A contribution by Maria McCutchen, author of “It’s All in Your Head – A Life of Mental Fogginess And Physical Pain”

Many people suffer from one form of depression at one time or another in their lifetime. There are multiple types and degrees of depression, but the one I suffered from was derived from my brain issues.

My brain cyst did more than create physical symptoms. It created mental ones too. Not only did I have fear, anxiety, and a list of other emotional issues, but I began to suffer depression too. And for several reasons.

My brain had been under a sea of fluid for months. All the extra fluid was not only squishing my brain, but robbing me of my mental and emotional faculties as well. I was unable to reason and to filter. I was unable to process.

All of what the cyst was physically doing, and the fact that doctors wouldn’t listen and wouldn’t do anything for me, created an emotional meltdown. I was becoming more depressed every day that went by, that no one would do anything for me. Eventually I was a weeping mess.

Even after my brain surgeries, I continued to suffer with depression.  One problem would get cleared up and another would form. My brain wound up being permanently damaged, and my ability to cope was slipping away. I had to find a way to deal with bouts of depression other than medication, because by now, my brain was so damaged that I could not take medications well. Almost anything I took caused some sort of reaction or another so I had to deal with my depression naturally.

Naturally, to me, meant that I had to create a new lifestyle for myself and either introduce something good for me into my life, or take something that was causing negative problems, out. One thing I have always liked to do is exercise, but with all my medical problems, for months at a time, I would have to put it aside. Now, I had to reintroduce it into my life and make sure I stayed on top of it. The natural endorphins that exercise releases was like a medication for me. It helped me see the brighter side of things and look for the positive in my life.

My diet was another area to address. After reading about caffeine and the negative effects it has on temperament and emotions, I gave caffeine up completely. Instead I drink a non-caffeinated herbal tea. I also kept my diet simple and cut out things like refined sugars and too many processed foods. I try to eat more naturally.

Stress. One thing that quickly deplete your strength, your will and your good mood, is stress. We all have it in our lives at one time or another and to some degree. I try to prioritize things for different stress levels to keep me from getting overwhelmed, then later, depressed. If something still wants to stress me out, I will sit down and write out “why.” Once I have it in front of me, it often times doesn’t seem as worrisome as before I put it in writing.

The more you can do naturally for depression, the more you may be able to overcome it on your own. Some of it is a learning process, while other things fall under “Practicing.” Not everyone can take a full, natural approach to anxiety and depression. But for me, I had no choice but to, and it worked for me.

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It’s All in Your Head – A Life of Mental Fogginess And Physical Pain

by Maria McCutchen

Maria McCutchen did not have time to be sick. With a husband who had just lost a job, two young sons, and a cross-country move on the horizon, who had time to be sick? Maria didn’t have time for a common cold, let alone a major medical condition. But one day while shopping in the grocery store where she had shopped hundreds of times before, she couldn’t find the milk. It was then she knew what she was feeling was more than just stress or exhaustion. There was something very wrong.

After consulting a few doctors, Maria discovered she had a rare brain cyst known as a posterior fossa arachnoid cyst—a very large brain cyst. Hearing these cysts were normally asymptomatic was of little comfort, especially because she felt her mind and body slipping away more and more every day. Normal mental and physical functions were becoming harder to control. Even if the doctors didn’t believe the cyst was a problem, she knew it was.

It would take months of living inside a shell of a person that she’d become, months of living in a mental fogginess and sometimes even physical pain, before she would finally get the medical attention she needed. It’s All in Your Head chronicles her harrowing medical odyssey and her attempts to regain some sort of semblance of her old life after treatment.

When I first looked at William Brockedon who was born in Totnes, Devon in 1787- in the light of his worthiness of my writing a piece about him -  I almost  let it go, the first mention of him being the son of a popular watchmaker in Totnes who’s family owned a local mill  and other property since the reign of Henry IV-who carried on his father’s business there for five years after  his death, did not seem to accrue a lot of interest, but then reading on: how fascinating it was to learn that not only was he a painter,  and an inventor, but also he became an author describing  in text accompanied by his own drawings. the route Hannibal took across the alps, which he took almost step by step  himself and  which, remarkably he repeated no less than sixty times, culminating in the publication of his first book published in 1827 entitled Illustrations of the Passes of the Alps followed by two more ongoing publications  containing beautiful drawings by the author

He studied drawing and the fine arts at the Royal Academy and during 1809-1815 exhibited there and at the British Institution and quickly became an elected member of Academy of Rome and Florence where he was greatly admired.

That in itself was an achievement to behold but his active mind was forever sparking his inventiveness until he died in 1854 – coming up with among other things, something we all take for granted when we pick up our prescriptions from the chemist – the pre-dosed medical compound having been compressed into capsule, lozenge and tablet form following the patent of his tablet press in 1843. This followed his invention for the conversion of lead dust for pencil making along with a new form of bottle corks, and several new applications concerning the making and application of vulcanized India rubber, used by firearms manufacturers who were greatly impressed, and it is he who coined the word “vulcanization.”

Since the early beginning of medicine there had been a dire need for convenient dosage forms – to enable the safe taking of fluids, whether solutions, suspensions or emulsions – Brockedon came up with the perfect remedy, so simple and so easy and thus avoiding overdose sometimes resulting in fatalities.

It is all the more fascinating to think the watchmakers’ son had no connection whatsoever with  medicine. We surely owe him much and I wonder how long it would have taken for someone else to come up with the idea. He certainly revolutionized medical and pharmaceutical practices

His travel writings and such also brought him to the attention of Charles Dickens with whom he became acquainted and who said of him “he knows a good deal about some curious places – is very ingenious – and may be very useful.”

In his later years he would fill his study with countless scientific books and his tool shed with implements then used in everyday life, and consider a new scientific approach, some inevitably failed but others succeeded and much of his attention to minute detail could arguably be attributed to the influence of his father being a watchmaker and who supplemented his son’s education and instilled in him an early leaning for scientific and mechanical matters.

His father prematurely died when William was fifteen and he found himself taking charge of the clock making business with the backing of his mother but his need to eventually move on became apparent but he had the backing of his mother who became very proud of him.

He married in 1821 Elizabeth Graham, who tragically died in childbirth when she was forty on 23 July 1829,  leaving two children, Philip North, born at Florence on 27 April 1822, and Mary, married to Joseph H. Baxendale, the head of the removal firm of Pickford & Co. The son, who was educated as a civil engineer, became the favourite pupil of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, but died of consumption at the age of 28, on 13 November 1849. On 8 May 1839 Brockedon married for the second time the widow of Captain Farwell of Totnes, who survived him, and by whom he had no children.

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QUEEN OF MISFORTUNE
A Lady Jane Grey Novel by Peter Carroll

A Love Story of Shakespearean Dimension!

