffer from one. It has no name that I know of, so I named it myself: Amoebified Brain.

For some reason yesterday I had the brainpower of an amoeba. I forgot things I did a week ago, important things, I had a difficult time working commands in my software programs that usually come as second nature; all-in-all I walked around as if my head was filled with air, and in the middle of my skull sat a single brain cell, lost and uncertain.

I figured it out why at about 10pm last night. I made my goal and wrote a total of 50,462 words for my NaNo.

In four days I wrote about 15,000 words. How in the world did I manage that?

See my prize:

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Comparing this year’s experience with last year’s, I found I did much better. Though my total word count is about the same, last year I struggled hard at the end. Thinking on it (my single brain cell split last night, so now I have two), I think it’s due to the stories. Though I like my first NaNo better as far as storyline, characterization and overall writing, this one for some reason swallowed me up. I think I cared less this year about the structure, continuity, and the like this year, and let my creativity and fingers fly. Because of that, this one will need a lot more editing once it’s finished. Oy, it’s terrible!

Will I finish this one, or let it sit unfinished like my first NaNo? I have no idea. I do plan on writing more on it until the end of the month at least, even though I did put in for my final word count last night. I could have waited and raised my final count up some, but I figured why? I made the goal of 50k, and I had no interest in showing off my typing abilities by having a word count of 60k or more. Plus, my brain is so Amoebified, I wasn’t certain if I had the intelligence to know when November 30th would roll around, pass me by, and end up missing the deadline.