Well, folks, my wrist is doing MUCH better.  Got my stitches out today.  My scars are still kinda scabby, but here’s a looksee.

Looks like I’ve been impaled by a roasting fork.  Or maybe bitten by a vamp.  Heh, I like that one better.

Overall, my wrist is doing great, about 90% better than before.  It’s still not up to snuff, due to tenderness and some bruising still, but that’s all after effects from the surgery itself.  My range of motion isn’t as good as my right wrist, and it gets very tired and achy if I do too much, like run a bunch of errands, do lots of loads of laundry in a day, that kind of thing.  Thankfully, typing doesn’t tire it out.  Thank the Lord for small favors, eh? 

Doc told me something interesting, though.  He went in there and found my TFCC was frayed from degenerative wear.  Usually, the ligament is smooth, but mine looked like it had tufts coming off of it.  He cleaned it up with his little debridement thingy (I think it’s called an arthroscope), but found no significant tears.  He said he spent a little time looking all around, because my MRI showed the dye clearly leaking in my DRUJ joint.  He didn’t find it.

He did say that puzzled him, but he wouldn’t have sutured a small tear anyhow.  There is no blood flow to the center of the disc, as they only debride central tears, they don’t suture them.

I thought it was odd, too, that he didn’t find an actual, obvious tear, however, he did say he didn’t want to continue poking around with the arthroscope.  Sure, it’s only 2.5 mm wide, but since the bones in the wrist are so compact and it’s such a small space, poking that camera around in there can sometimes do more harm than good to the ligaments.

But the wisps on the TFCC were indeed degenerative, and they were long and obvious, he said, so the surgery was a good move.

I’ve been out of my brace since I took off the splint from my surgery.  The doc said if I do get ouchy a bit, I can wear the brace again for a little while.  I told him my hand was still weak and got very tired after doing some things and he said that’s to be expected from a wrist that’s been in a brace since December of ‘09.  The muscles and ligaments can get deconditioned if they’re not used regularly.

So good news is, I suppose I’m not as bad off as I thought I was.  My hand feels so much better, and you cannot believe how weird it is to be able to do something without my brace that I could barely do before my surgery.  It’s still hard to hold a book or heavy things.  I’m not sure even when the pain of the surgery goes away if I’ll be back to where I was before.  Even though the doc didn’t find any tears, he did cut away pieces of my TFCC, so probably not.  But as long as I’m pain free, I don’t mind not winning any bowling tournaments!  LOL

I’m not left-handed anyway, so that’s a bonus. 

So I’ve still got some owwy bruising, my scars are still tender and scabby, but all in all, I would do it again.  Just gotta work some strength back into my wrist.  But thankfully, doc didn’t think I needed any physical therapy.  YAY!

Made an appointment in 6 weeks to see him one more time.  He said if I’m 100% pain free by then, I can just go ahead and cancel it.  So we’ll see how it goes from here on out.

~~Becka

Want to win a copy of Book II of my BEAST series?  A SIGNED copy? Of course you do!  Here are the deets:

http://beastseries.blogspot.com/2010/07/win-signed-copy-of-beast-of-burden.html

Good luck!

~~Becka

Guess what?!?  THE FALL OF JERICHO is available for purchase, folks.  RUN DON’T WALK!!  LOL

BUY:

http://www.cobblestone-press.com/catalog/books/jericho.htm

Seriously, I cannot get enough of that cover…

Here’s the linky to it’s page here on my site.

http://www.rebeccagoings.com/coming-soon/the-fall-of-jericho/

And do you want to read an excerpt?  Here’s the linky to that!

http://www.cobblestone-press.com/catalog/excerpt/jericho.htm

If you pick this one up, I hope you like it.  This book has had quite a saga trying so damn hard to get published.  I’m grinning like the Cheshire Cat that it finally has its day in the sun.  It’s a great little book.  About 15K, so it’ll only take you maybe 1/2 hour to read.  But I LOVE IT!  (Of course I do, I wrote it.  heheh…)

~~Becka

It’s been a few days since my surgery on July 16th.  I’m still pretty tender.  I can’t quite bend my wrist all the way forward and back, but I can pronate and supinate it (flip my hand palm up and palm down).  Although that’s ouchie as well.  My stitches look pretty gnarly.  Have a gander:

I get them out next week.  Right now, my entire hand has a big ol’ bruise on the back of it that extends down my fingers.  It’s still swollen, but it’s getting better.

So here’s what happened.  The first two days post-op were the worst pain I’ve ever had in my wrist.  Maybe I don’t remember the pain from my childhood, but it seemed like it hurt worse than when I’d broken my wrist as a kid.  I couldn’t go four hours without my trusty Vicodin, and even got high a few times (because I’d needed to take two pills).  I did NOT like how the Vicodin made me feel, so I tried to go as long as I could without taking them.