Queen Of Misfortune is the fictional story of Lady Jane Grey as told by her beloved tutor, John Aylmer. At the time of her execution a stranger is recorded to have assisted her when, blind folded, she lost her way upon the scaffold. Was it the same strange who was also recorded to have visited her when she was imprisoned in the Tower? Little is known of this unfortunate girl who was beheaded for treason in the 16^th Century. She was only 16. She is omitted from the list of monarchs but was actually queen for nine days. Author Peter Carroll, in his novel, follows John Aylmer’s close relationship with Jane as her tutor and later, as she grows up, her lover. [More...]

Available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Noble, and any other good bookstore.

I am discovering that one of the challenging parts of having twins is finding ways to keep them entertained, especially during the winter months.  There is nothing better, on a nice warm spring or summer day, then loading everyone up into the stroller and going to a park and getting some fresh air.  Although we have had an exceptionally mild winter so far, taking the girls outside happens far less often and makes for some long days indoors.  It seems like these days the only time we get out of the house is to go to doctors appointments.

Even though we don’t get out much this time of year I am discovering how resourceful babies can be when taken out of their normal routine.  I don’t know about other parents, but when we plan a trip, even one ten minutes up the road, I map out places to make emergency stops.  I prepare myself to pull over for impromptu diaper changes, wet noses and lost binkies.  Luckily for me, even though I am always prepared, very rarely do I need to makes these stops because I am happy to say, for now the girls travel quite well.

Yesterday on our ride home from, where else than the doctor’s office, one of the girls started to stir a bit.  Traveling on the highway I glanced back in my mirror to see that her beloved binky had fallen out of her reach.  Okay, I was ready for this and I knew the next stop was approximately eight minutes up the road.  We would make it to there before a total meltdown erupted, I was sure of it!  The whimper began to increase with both volume and intensity and I glanced down at the clock, I was now six minutes away.  I took a quick look over at the other baby, who slept peacefully at that moment but I knew it was only a matter of time before the crying would wake her as well. Then I would be in trouble for sure!

As we drove along and approached our emergency stop, the crying began to fade.  Then it completely stopped.  It was then replaced by grunting and stirring.  I’m guessing you are thinking the same thing I did at this point, which is that I would be changing a diaper once we reached our stop.  I glanced back to check on the situation and I was surprised by what I saw.  It seemed that it had become apparent to her that the binky was not at option at the moment, but determined to self sooth she went for what she thought was the next best thing.  In seconds, she reached down struggling to remove her sock. Once she was able to grab hold of it she ripped it off her foot, with some force I might add, and shoved it in her face.  Not quite content yet, she found the corner of the sock and began happily sucking on it, as if she had replaced her binky with something even better.  Within moments she was happy, and sleeping.

I’m sure any parent can appreciate the sure joy that comes when you discover your baby is able to sooth herself in these kinds of situations.  I felt a great amount of relieve, and even pride that my daughter was able to be so resourceful.  I did wonder however, as vehicles passed us on the highway, what it looked like as people drove by and saw my baby fast asleep with a bare foot and a sock hanging out of her mouth.  It may have been amusing, but I was happy because it made for a quiet drive home!

It is recorded that famous English author, Mary Wesley who lived out her last days in a small cottage in Totnes, Devon, was once reputed to be a wild woman. In her autobiography she has no qualms about being very promiscuous in her early life – which is more in keeping with numerous modern lifestyle’s -given the freedom of the sexes. Arguably she was ahead of her time saying she often waked wondering who was sleeping on the pillow next to her. “Let’s see who it is this time!”

She hailed from Englefield Green in Surrey but like so many of her contemporaries ended up in beautiful South Devon. A very attractive woman, she drew many admirers in her lifetime.

When I read of her rampant lifestyle during the second world war I was truly taken back – knowing how in my generation, such going’s on would have been frowned upon and regarded as highly dreadful.  I can remember my Grandmother using phases like ‘Free Love’ and ‘Living in sin’ when she dismissed   one of my aunt’s from the family circle because she went to live ‘unlawfully’ with  a man.

Mary  was one of the upper classes, being a descendent of the Duke of Wellington ,  her parents decided not to send her to school because she was not expected to work, perhaps  in fact, such ‘depravity’ was rampant only in the upper classes and the poorer rarely indulged in such goings on. Well not openly anyway.

But I find myself relating to her, not so much to her avid lifestyle -because I was only an 11 years old when the second war broke out – and she was 28!  But like so many others of my generation, we were brought up given  strict Victorian  values,  and in many ways we were  repressed in the days  when  the adage: ‘children should be seen and not heard’ still rings in my ears and the swish of the cane coming down on my knuckles  simply for muttering during lessons in school.

Mary’s point was that during those uncertain times, when nobody knew when their time would be up, then why not make the best of it and enjoy life to the full, with no holds barred. She loved parties and drinking and playing the field – but eventually realizing  her wartime lifestyle had become too excessive, in her words; “too many lovers, too much drink” she knew she was turning into  a nasty person,  so she settled down into a steady going sort of woman and got herself married.

When she agreed to her biography being written by Patrick Marnham , an English writer, journalist and biographer, she made him promise that he would not publish until after her death. When her son, Toby Eady read the book, he was flabbergasted, and commented that he never really knew his mother – and he didn’t speak to anyone for a week.

It is incredible; Mary Wesley’s first novel wasn’t published until she was 70 and even then it was just by chance, being persuaded by her best friend  Antonia White to send it to a publisher. And then, in common with many great writers, several publishers rejected it, until eventually she found an agent, Tessa Sale who was convinced her works were good enough for publication and at last, else we may never had heard of ‘Jumping the Queue’ or her most famous book, The Camomile Lawn, James Hale of Macmillan publishers took it on and the rest is history.

Mary had found a niche that so many writers since have tried to emulate concentrating her viewpoint in a mindful and imaginative way rather than the physical descriptive narrative, she was a different sort 0f writer – and it paid off. Soon she was rich beyond her dreams but it didn’t make any difference to her simple lifestyle.

What did make a difference is the loss of her second husband, playwright and journalist Eric Siepmann in1970, she’d lived happily with him in Cullaford Bridge  on the edge of Dartmoor but moved to Totnes after his death where she spent the rest of her days.

Her autobiography is certainly well worth a good read. One can see in her stories how she drew so much from her life working in intelligence in MI5 during the war helping to break German enigma codes.. She felt she could have done much more with her life when she read the obituaries of friends who had died younger than she, who’s lives had been crammed with ‘doing’ –  saying she had spent too much time dreaming

Her family didn’t approve of her books. But she paid no attention and continued to write them regardless,  Her brother called what she wrote “filth” and her sister, with whom she was no longer on speaking terms, strongly objected to The Camomile Lawn, claiming that some of the characters were based on their parents.

