Big Foot Barb by Barbara Quinn

In the midst of an intense weekend of pitching my latest novel, I looked in the mirror and saw a bright red rash spreading across my nose. I’m an allergic type so this was not unusual. Then the rash grew, and grew, and measles-like spots started appearing, first on my chest, then my arms, my back, and stomach. And my poor feet began to ache, especially my left one. I thought I’d been walking too much. No shoes were comfortable. I looked at my ankles. They were filled with fluid. Same for my hands. By the next day all my joints were stiff and filled with fluid and I was bright red and spotted everywhere. I soldiered on through the conference. There was a lot of pollen in NYC and I thought perhaps I was having a particularly bad case of pollen sensitivity.

Thank heavens for makeup and long sleeves. I covered up the red face and got some Cortaid cream to stem the itching. And I downed benadryl. Since my adrenaline was pumping, the usual antihistamine fog was not that bad, though it was definitely there. That swollen left foot really ached across the top.

Once the conference finished and I headed home, whatever had moved into my system took up even more space. My head throbbed and a fever rose. I couldn’t go down stairs since my ankles could not bend. I started dropping things because my fingers couldn’t hold onto them. Off I went to the doctor. I spent time at the hospital having blood drawn, urine sampled. One guess is that I had a bout of Fifth’s Disease which is a viral disease that crops up most often in childhood.

After a few more miserable days, the redness and symptoms subsided. When my feet began working properly again I was relieved. I gained a real appreciation for something I’ve always taken for granted: the simple act of going down the stairs without having to hang on to the banister and thump my feet from step to step. And I’m grateful that I was healthy enough to fight this weird disease off! Life is hard and navigating it when you are ill is an incredible challenge. My hat is off to all who suffer from debilitating conditions. Remember that movie My Left Foot where the fellow could only communicate via his left foot? Well, my left foot still swells up on top, but I'm grateful that it's the only part of me that doesn't work. That's nothing to complain about.

To a Great and Strange Year by Deborah LeBlanc

At the end of 2007, I proclaimed that 2008 would be great! And so far, it has been….although in a strange sort of way.

For the last couple of weeks, I’d been fighting a bout of pneumonia. Those of you who’ve had this nasty piece of business, know it’s no fun. It seems to take forever before you start feeling human again, much less able to breathe properly. Well, last weekend, I started feeling a bit stranger than usual (yeah, I know, scary, huh?) and decided I should go to a small walk in clinic to get myself checked out. Dizziness, foggy brain, blurring vision, I’m thinking I’ve picked up an inner ear infection to go along with my handy-dandy pneumonia. Um…that self-diagnosis wasn’t quite right. Here’s the sequence of events that followed….

*Clinic closed and feeling worse in ten short minutes, decide to go to emergency room at local hospital.
*Local hospital runs blood work, urinalysis, yada, yada. Everything checks out fine.
*Local hospital decides to do a CAT Scan just to make sure
*Twenty minutes later, I’m being shipped off via ambulance to another hospital so I can be seen by a neurosurgeon. Deborah has a subdural hematoma. Frontal lobe no doubt.
*Get to second hospital, surgeon waiting. Another CAT Scan, another confirmation…yep, my brain is bleeding.
*Admit said Deborah into hospital and start running more tests than a Vanderbilt PreMed student.
*Blunt force trauma the surgeon explains. No, Deborah says, didn’t get bonked on the head.
*News of no trauma, traumatizes neurosurgeon. In come more specialists — hematologist, oncologist, internist….
*Two days of being stuck, prodded and poked, more CAT Scans, an EEG, MRI…
*Findings? Same subdural hematoma that has to be followed up with more CAT Scans until it dissipates or does something….oh, yeah, and they found a funky sinus disease that’s going to need surgery.

At the moment, my arms look like they belong to a heroin junky, but, hey, small price to pay to still have a half decently functioning brain, right? Fingers crossed it stays that way. Like I said, 2008 is gonna be great! I’m still alive, able to think, laugh, dream, write, and hope. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the year has in store for me!


LeBlanc is the president of the Horror Writers Association, president of the Writers’ Guild of Acadiana, and an active member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, the National Association of Women Writers, and International Thriller Writers Inc. In 2004, she created the LeBlanc Literacy Challenge, an annual, national campaign designed to encourage more people to read. Her most recent novels are: FAMILY INHERITANCE, GRAVE INTENT, A HOUSE DIVIDED, and MORBID CURIOSITY. Deborah’s next release, WATER WITCH, is scheduled to be on bookstore shelves in August ’08. Visit her site here: http://deborahleblanc.com/splash/index.cfm

Read an interview with Deborah LeBlanc at Roses & Thorns.