After the second day, I could wean myself off them.  It hurt, but by the third day, I could take off my post-op bandages.  I think this helped things, because moving my wrist around helped with the pain of stiffness.  Yes, it hurt, but it actually hurt a bit more to have it immobile, I believe.

Right now, I’m on my fifth day post-op, and my surgery site is tender.  Bending my wrist is tender.  BUT, I’m able to type, which is a bonus.  It’s tight inside there, probably due to swelling and the procedure itself.  I’m pretty sure it’s not going to feel like it used to before.  Getting things cleaned out in there is bound to make things feel tighter in there.

The good news?  All the ouchies I’m feeling right now seem to be from the surgery itself.  I’m not feeling the original ouchies I had before my surgery.  I can move my wrist, type, open my hand wide… nothing makes the original pain.  As the days wear on and after I get my stitches out, I believe I’m going to be as good as new, aside from a few cool new scars.

Of course I won’t *know* until the surgery pain completely goes away, but as far as I can tell, my previous pain is no longer there.  This is the longest I’ve been out of my brace since December of ‘09.

So far, I would recommend debridement surgery for anyone who has a TFCC tear.  Know the first few days will be hella pain.  Pain like chop-my-hand-off-that-would-feel-better kind of pain.  BUT, within two – three days, the pain should slack off.  And now, it still hurts, but I’m at that point where some of the pain is actually good stretching pain instead of ouchie pain.

I’ll probably give you another update after my stitches come out to really give this fix a good test drive.  But so far, so good!

~~Becka

Well, I finally had my surgery yesterday.  Here I am, typing one-handed.  It seemed to go just fine, other than starting late.  I was scheduled for 3pm, but I didn’t go into the OR until 5:30pm.  Surgery was two hours long, because when I was wheeled to recovery, the clock said 7:30pm.  Then I needed to sit in a hospital room for another three hours to get over the effects of anesthesia.  UGH

Didn’t get home until 11:30pm.  Not the best day ever.

Today, I’m pretty much in Deep Hurting.  The day started with no pain, but I’d taken a pain med before bed and I’d slept with it elevated.  But throughout the day, it steadily got worse over the course of the day.  Now I’m anxiously awaiting dinner so I can eat to take more Vicodin.

So I have a huge splint and bandages I need to wear for three days.  When I take them off, I can use my hand “as tolerated”, meaning nothing too much too soon.  I see the doc again in ten days for a follow-up.  I’m not in a cast, and I don’t think I will be.  I don’t know how extensive the damage was in there, as my doc peaced out before I had the faculties to put two thoughts together.  I’ll let you know more as I know more.

As for right now, it’s ouchy.  Very ouchy.  I’m thankful I bought my sling when I had my cast a few months ago because even the weight of my own arm hurts.  But I’m so hoping that after the ouchies of the surgery pass, everything will be feeling better.

~~Becka

Behold, ladies. AND DROOL YER EVERLOVIN’ HEARTS OUT!!!!!

It’s like fricken’ Cover Art Christmas ’round these parts!!!    Isn’t he GORGEOUS??  LOVE IT!

Ms. Sable Grey outdid herself this time methinks.  Definitely my hottest western cover to DATE.  **HAPPY DANCING**

~~Becka

Just got some exciting news from my publisher – my book KINDRED is in print!  If you’d like to get your copy, here’s the linky:

http://champagne.vstore.ca/product_info.php/pName/kindred

That was totally unexpected and out of the blue.  It made my day.    Since this book is a novella, it’s not bound like a novel.  My publisher mentioned it was bound like a comic book.  Very interesting…

Also, I’ve decided to put some warnings in red on my hotter books’ pages.  I figure I’ve been writing for awhile, and some of my diverse audience might want to have some kind of warning before they buy an erotic romance–either to avoid them or snatch them up like hot potatoes.    So from now on, I’ll label my books with a warning on it’s page here on my site.  If there is NO warning, that means the book is NOT erotic and it doesn’t have crude jargon.

Heh, but that won’t stop it from being HAWT!   I think my book MARK OF THE B*E*A*S*T* is about as hot as I can get it without dipping a toe into the erotic end of the spectrum.  >:D

Anyway, that’s my news for today!

~~Becka

I am very proud to unveil the most beautimous cover for my book BLACK ANGEL.  It is a fantasy, releasing from Champagne Books on Monday, October 4th.  Isn’t it totally gorgeous??  It has everything I asked for on it, and in all honesty, I didn’t think I’d get my hero Alric on the cover.  His skin is jet-black, like obsidian.  But I LOVE how the cover artist pulled everything together.  I’d even asked for the font to be blocky on “BLACK” then flowy on “ANGEL”.  I am so happy with it!!!

I’m hoping with a cover like that, I’ll sell thousands of copies!!    YEEHAW!!!