Her biographer spent many days with her during the last six months of her life and has given good account of her. She said in so many words; it was a great pleasure to converse with such an intelligent man and wished she was young enough to take him into her bed.

She certainly made her mark having achieved writing 13 novels in all and had the pleasure of seeing The Camomile Lawn made into a movie  and three others filmed for  TV.

Proudly she received a CBE in 1995

She was known to be an eccentric and kept her religious beliefs mainly to herself, had a coffin made especially for ‘the day whence it came’ painted red apparently and placed in her sitting room for good keeping. Her late beloved Eric converted to Catholicism only when being reassured that dogs could enter heaven. But is doesn’t stop there because there were pointers that Mary also believed the next world would be frequented by all manner of animals not to mention past lovers, friends and husbands.

Mary Wesley (Mary Aline Mynars Siepmann )  born 24 June 1912 died on December 30 2002 aged 90.

I wonder just how much more novels she would have written if she’d been discovered earlier, it is sacrilege to think that so much of her work ended up in her dustbin.

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QUEEN OF MISFORTUNE
A Lady Jane Grey Novel by Peter Carroll

A Love Story of Shakespearean Dimension!

Queen Of Misfortune is the fictional story of Lady Jane Grey as told by her beloved tutor, John Aylmer. At the time of her execution a stranger is recorded to have assisted her when, blind folded, she lost her way upon the scaffold. Was it the same strange who was also recorded to have visited her when she was imprisoned in the Tower? Little is known of this unfortunate girl who was beheaded for treason in the 16^th Century. She was only 16. She is omitted from the list of monarchs but was actually queen for nine days. Author Peter Carroll, in his novel, follows John Aylmer’s close relationship with Jane as her tutor and later, as she grows up, her lover. [More...]

Available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Noble, and any other good bookstore.

Austin Parker is on a journey to bring truth, beauty, and meaning to his life.

Austin Parker is never going to see his eighteenth birthday. At the rate he’s going, he probably won’t even see the end of the year. The doctors say his chances of surviving are slim to none even with treatment, so he’s decided it’s time to let go.

But before he goes, Austin wants to mend the broken fences in his life. So with the help of his best friend, Kaylee, Austin visits every person in his life who touched him in a special way. He journeys to places he’s loved and those he’s never seen. And what starts as a way to say goodbye turns into a personal journey that brings love, acceptance, and meaning to Austin’s life.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

From Megan Bostic

I am just a mere human girl trying to make it in this crazy world. I’m the mother of two crazy beautiful girls, living in the rainy, but lovely Pacific Northwest. Novelist, blogger, amateur poet, total flirt, self-proclaimed Facebook addict, and all around great girl, I also love making videos. I’ve done a chronicle of my writing journey on youtube.

Editorial Review

A boy decides he wants to live the last weeks of his life helping others get their own lives into better shape.

Unless they read the back cover of the book, readers won’t learn until late in the story that 17-year-old Austin is dying of leukemia. Meanwhile, it becomes increasingly clear that Austin, thin and weak, has embarked on some kind of mission. Because he never got his driver’s license, he enlists best friend Kaylee to drive him around the Seattle area as he meets with people whom he knows have problems. While Kaylee waits in the car, Austin tries to talk them into making better decisions in their lives. He also treats Kaylee to some Seattle sights and an expensive dinner. Underneath it all, however, Austin looks for the courage to tell Kaylee that he loves her as more than a friend. But will he have time? Bostic writes this graceful, affecting tale without pretension, simply by focusing on Austin himself. She avoids the maudlin, merely writing a boy who knows what he wants and showing his family and his friends as they move toward the final scenes. Perhaps it’s because of that simplicity that the story concludes with such a powerful emotional punch. – Kirkus Reviews

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THE BLEEDING HILLS
A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith.
- 2 Timothy iv. 7

The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]

The Bleeding Hills is available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Nobel, and any other good bookstore.

Our pediatrician thinks I am funny and gives me a big grin when at the end of every visit I ask him where I can find a baby owner’s manual.  Too embarrassed to admit that I’m not kidding when I ask, I continue to look for the darn thing.  I will say I have learned many things over the past nine months and one of them is that parenting is tough and I’m just getting started!   I thought I could prepare myself by reading as much as I could on a variety of topics such as healthy sleeping habits, and what to do when your baby begins teething, but the truth is you really do learn as you go.  I decided after driving myself absolutely insane with trying to follow the advice of the experts, that my girls will help guide me and most of the time and they will let me know what their needs are.  Letting go of the expectations, mostly my own, has not only made things a lot smoother for me and my husband, but most importantly for my babies as well.

For example, I diligently read about having your babies on a rigid schedule when it comes to napping. Taking this advice very seriously, I would put the girls down for a nap even when they clearly were wide awake and full of energy.  I was determined keep them on a tight schedule.  This, as you can probably imagine, resulted in hours of fussing and crying, and the babies were pretty upset too!  When I would finally give up and except that a nap wasn’t going to happen I suffered to keep everyone content for the rest of the day because eventually they did get tired but, according to my schedule it wasn’t at the right times.  Luckily, I figured out pretty quickly that what I needed was to pay more attention to what my girls were trying to tell me through their actions.  Now instead of watching the clock to see when they should nap, I focus on their signals. It turns out that babies are pretty smart like that, without words they are pretty good at telling you how they feel, you just need to listen.  When one rubs her eyes and starts to whine, I know she’s ready to sleep.  The other will lightly tug on her ear and stretch her arms and legs out.  When I truly paid attention, naptime went much smoother and there was little to no fussing from the babies or from me. The funny thing is, it turns out they are usually tired around the same time everyday anyway.  Go figure, we are on a schedule after all!   When I first made this discovery I hesitated.  I thought with twins this method wouldn’t work because they would fail to nap together and any mother can appreciate the break that comes during a nap.  However to my surprise just as they like to play together and they apparently also like to sleep together too! Needless to say in the end, everyone is much happier.  We are doing pretty well so far, and we make a pretty good team.

As a first time mother, there have been many questions and even obstacles I have had to meet head on. I am still learning, and I’m sure I will never get everything right all the time. My parents didn’t and I am sure theirs didn’t either and I think we all turned out okay. I have made mistakes, and I am sure will continue to make mistakes throughout their childhood.   After all, there is no practice run, right?  Sometimes I swear if my girls could talk they would say “what in the heck are you doing Mommy?”  Especially through the first couple dozen diaper changes. Thankfully they have been very patient with me.  I can only imagine that when I finally figure it out, they are as relieved as I am.  Just like discovering our napping schedule.    They are relieved that I started to listen to what they were trying to tell me. I don’t believe all of my reading and research was for nothing, I have gotten some wonderful ideas and tips  from many books that I have read, but I think the most important thing I have learned is that every baby is different, and I should have more faith in my ability to make the right decisions. Every parent has a bond with their baby, or babies, and together I think you figure it out. After all you don’t really have a choice. I am relieved to discover that it is okay to be imperfect as long as you always provide a safe and loving home for your children.  Maybe the most important thing I have learned is that I don’t need that manual after all!

