The Battles of Ill

Well, I wish I could say that I have been negligent in posting because I have been so busy with Scardust that I simply didn't have the time...however, that is not the case. I cam back from Washington after going to the Book Expo America. It was a wonderful opportunity. It was so exciting to meet other industry professionals and to see the way the comercial publishing industry interacts with the self-publishing world. Unfortunatly, they do not view us with much credibility. However, I do believe a good story speaks for itself. Thank goodness that was the case with my book. I got to meet the team of people who worked on my book, some of them from Authorhouse, my publisher. Thay are all fantstic people and it was very reassuring for me to get to know them on a more personal level. I am very happy with my decision to self-publish and to be publishing through Authorhouse. Washington was a beautiful sight to see, the capitol and the Smithsonian Museums. It was thouroughly exhausting but bery very rewarding. I have a few oppotunities coming from it, but nothing is solidified yet. Going to Washington was one of the best moves for the book that is for sure. Unfortunatly as far as luck would go, it became the start of a decline in my health. I worked way to much before I left, then when I got back to catch up on the time missed. I started getting sick the night before gettting home, fever, chills, and all of my joints ached. I just thought i was exhausted. Slowly but very surely, my health declined to the point where I literally didn't have enough energy to get up in the morning and get ready. I really had forgotten how it was to be so short of breath and tired all the time. I started getting asthma like attacks, vomitting, the whole deal. However the worst and most intrusive was joint pain. I went to Idaho and Utah to have my treatments done. Unfortunatly though by this time, alternative medicine was not going to save me. I was able however to squeeze in a Barnes and Noble booksigning in Idaho. It is always so much fun to be in my home town. By the time I got home from that, I was really sick. I broke down an finally went to my CF docs here in Phoenix. I knew what was coming, and frankly I was so tired, so worn out and in pain that I was ready for it. I went into the hospital. However I didn't know that it would end up to be almost a 3 week stay. All the reminders of being sick and my old days of weeks at a time in the hospiatl came pouring back. I forgot how emotionally hard it is to surrender to being sick. No one wants to admit it, I especially...I slipped into my deep depression and luckily was able to have family and Brian there to remind me that I have to fight and that this cannot take me. I got a bowel blockage while in the hospital, so that complicated matters worse. I finally had sinus surgery, a much needed surgery that I have managed to avoid, and not very well mind you, for five years. I didn't quite realize how much I couldn't breathe out of my nose until I had it operated on. As some of you know this is my 26th sinus surgery, so no newbie at this one. I just didn't think I would have to do this again. It has all the sudden become a matter once again of realizing what is important in life and that it literally can come down to life and death for me. I just have to finally accept that I will never be what society sees as a normal functional adult with a full time job. It just will kill me. I don't have the stamina and energy for it. I have slacked on the book this entire time I have been sick because I just didn't have it in me. When you become so sick, you just seem to loose part of what you do to fight and that is normal and okay. I just have to build myself up once again and go on. I am trying that now, I am picking up the pieces and trying to get back on the business bandwagon. I realize now more than ever that Scardust has to get out there. The one thing I just couldn't understand about Washington is how a children's hospital there actually called and said they could not have me come to their hospital and do a book signing because my book had "to much God in it." I was crushed. My publisher was going to donate 100 books to their hospital, and they refused basically because my book has God in it. This sparked a whole new fight in this journey. I must now fight more than ever to get this book out there. Not only has it become a struggle, it has become a serious re-direction in my game plan. I am trying to take each step at a time and organize my plan into small parts that I can deal with. I just can't let myself get worn down again. It isn't worth it, nothing is worth not being able, or willing to wake up each morning, kiss my husband and live a life like I have dreamed my entire life. It scares me sometimes. Awhile ago, I asked God to please let me have the joy of life by having my book be a success, and the miracle I thought I would never achieve in getting married and getting what normal, healthy people can have everyday. I learned long ago that I would have to fight harder and it would be so much more unatainable for me than for most, but I just wanted to live long enough to do that. At times when the depression is the worst, I hold on to the fact that Scardust isn't to the level of success it is supposed to be, or will be. If it were, I would worry more that getting this sick this time was the start of a decline to exit this world. My fear was that God had allowed me to attain all of these things and that maybe it was my time now....But, I learned again that is not so. I still have work to do here, so my heart and my mind will help lead me when my body is weak. I just want to live, so badly that it hurts sometimes. But, I also know that alot of this is all God's way of putting me that much closer to the lives of the people I want to touch. I want so badly for my book to reach out and touch the souls of the person reading it, the parent sitting in the Children's Hospital with their precious child next to them hopefull resting peacefully. But I want them to be able to pick up my book and read it knowing that they have a way to make their child believe they are beautiful and that what they go through and the scars that are left behind are only part of what makes them beautiful. I can't do this alone, I do not have the strength or stamina to take this to the level it needs to be. I need help. i need media coverage, I need exposure. I need every single person in my life to tell everyone they can about my story, my book. I need Oprah to be able to see what Scardust can do for children. If anyone has these connections, I ask you to please help me. If you want to know what you can do to help me, conatact any and every media you know, they more they hear about me, the more they will want to know why I am being talked about. We all have to help one another. That is truly what this life is about, helping one another to get where we are supposed to be. I wish you all a good night and I will be back on now that I am on the road to recovery. Thank you for all your prayers, support, and healing. Nicole, Jill, Jeremy, Sandy, thank you all for coming to visit me and taking care of me. Your friendship meant the world to me while I was in the hospital. It gets so hard for the person in there, when everyone gets to walk out of there, at night and go home to their own bed, it hurts. But, I had such wonderful support and love around me when I was there that it certainly made it more tolerable. Thank you all of you. Goodnight to you all and may every single day you wake up and take a breath without struggle remind you that you have won, that the fight is worth it, and that you can overcome any battle ever set before you with the love of those around you. Love and spirit Jenn