Bad Things Come in Threes, but Always Feel Like More

But yet we persevere. Also, come to a panel I'm doing on Wednesday, April 2 at 6:00 pm at Mystery to Me.

I knew last week wasn’t going to be a good week. I don’t know how I knew. It was just one of those things. You wake up on Sunday morning and think, “Well, I can smell doom in the air. I guess we’ll see how many times Life feels like kicking me in the teeth this week.” And then you smile bravely, suck it up, and smile big so Life knows exactly where your teeth are when it decides to start kicking.

On Tuesday morning, I was doing dishes. This isn’t a fun task for anyone. It’s made even less fun because I do not own a dishwasher. My kitchen is criminally small and there is literally no space for one. So, all dishes are forced to cleanliness by hand, Scrub Daddy, and the grease-fighting power of Dawn.

I took a step backward to grab something off the counter and my right knee decided to call it quits on me. It just hyperextended itself on its own. I felt something pop, and then suddenly, I felt incredible pain, a hot, stinging knife of pain stabbed into the side of my knee, and I could not bend it in the least. I don’t know what I did, but it wasn’t good.

I managed to get to a chair before I fell over, so I sat in one spot and contemplated the worst-case scenarios. How do I get to the hospital? Do I call someone? I’m not wealthy enough by any stretch to call an ambulance (thanks for that, by the way, stupid American system…). My wife was at work 40 minutes away. My buddy Ryan was at work in downtown Madison. My daughter was at college 90 minutes away. Driving myself to the ER made the most sense, but this was my right leg. My gas ‘n’ brake leg. Could I drive in this condition? Could I use my left foot?

While I considered next steps, I managed to massage whatever was wrong in my knee away, and I got to a point where I could bend it again. I collected an ice pack and retreated to my recliner for an afternoon of ice and rest. I let the guys at work know I might not be able to go the next day, and they told me to rest it and see about Thursday.

Wednesday morning, I had a doctor’s appointment on the calendar for something unrelated to my knee, but I brought up the knee anyhow. The PA I saw that day was very nice. She looked at the swelling, palpated it with her thumbs, and then said, “My guess is you tore your meniscus and probably sprained it.”

It will take an MRI to understand the full depth of the damage, and since I’m a blue-collar guy with crap healthcare and no desire to incur my deductible, I chose to buy a knee brace that would make an offensive tackle proud, suck it up, and go back to work. You can live without a meniscus, she told me. “It’ll just hurt.” So, I gutted out the week of work on 1.5 legs and managed to get through the next few days with the help of limping, neoprene, and stabilizer bars.

And Tylenol. A crap-ton of Tylenol. Just back the Tylenol truck up to my house.

But the world wasn’t done with me.

Monday, I woke up to my guilty pleasure—a PlayStation 5—no longer functioning. I took it to a local repair place and was told the motherboard was fried. They could replace it, but it would cost the same as a new one. So, I guess I need a new one. I have always loved video games, probably because my parents were so anti-video game. Because my sister and I were both forcibly kept from them when Nintendo was all the rage in the ‘80s, we’re both addicted to them now.

I try to limit my gaming time because I would rather write than play games most days, but being able to escape into sports simulators like FC25 or a good golf game is my preferred form of meditation. They give me a way to think about writing without actually thinking about it. I generate story ideas while skimming around open-world RPGs. Plus, playing Call of Duty online with my buddies Dusty and Ryan is what passes for my social life nowadays. Nothing says male bonding like spending an evening online with your best pals while 8-year-olds repeatedly gank you in CoD because they have better reflexes and spend more time playing.

About the same time, we noticed something was off with our beloved heeler/corgi mix, Eddy. Ed was lethargic and moving slowly. It was getting worse. On Thursday morning, we took her to the vet and found out her red blood cells were low. Something was definitely wrong. We were sent home with steroids and positive thoughts.

An older picture of Eddy the Wondermutt.

Friday night, Ed couldn’t even lift her head off the floor. She was laboring to breathe. This necessitated a late-night trip to the emergency vet (which is not cheap, by the way), and blood transfusions and fluid IVs (which are also not cheap).

Ed appears to have contracted Immune-mediated hemolytic anemia (IMHA). It’s a condition in which an animal’s body mistakenly attacks its red blood cells. It can happen from an infection, from genetics, or from something she ate that disagreed with her. We don’t know what caused it, but it’s not great.

Ed is struggling right now, but we should be able to get her the right steroids and get her back to her old self. That’s the good news.

The bad news was me spending a worried Friday night composing her obituary.

It was that bad.

My knee is currently mobile enough to keep working, but at the end of the night, I’m hurting pretty good. It’s always straight home after my shift to bury my knee under ice for a while before I get up the next day for more ice. It’s quite likely I will need surgery on my right knee sometime down the road, but I will attempt to stave that off as long as possible. I can walk…sorta. And I can get around…sorta. And that’s good enough for right now.

My PlayStation 5 will be replaced. I don’t know when. But someday. I have a full paint can of coins (my piggybank), and I will take that into the UW Credit Union tomorrow to have it counted. The last time I had a mountain of coins to cash in, it ended up being almost $600. That’s what paid for the TV in my living room. Maybe this can of coins will be able to replace the one guilty pleasure I have in life and the source of the majority of my social interaction.

Eddy should survive. We might be able to bring her home tomorrow once she’s fully stabilized. She will have a tough road to recovery, but here’s to hoping we get another 3-5 years with the old girl before she hits the point of no return all aging dogs will eventually face.

In the meantime, we persevere.

As the saying goes: The horrors persist, but so do I.

Luckily, I’m very much looking forward to this Wednesday, April 2. Mystery to Me Bookstore is hosting me, the wonderful Cayce Osborn, the talented Maggie Ginsberg, and the charming Laura Anne Bird, to talk books, writing, and anything else anyone might have to ask.

I don’t get to do too many book events like this, so on the rare occasion I’m asked to do something, I always try to move mountains to be there. You know me—give me five minutes and a stage, and I’ll probably show up.

Like a Golden Retriever puppy, I’m just happy to be included.

Until then, I am nearing the end of the second draft of Abe & Duff 5, Bring the Heat. I have a cover done for it already. I still have a long editing process to wade through on that thing, but it’s very much on track for a summer publication date.

In the meantime, Strange Angels is still out in the world and desperately looking for sales and readers. If you like Firefly, space operas, and wisecracking—then check it out.

Some of the people who have already read it told me they enjoyed it.

This book is dedicated to my mom. Without her subjecting me to all things sci-fi when I was young and impressionable, I probably wouldn’t be the weird culture nerd that I am today.

I have a job interview on Wednesday for a gig I could really use. So, send some positive thoughts my way.

I need a win.


Thanks for reading.


In case you need a win, here’s a prairie dog in a button-up shirt.