Sometimes, along life’s wondrous and ever changing journey, something revives a certain memory which has been tucked away in the corner of the mind.

With the financial world looking a trifle uncertain now – and the effect it will all have, come credit crunch,, recession and what that means – some in power even going to the extreme in saying thank God for the government rescue of the banks – else there could have been anarchy and bloodshed – I would like to think maybe it would have the reverse effect and it has just come in the nick of time …

Remembering just how it was when I was young – and how our parents tackled poverty and food shortage and rationing – with none of the benefits we enjoy today – I remember on several occasions taking a trip to town, my dad riding a bicycle and me perched on the crossbar and visiting the ‘British Restaurant’ and enjoying  a real fulfilling meal there.

In dire times -It was the brainwave of the Ministry of Food, later the MAF when the department was absorbed into the Ministry of Agriculture, to adapt several old buildings into large restaurants ‘to nourish the masses.’ The restaurants offered simple but  ample portions  of minced beef with parsnips, greens and potatoes, usually only one choice per day but take it from me, you were hungry enough to eat almost anything, another day – powdered potato which was commonly known as ‘pom’ -was served  with corned beef and beetroot. Or there were sandwiches filled usually with fish paste, sardine, anchovy and the like.

Meals would average about one shilling (5p) which most could afford and would include a rolled sponge pudding and custard for after’s. By the end of the week with money being short waiting for the next pay day, the British Restaurant proved to be a Godsend.

Looking back did it do us any harm, having to struggle and get by? Generally not- it was good for the soul and taught my generation to realise nothing should be taken for granted, and we were still a lot more fortunate that those who were under the rule of the conquering German regime, like those in France who had to resort to eating cats and dogs, nothing seemed sacred when it was a matter of survival or die.

I really do believe therefore that what is happening to our world right now may make us realise, all of us, just how much we have taken everything for granted, especially those in the rich countries like  Britain, the fifth richest in the world.

Looking in from the outside – it seems obvious that something had to happen to stop further degradation of our species – because that’s what is. I mean look at us, many of us overweight and out of condition, brought about by excessive lifestyle – and to keep up with the give it to me I want it attitude, breeding selfishness, lack of real care in many cases for our young and social disorder creating havoc everywhere.

Of course in the coming months the hard up will have to suffer most, but perhaps they have  something to their advantage, in as much as they don’t have much to lose.

At the end of the day it is only money.  I think maybe all that is happening will create a better social spirit, like I remember in those hard days of the war – and that surely is really something to celebrate.

We have become, well most of us, so cosseted in our ways, time for a real change methinks. We will all come through it – and for the better.  I mean, can things really get much worse than all that has been happening recently?  If only we could gather up from the past some of the real virtues that matter, the way we then were – it was a different world despite all the hardship caused by the war.

We didn’t have much in those dark days gone by and, yes we are a lot better health wise for modern medicine and methods, but are we any happier?

I believe we can only survive in sharing all life has to offer – and it has plenty – in moderation – for the sake of  all who  share the tenancy  of this beautiful planet.

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QUEEN OF MISFORTUNE
A Lady Jane Grey Novel by Peter Carroll

A Love Story of Shakespearean Dimension!

Queen Of Misfortune is the fictional story of Lady Jane Grey as told by her beloved tutor, John Aylmer. At the time of her execution a stranger is recorded to have assisted her when, blind folded, she lost her way upon the scaffold. Was it the same strange who was also recorded to have visited her when she was imprisoned in the Tower? Little is known of this unfortunate girl who was beheaded for treason in the 16^th Century. She was only 16. She is omitted from the list of monarchs but was actually queen for nine days. Author Peter Carroll, in his novel, follows John Aylmer’s close relationship with Jane as her tutor and later, as she grows up, her lover. [More...]

Available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Noble, and any other good bookstore.

A contribution by Maria McCutchen, author of “It’s All in Your Head – A Life of Mental Fogginess And Physical Pain”

Living day-to-day with a disability can be challenging. One day I feel horrible, very symptomatic and discouraged, and other days, a more rare occurrence, but I do have them every now and then- are days where I will feel pretty decent. I will feel more energetic, fewer symptoms, and more like my old self than I normally do. Those days I live for. I crave the days where I feel more “normal”- for lack of a better word. More like I did before the brain cyst I have began to wreak havoc on my brain and change everything about me.

I never know exactly what it is that I did different that caused me to feel so much better – did I sleep better? Did I eat or not eat something that bothered or helped my neurological system? I never know. But I do think about everything because I want to repeat whatever it was I did that helped me feel better and I can have more days like this good one. But as always, the good feeling passes, and back are the multiple symptoms I live with.

I used to get so frustrated with this. I would get so discouraged when my good feelings didn’t last but for a fleeting few hours, or a day at most. I would get down – down on my life, down on my body, and down on myself. Then the depression would be almost as debilitating as the symptoms I live with. I would become depressed thinking about my life as a disabled person. I would be depressed about not having the energy to do what I used to. And I would be depressed for not being able to be the mom I used to be and had always dreamt of being.

It had been several years of living with this “new” me and going on this roller coaster with my health when I finally came to acceptance – years. I finally began to not only accept it, but find ways to live with my new body – to make friends with my new body, essentially. I had to create a truce with my body and quit raging war against it, both physically and mentally. I started learning how to find peace with my new body and stop blaming.

Yes, I have a brain cyst. Yes, now I have a sagging brain, and yes, I live with a Chiari Malformation. So I had to find a way to accept all of this and stop blaming. I had to stop having resentment for not having the life I thought I would at this age. There wasn’t anything I could do to change anything. I had to find a way to live with all of this, and by being mad all the time, disappointed, and fighting against it, wasn’t helping. I caved. I gave into the different diagnosis I have and I have learned to accept them. I have learned to recognize the different symptoms related to each diagnosis. I have learned what helps to settle them down, and I have learned to just go with the flow, rather than fight against them.

My life is not on the track I thought it would be today, when I was younger, that is true. But it is on a track that is good. It may be different, but it is good. I have written a book telling my story of what I went through with the diagnosis of my brain cyst, and the complications that lead to brain sagging and the Chiari Malformation. And the story of fighting with doctors to get them to listen to me. It’s called, “It’s all in Your Head.” I hope that it is inspirational to others who too, live with long term medical conditions and to inspire them to keep going, even when they feel like giving up.

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It’s All in Your Head – A Life of Mental Fogginess And Physical Pain

by Maria McCutchen

Maria McCutchen did not have time to be sick. With a husband who had just lost a job, two young sons, and a cross-country move on the horizon, who had time to be sick? Maria didn’t have time for a common cold, let alone a major medical condition. But one day while shopping in the grocery store where she had shopped hundreds of times before, she couldn’t find the milk. It was then she knew what she was feeling was more than just stress or exhaustion. There was something very wrong.