~~Becka

There is so much I want to blog about, but I thought I should start with this.  I’ve been MIA recently because my father had a stroke.  He had an inoperable intracerebral hemorrhage deep in his basal ganglia. It was touch and go there for a while, and scared the bejesus out of my sister and myself.  However, he is doing much better now.  He is actually moving from the hospital to a rehab center possibly today or tomorrow.

He’s got a long road to recovery, but he’s in good spirits.  This type of stroke doesn’t kill brain cells, it merely suppresses them from the pressure of the bleed.  But once the blood in his brain is reabsorbed by his body, those cells can regain their function.  He currently has a very weak right arm and the right side of his face doesn’t work very well.  It’s hard for him to talk, so not only does he have physical therapists, he has a speech therapist and occupational therapist as well.  Whew!

I just visited him yesterday, and he was doing much better from when I saw him last on the 1st.  It will take time and he’ll never be back to 100%, but he’ll get some range of motion back.

As you can imagine, I’ve been frantically dealing with everything, from taking care of my dad to juggling the kids and my own family life with DH.  I came home early last week thinking he was on the mend only to turn around two hours later on the same day and race back down to Salem (an hour drive) because he’d taken a turn for the worse.  But thankfully, they were able to stabilize him and he’s much better now.  They are still very aggressive about keeping his blood pressure down as well as his blood sugar.  It’s been quite the roller-coaster.

But I’m very hopeful now, as he’s going into rehab.  He’s no longer at risk for a second stroke, he just needs some therapy to bounce back.

Aside from all that hoopla, I got my second edits for THE FALL OF JERICHO and it’s release date: July 23rd.  Woohoo!  Only thing I don’t have yet is the cover.

However, I DO have the cover for BLACK ANGEL, but I’ll post that in a new post.  It’s glorious!

I’m also about 80 pages away from finishing THE FALCON PRINCE!  I’m so excited.  The Falcon was the one prince I didn’t have a solid plot for, but he’s given me a great story to work with and a way to set up the Spider Prince’s book, which I’m also very anxious to write.  But I was the same way with the Scarab Prince.  Speaking of, I haven’t heard word about my submission on TSP, but my publisher is very busy herself with Canada Day and Independence Day and new releases and just one thing after another.  Patience is a virtue!  But it’s sure not fun!! 

Anyway, that’s my latest.  I’ll post my new cover.  But I wanted to keep everyone up to speed.  I’m back home now, finally, and through the craziness surrounding my dad, DH and I are in the middle of a remodel of our home theater, not to mention DH’s best friend and his son are coming to stay with us tomorrow to attend the wedding of another friend this Saturday.

GACK!  It’s batshit insane these days!  LOL

~~Becka

So not too long ago, I just finished edits on MARK OF THE B*E*A*S*T* and BLACK ANGEL.  Recently, I just finished first round edits on THE FALL OF JERICHO and first and second round edits on THE VIPER PRINCE.  And very soon, this week or next, I’ll be getting second round edits on JERICHO.  Exciting!  But man, I’ve been editing just as much as I’ve been writing it seems…

But, I’m NOT complaining.  Nope.  Writing is what I love to do.  And now, all that writing I did last year and this year is catching up to me!  lol

I should also be getting my cover soon for VIPER, since it’s releasing on August 4th.  I can’t wait!  My cover for JERICHO should be forthcoming as well, although I won’t have a release date for that one until all edits are done and the cover is finished.

I’m still waiting to hear word on RENEGADE and THE SCARAB PRINCE.  I’m not too worried about TSP because it’s the second in the series of my Desert Princes.  It stands to reason if my publisher LOVED TVP, they’ll LOVE TSP (counts chickens).

It’s RENEGADE I’m most worried about.  It’s been in the submission pile at Samhain Publishing for nine weeks, so I’m hoping to hear something soon.  As we know from my three recent rejections from them (BLACK ANGEL, RIDE THE LIGHTNING, & THE FALL OF JERICHO), you’re not “guaranteed” a sale just because you’re an in-house author.

As for books I’m currently writing, THE FALCON PRINCE (book III) is now going strong at 183 pages.  I have about 100 pages left to write.  This one has been fun to write.  You can find out why on my Desert Princes blog: http://desertprinces.blogspot.com.  Needless to say, I hope I’m not ready to turn it in before I hear word on SCARAB!  hehe  THE SPIDER PRINCE is the last one left in this series for me to write and I can’t wait.  The Spider has some Baggage with a capital “B”.  His love story will definitely be interesting and fun to write.

Been thinking about what to write after my Desert Princes.  I might jump into another western about Shirley Bloom, Lissa’s sister from IN YOUR ARMS.  IYA has been enjoying a new surge in popularity recently (my pub forgot to put it in our store on Omnilit.com so all those readers thought it was a new release once she posted it LOL).  Anyway, that would be a fun one to write, in the vein of “Taming of the Shrew”.

I do have a few other westerns I’ve been toying with writing, a series, and a couple of other stand-alone books.

Needless to say, I’ll be wide open after these desert books!

~~Becka