Last month I was diagnosed with scoliosis in my spine. I have suffered from chronic back and neck pain for many years, but have never been able to get it looked at because my family has never been able to afford health insurance or a family doctor. We certainly would not have been able to afford the x-rays and EMGs and (coming soon) my MRI. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act I’ve been able to get the help I need.
I try to keep politics to one side as a professional novelist, especially in a heated primary season. And I’m not politicizing the ACA at all – it has just helped me immensely in many immediate ways that have improved my quality of life. Which is awesome, because I am not yet making a living wage on my novels, and pain sucks. This is especially true of chronic, mystery, general pain that doesn’t go away. There is a serious emotional and psychological cost to chronic pain, and it wears you down.
This is why I have taken longer to write and release my novels the last year or two, and why I continue to limp along, both in my writing and in real life. I use a cane to get around because of the S-curve in my spine. Which, as someone who has just climbed over the 30-year mark, takes some getting used to.
The good news is that there are options to fix the scoliosis (the extra vertebrae, not so much). This could potentially involve surgery, though hopefully not.
I appreciate all of you sticking with me and the series, despite some setbacks. Depending on the seriousness of the solutions to the scoliosis, there could be further delays. As always, I will keep you up to speed here and on my FB author page.