After consulting a few doctors, Maria discovered she had a rare brain cyst known as a posterior fossa arachnoid cyst—a very large brain cyst. Hearing these cysts were normally asymptomatic was of little comfort, especially because she felt her mind and body slipping away more and more every day. Normal mental and physical functions were becoming harder to control. Even if the doctors didn’t believe the cyst was a problem, she knew it was.

It would take months of living inside a shell of a person that she’d become, months of living in a mental fogginess and sometimes even physical pain, before she would finally get the medical attention she needed. It’s All in Your Head chronicles her harrowing medical odyssey and her attempts to regain some sort of semblance of her old life after treatment.

After 13 years in America, Abu Saheeh has returned to his native Iraq, a nation transformed by the American military presence. Alone in a new city, he has exactly what he wants: freedom from his past. Then he meets Layla, a whimsical fourteen-year-old girl who enchants him with her love of American pop culture. Enchanted by Layla’s stories and her company, Abu Saheeh settles into the city’s rhythm and begins rebuilding his life. But two sudden developments–his alliance with a powerful merchant and his employment of a hot-headed young assistant–reawaken painful memories, and not even Layla may be able to save Abu Saheeh from careening out of control and endangering all around them.

A breathtaking tale of friendship, love, and betrayal, One Hundred and One Nights is an unforgettable novel about the struggle for salvation and the power of family.

About Benjamin Buchholz

Benjamin Buchholz is the author of a book entitled Private Soldiers about his Wisconsin National Guard unit the year-long deployment to southern Iraq. He was stationed with his family in Oman from 2010 to 2011 and currently lives in Princeton, New Jersey, where he is pursuing a graduate degree in Middle East Security Studies. One Hundred and One Nights is his first novel.

Editorial Reviews

“One Hundred and One Nights is a fearless and seductive piece of ventriloquism by a storyteller in full command of his craft. Written in spare, lyrical prose from the point of view of an Iraqi doctor haunted by violence, this first novel is a spike in the heart, a powerful testimony to the insanity of war and the undeniable demands of love.” (Hillary Jordan, author of Mudbound and When She Woke )

“Benjamin Buchholz’s brilliant debut offers a powerful look at life in war-torn Iraq. Stocked with finely-drawn characters and political intrigue, One Hundred and One Nights blows down the highway with all the furious momentum of an army convoy while delivering its real prize: a heart-wrenching story of love and loss and redemption.” (Zoë Ferraris, author of City of Veils )

“An eye-level view of war-ravaged Iraq with a story that centers around lost relationships, longing and regret….[Buchholz] clearly has an eye for detail; the book boils with observations on the culture and daily life of the residents of Safwan and Baghdad. The author is an astute observer, turning sights, sounds and smells into eloquent snips of the lives of a people who have sustained great loss and devastation. Buchholz’s prose is vivid.” (Kirkus )

Benjamin Buchholz’s ‘One Hundred and One Nights’: War as intimate and subtle

The Washington Post Book Review – January 6, 2012 (Excerpt)

Partway through “One Hundred and One Nights,” an American-educated Iraqi doctor reduced to selling mobile phone cards finds himself dreaming about the meaning of war. Although he’s asleep, he has the sense that his insights may be close to genius: “Nothing is rhinoceros big and quicksandy and compelling, as the newspapers will have you believe,” he thinks. “War is not big speeches and credos. It is man and man and woman and woman and child, oblivious to everything except the basics of joy and hunger and thirst and inquiry.”

Iraq war veteran Benjamin Buchholz has written a seductive, compelling first novel that depicts war as intimate and subtle. He captures the distant rumbling of a Humvee, the dappled shadow left by a passing soldier and the ordinary dramas of sibling rivalry and unrequited love. War is no more or less meaningful than those details, but it increases the stakes, Buchholz proposes. And in war, us-against-them is a vast oversimplification. The insurgent is likely to be motivated by concerns more complex and murky than mere jihad. [Read the full article...]

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QUEEN OF MISFORTUNE
A Lady Jane Grey Novel by Peter Carroll

A Love Story of Shakespearean Dimension!

Queen Of Misfortune is the fictional story of Lady Jane Grey as told by her beloved tutor, John Aylmer. At the time of her execution a stranger is recorded to have assisted her when, blind folded, she lost her way upon the scaffold. Was it the same strange who was also recorded to have visited her when she was imprisoned in the Tower? Little is known of this unfortunate girl who was beheaded for treason in the 16^th Century. She was only 16. She is omitted from the list of monarchs but was actually queen for nine days. Author Peter Carroll, in his novel, follows John Aylmer’s close relationship with Jane as her tutor and later, as she grows up, her lover. [More...]

Available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Noble, and any other good bookstore.

Almost immediately after we found out we were having identical twin girls, people started asking me if I was going to dress them alike.  My first response was always “absolutely not” because I was dead set on giving them have their own identities.  I read up on the subject and come to find out there is no right or wrong on the issue so I was on my own to figure this one out. It didn’t take me long to realize that no matter how I dress them, my twins are different in so many ways.  Dressing them alike is nothing more or nothing less than downright adorable and makes for some superb photo opportunities.  I realized I wasn’t predisposing my children to having an identity crisis later in life merely because I put them in matching onesies.  Even when they are dressed alike, it was so very obvious to us from day one that our identical twins are not so identical.

For starters, there has always been a size difference between them.  Because of the Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome one twin has always been about a pound larger than the other, give or take a few ounces.  It doesn’t sound like much, but a pound on a baby is quite significant. Aside from their physical differences, I was surprised that from the moment they were born their personalities proved that even from birth, identical twins can be quite different.  As early as when they were in their incubators it was easy to tell them apart, just by their cries.  One baby cried softly, never really getting particularly upset.  She almost seemed to have patience as she waited for her next feeding or diaper change.  When it came she was happy but she was content until then. While her sister on the other hand, was an entirely different story.  Nurses from other units would come over because they heard the “screaming baby”.  When she needed a diaper change or when she was hungry everyone in and around the NICU knew about it.   She could even toss her pacifier in a tantrum because she was hungry.  I’m going to be honest, it was kind of nice to see such spunk from a baby who looked so fragile. Even several months later as they get older I can still tell them apart by their cries.

Over time, their personalities haven’t changed, in fact they have become even more distinct.  My husband is convinced that when we take the girls on vacation to the beach, one will be sitting in the sand playing quietly to herself while the other will be running around knocking over sandcastles.  We figure it will make for some interesting trips to the beach.  The funny thing is they complement each other almost perfectly.  When one is upset, the other is content.  When they play, one is perfectly happy letting the other crawl all over her while they both giggle and belly laugh.  One twin likes to be held while she falls asleep while the other would rather be laid down in her crib, left alone.  Believe me, there is no complaining on this end.  It makes for a smooth day when your babies aren’t both demanding the same thing from you.

With all of their differences and their similarities they have added so much love and happiness to our family.  They have a big sister, who is proud of her own individuality and who is determined to be the perfect role model.  Even months after having her baby sisters home, she still insists on spending as much time with them as she can.  She too, can see how remarkably different they are.  We are all excited to see who they will become and no matter how they dress or how different they are, they will undoubtedly share a bond that will last forever.

After fifty two days in the NICU, my husband and I were delighted to have our family home and we were settling in nicely with our new family. We had been thrilled that so much was finally behind us. The stay in the NICU was over, two surgeries had been performed and both were successful, the girls survived Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome, we had a stomach infection scare that turned out to be an allergy, and all the other concerning things that go along with having premature babies were becoming part of the past.  We were home and for the most part we were all doing great, or so we thought.  Just when we thought we were out of the woods, we were hit with more concerning and scary news.

It had become part of our weekly routine to take the girls to the lab at our nearby hospital to have their blood drawn.  Their doctors wanted to keep an eye on everything and make sure that they were on track with their development, medically speaking.  They especially wanted to be sure that that the babies didn’t need any additional vitamins added to their bottles as so often preemies do.  By this time I had stopped breast feeding both babies.  To sum it up, one baby had been suspected of having an allergy to my breast milk and the other wasn’t getting enough calories and gaining weight.  It was no surprise considering I was not taking the best care of myself, one of the many challenges I had while the girls were in the hospital.

For several weeks we had been taking our weekly trips to have blood drawn and although the girls seemed to be getting used to it, every time I saw them get their tiny little heals pricked it broke my heart.  I couldn’t wait for the day when the doctor would call and say that there was no need to have the tests done anymore.  Unfortunately, that wouldn’t be the case for quite some time. We received results that one of our girls was suffering from something called Osteopenia of Prematurity.  It sounded scary and in the beginning it was.  Osteopenia can be caused by a lack in vitamin D causing a decrease in calcium and phosphorus in the bones. Apparently, bone development is extremely important in the last few months of pregnancy and as you already know, we didn’t make it that far.  To put it all in simpler terms, it meant that our little girl had weak and brittle bones. So weak we risked fracturing or even breaking her legs when we changed her diaper.  We were frightened to find out that we now had weeks of treatment ahead of us and there was no telling if things would get better or if they would progressively get worse.  We did however feel very fortunate that the doctors had discovered this condition early enough and there was no need for our baby to go back into the hospital, which obviously was a huge relief to my whole family. Instead, we began adding supplements into her bottles and we were under strict instruction to “handle her with care”. That would be no challenge as they were both so tiny that I already carried them around like fragile glass dolls.  But of course we took extra precautions.

In the end, it all turned out okay.  After several weeks of treatment and keeping up with the blood work, we were relieved that all of her levels returned to where they were supposed to be.  I was able to hug my baby again without worrying about breaking a bone or injuring her. I could finally put her on the floor to play with her sister and not worry that when she cried, it was because she was in pain. After yet another scare, we were back on track and we had gotten through one more challenge together.  Today, I am happy to say that both my little girls are strong and healthy and continue to thrive.  As you read this please keep in mind that I am not a doctor and I do not work in the medical field.  The information I share as always, is based on my own experiences.  So my advice to any parent with a premature baby is to do the research and talk to your doctor to see if this may be a concern for your baby because if detected it can be treated.  As they say, knowledge is power and you can never have too much power when it comes to the health of your baby!

The world’s most beloved funnyman is back with his first humor book since the bestselling Cosbyology. In this hilarious new collection of observations, Cosby brings us more of his wonderful and wacky insights into the human condition that are sure to become classics. In the tradition of Fat Albert, Cosby introduces a host of new characters, including Peanut Armhouse and Old Mother Harold. Not since Mushmouth, Dumb Donald, Bucky, and the Cosby Kids has there been such a memorable cast.

Over the past century, few entertainers have achieved the legendary status of William H. Cosby, Jr. His success spans five decades and virtually all media-remarkable accomplishments for a kid who emerged from humble beginnings in a Philly housing project.

The doctor of comedy holds forth on everything from a game show contestant’s confusing origins, to a grandchild with a Godzilla infatuation, to his first love Bernadette, and many more delightful digressions.

Bill Cosby may not have asked to be born, but we’re sure glad he was.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

About Bill Cosby

The legendary comedian, author, and activist Bill Cosby continues to be as prolific and relevant as ever, reaching every generation and every audience since he began his career in stand-up four decades ago. He is one of the most influential performers of the second half of the 20th century. He has had an unparalleled career in television; has sold more record albums than any other comedian; his blockbuster books have sold millions of copies; and his generous support of numerous charities, particularly in the field of education, have endowed many Americans with the gift of hope and learning. Through his groundbreaking appearances on television, particularly in two landmark series each of which defined an American decade, Bill Cosby has touched the lives of millions of Americans. In the 1960s, “I Spy” broke the racial barrier in television by featuring Cosby as the first-ever black lead of a weekly dramatic series. In the 1980s, Cosby returned to television with a show that Coretta Scott King described as “the most positive portrayal of black family life that has ever been broadcast.” “The Cosby Show” enjoyed years of number-one ratings and nearly unanimous critical praise.

Cosby’s success on television has been matched in other areas. In 1986 he broke Radio City Music Hall’s 53-year-old attendance record for his concert appearance. Cosby’s also a giant in the publishing world. Fatherhood (1986) became one of the fastest-selling hardcover book of all time, remaining for more than half of its fifty-four weeks on The New York Times Best Seller List as Number 1. It has sold 2.6 million hardcover copies and 1.5 million paperbacks. Time Flies had the largest single first printing in publishing history–1.75 million. Now, I Am What I Ate,and I’m Frightened. A crusader throughout his career for a better world, his great success in the world of entertainment is complemented by his involvement with a host of charity organizations, making substantial gifts in support of education, most notably to predominantly black colleges and to various social service and civil rights organizations. On the evolution of his own style of comedy, Bill Cosby states that he was drawn at an early age to the masters of jazz, learning to emulate in comedy their ability to take an idea and continually find new and innovative ways of expressing the same theme. The legacy of Bill Cosby’s comedic genius is as sweet, meaningful and universal as any piece of music ever played.

Editorial Review

The Cos again waxes funny on the commonplace happenings of life as we may know it.

With his patented good humor, Cosby (I Am What I Ate… and I’m Frightened!!!: And Other Digressions from the Doctor of Comedy, 2003, etc.) grouses, like many of his contemporaries, about kids today. As in previous collections, the memoir covers his own Golden Age, that long-gone middle of the 20th century in the projects of the City of Brotherly Love. He remembers the daring exploration peculiar to childhood, recalling the monkey bars in the outfield of his sandlot softball games, riding the trolley, the movie house and other local haunts—and of course, the girls. It’s part memoir, part shtick and mostly sly. Bible scholar Cosby offers his exegesis on Genesis, and he reworks his exasperation about the supremely ugly Cabbage Patch Dolls. His standup timing, still one of the best in the business, works in the single-pagers, but is more measured in the short stories as they search for vagrant punch lines. If there are fewer rim shots than in the past, Cosby is still quite entertaining, and the great George Booth provides apt illustrations.

For fans, a small Philly cheesesteak, nonchalant as youth itself, by a comic master. – Kirkus Reviews

Bill Cosby Enlists Santa’s Staff For A Silent Night

NPR Book Review – December 25, 2011 (Excerpt)

Ah, the joys of a houseful of family on Christmas — the tensions, the simmering resentments, the screaming children.

Bill Cosby’s three grandchildren visit him every year for the holiday. But the comedian tells weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz that he’s not a traditional sort of grandfather, who “believes they came from heaven above.”

“They’re annoying,” Cosby says of his grandkids. “These people make a lot of noise, they blame each other for things.”

So last year Cosby came up with a plan to calm the squabbling children and restore Christmas cheer to his household. He lays it all out in his new book, I Didn’t Ask to Be Born (But I’m Glad I Was).

The plan involved a phone call from Santa’s assistant, who was confused because the children were not at home in New York, but in Massachusetts visiting their grandparents.

“I walked into the den of inequity and yelling and said, ‘There’s an assistant of Santa Claus’ on the phone who wants to talk to you guys,’” he says. Automatically, the children were silent. [Read the full article...]

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BOILED PEANUTS
A Novel by John Patrick Doyle

A Peeping Tom Goes Nuts Over A Blind Girl

Paul Kirk is a librarian and one of his town’s quirkier residents.  In a childhood home lacking parents (his mother dying of MS and his father an alcoholic) Paul had imagined himself a member of the neighboring family. Now in his late twenties, Paul vicariously participates in the households of his community. His peeping-Tom proclivities express his awkward need for social bonding. [Read more...]

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Who would have thought swallowing a coin would have led the great Engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, to contemplate retirement in Torquay – coupled with the fact that he and his family spent many a happy holiday in England’s South Devon.

He was performing one of his conjuring tricks to the delight for his children, but the mood quickly changed to alarm when he accidentally inhaled a half-sovereign coin which promptly lodged securely in his windpipe.

Mayhem set in and he was rapidly transported to Teignmouth hospital where he underwent a tracheotomy – but  still the offending coin would not budge despite the doctor using a special pair of forceps.

That he survived the turmoil to that point was a miracle indeed but Brunel, as dogged as ever, and although in obvious pain, managed to retain self-control, his father and great mentor, who had taught him everything about engineering skills, came to the rescue; his son was promptly strapped to a board and, with the assistance of four medical staff, turned upside down and the offending sovereign was promptly jerked free.

Recuperating in Teignmouth he enjoyed the area so much that he made a decision with his wife that South Devon would be a perfect place to retire,  and purchased an estate with a beautiful view overlooking the bay at Watcombe.

He later sought advice from reputable landscapers and soon the area was transformed into a very beautiful garden with an archway appropriately shaped liked a bridge named the Brunel Manor.

But sadly he died before building commenced. The house however was built, and later became the Woodlands House of Prayer Trust.

It was a sad ending for a man who turned out to be one of Britain’s greatest engineers, who professed to bridge all the gaps no matter how complicated. He especially became more known when he won the commission in competition with the great bridge builder, Thomas Telford, to build the Clifton suspension bridge in Bristol. Then there was no stopping him as he ventured further down into the West Country – after having designed the magnificent Paddington Railway Station – extending the Great Western Railway down through the counties to Exeter in Devon and then beyond., all of which was very well received because its coming would open new commerce and attract visitors wanting to enjoy the wonderful coasts and resorts that were becoming more popular by the day.

More bridges were manually built and tunnels dug with pick axe and gunpowder to eventually extend the railway to Newton Abbot, Paignton and Kingswear.

The absolute vision and energy of Brunel was amazing; he was a veritable genius, always ahead of himself like his projected railway – with cigar in mouth, rubbing his chin, scratching his head in deep thought  – to enhance an idea which would make the railway a cleaner environment ,when there were constant complaints from many who detested the soot and the smoke despoiling the ‘good clean and healthy air of Devon, whilst those who gained financially from the railway were quick to denounce such claims.

But Brunel, always eager to please everybody, set his plans in action after visiting a new rail travel conception in Dublin,  known as the ‘atmospheric rail system’ and quickly started  to convert the railway line from Exeter to Newton Abbot. Many workers were employed and laymen could not quite understand why large tubular pipes were being laid between the rails at Starcross with the building of a large tall building said to be the pumping station.

“It’ll never work, take my word for it” came the words from his good friend, Robert Stevenson who knew quite a lot about railways – and others of his like too, who thought his idea was pathetic to say the least. But undeterred, Brunel, who gained the backing of the South Devon Railway Company by Royal Assent in July 1844 – doggedly continued – a self-made man who had become hugely successful had maybe gone slightly off the rails – believing he would have the last laugh when his vision would be recognised. If it worked in Dublin so would it in Devon.

But soon problems did arise; “as always they do” claimed Brunel – “we shall overcome them.

He endurably enjoyed the challenge, much of his own money had been put into the project and there was no stopping him now!

The main problem was; how to overcome loss of pressure in the pipeline. The system entailed the use of a cast-iron tube put down between the rails to which the leading carriage was attached to enable traction. To enable the free run of the connecting valve there needed to be an on-going aperture which was accounted for by the inlay of a moveable airtight seal between the tube and carriage. The pumping station, such as  the only one which still exists at Starcross, was responsible for  forcing air out of the tubes to create a vacuum enabling the valve lever, connected to a driving rod, to move and push the train forward.  The idea was basically simple and worked well in Dublin, pumping stations would be built at regular distances along the line.. But the Dublin rail ran for just a short distance. Brunel’s version was much longer and so the leather pads which sealed the aperture, opening only as the carriage moved, became over heated and the oil used to make them supple was very much liked by rats.

But never the less Brunel would not give up, he was a man of character and was dubious about letting anyone else take the reins, as was always the case in past projects when often he had lost a great deal of money in not listening to the views of others that may have made a task that much easier and importantly, less expensive!

But one day, clapping his hands in the air, he claimed to have discovered the solution and it is true his new atmospheric railway managed several trips between Exeter and Newton Abbot without any faults.

However when the faults did come they were big time; and when costs for repair amounted to an horrendous sum of £25000 that had to be the end.

The fact that the Railway company returned to the well tried steam engines must have hurt Brunel badly, what an enormous disappointment it must have been after all his great successes with bridge and tunnel building and also his accomplished work in designing the then largest iron made passenger ship, in the world; the SS Great Britain.

Much of his own money had been put into the venture and he conceded the blame and, in self -penance, he took no wages for the time he had spent on the planning and design.

But not to be put off he designed the magnificent Royal Albert suspension bridge crossing the Tamar between Plymouth and Saltash. Which, had he lived, would have overcome the disaster of the atmospheric railway.

But he died early at the age of 53 on 15tth September 1859 but left a legacy indeed.

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QUEEN OF MISFORTUNE
A Lady Jane Grey Novel by Peter Carroll

A Love Story of Almost Shakespearean Dimension!

Queen Of Misfortune is the fictional story of Lady Jane Grey as told by her beloved tutor, John Aylmer. At the time of her execution a stranger is recorded to have assisted her when, blind folded, she lost her way upon the scaffold. Was it the same ‘stranger’ who was also recorded to have visited her when she was imprisoned in the Tower? Little is known of this unfortunate girl who was beheaded for treason in the 16^th Century. She was only 16. She is omitted from the list of monarchs but was actually queen for nine days. Author Peter Carroll, in his novel, follows John Aylmer’s close relationship with Jane as her tutor and later, as she grows up, her lover. [More...]

Available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Noble, and any other good bookstore.

Before I had my girls I asked my husband what it was like to have children since he has a daughter from a previous marriage.  He looked me strait in the eye and said, “You know the feeling you get when you first fall in love, when you get butterflies in your stomach and every second you’re not with that person you’re waiting to see them again?  That’s what it feels like when you have children, but that feeling never goes away”.

The smile on his face almost spoke louder than his words.  I knew the feeling he was talking about, but I couldn’t imagine a love being so strong.  I had heard of unconditional love, but for some reason, this explanation gave it more meaning.  Perhaps because it was coming from the man I was going to spend the rest of my life with. In fact, it made me afraid that I wasn’t capable of that kind of love.  If I couldn’t imagine it, was I cut out to even be a parent? Several years later, when my husband and I decided to try and have a baby of our own, I kept his words close to my heart. It made me excited and anxious but with twins on the way and several complications during my pregnancy, I was left with very little time to ponder what  he once told me.

The reality was that even though they weren’t even born yet, I was beginning to feel exactly what unconditional love really meant. The instant bond I felt with my girls on the day they were born made it hard to imagine life without them.  They truly made me feel whole.  I had so many questions before becoming a parent, questions I had been asking myself for a better part of thirty years.  In one instant, all my questions were answered. I finally knew what my purpose was on this earth.  If it sounds kind of dramatic, it kind of is.  Any doubts I had about myself, my life, and about all the decisions I made that brought me to all of this, were all completely erased and life as I knew it, had a new and important purpose. My husband will say it doesn’t happen often that I say he’s right.  Maybe that is true, but this time he hit the nail right on the head because every time I look at my girls, I feel like I have fallen in love for the first time.

A contribution by Maria McCutchen, author of “It’s All in Your Head – A Life of Mental Fogginess And Physical Pain”

Not long after I began to recuperate from my first brain surgery, I wanted to learn more about my condition, my brain cyst. Before, I had my surgery I just wasn’t well enough to do the research – not much anyways. The large cyst on my brain was squishing it; causing my brain to malfunction due to all the pressure it was putting on it. I simply couldn’t think.

The research for brain cyst communities lead me nowhere. And there wasn’t much information about brain cysts in general, on the web. I wanted to know more about brain cysts, Arachnoid Cysts, or Posterior Fossa Arachnoid Cysts. I had learned a little, but primarily from what doctors told me, which wasn’t much. I had to dig deep to find out more about this strange anomaly that had been found on my brain.

A couple of years ago I discovered EmpowHer.com, a site where people could come together and communicate about medical problems. They could ask questions and get answers. I thought it was a wonderful community, so I started communicating about brain cysts. I was curious to know if anyone else out there was dealing with what I was and much to my surprise, there were quite a few. Mind you, it is a very rare condition, but to me, even a few responses from others who had been diagnosed with a brain cyst seemed like a lot.

There is a very large following now, on EmpowHer.com for brain cysts. There are many people coming together to discuss their brain cyst, the brain cyst of a loved one, asking questions and getting answers. It is so wonderful to see the support out there now, for people with the same diagnosis as myself.

It’s also a great feeling to know that I am not alone that there are others out there going through very similar situations as I did and still am going through. I am not alone with having doctors look at me sideways and questioning what I am doing in their office, because normally these cysts are asymptomatic. Well, the truth is, these cysts are reeking havoc on these people’s brains and it’s just that doctors are baffled with this rare condition. They simply do not know enough about them to know how to treat them. But now, we can all offer each other advice and encouragement with our brain cysts.

I wish doctors would discover EmpowHer.com and read what all these people are going through with their brain cysts. They will see that we all have a commonality with our symptoms. We are very similar. Maybe one day EmpowHer.com will catch on with the medical community having to do with the brain, rare brain conditions and brain cysts. If it does, then I will feel like I have conquered the world and my purpose in this world is fulfilled.

My other dream? For doctors and the medical profession to read to my book, “It’s all in Your Head.” If they do, I believe they will be better equipped to deal with their patients, especially those with rare medical problems. “It’s all in Your Head” will let doctors know that they need to listen to their patients. It is the first step in the healing process.

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It’s All in Your Head – A Life of Mental Fogginess And Physical Pain

by Maria McCutchen

Maria McCutchen did not have time to be sick. With a husband who had just lost a job, two young sons, and a cross-country move on the horizon, who had time to be sick? Maria didn’t have time for a common cold, let alone a major medical condition. But one day while shopping in the grocery store where she had shopped hundreds of times before, she couldn’t find the milk. It was then she knew what she was feeling was more than just stress or exhaustion. There was something very wrong.

After consulting a few doctors, Maria discovered she had a rare brain cyst known as a posterior fossa arachnoid cyst—a very large brain cyst. Hearing these cysts were normally asymptomatic was of little comfort, especially because she felt her mind and body slipping away more and more every day. Normal mental and physical functions were becoming harder to control. Even if the doctors didn’t believe the cyst was a problem, she knew it was.

It would take months of living inside a shell of a person that she’d become, months of living in a mental fogginess and sometimes even physical pain, before she would finally get the medical attention she needed. It’s All in Your Head chronicles her harrowing medical odyssey and her attempts to regain some sort of semblance of her old life after treatment.

It is baffling how something that happened in the past can reoccur in this modern era with similar comparisons.

One would think, living in a civilised world as compared to Tudor times in England, Governments would no longer implement pain and torture to those brave souls who dare to fight for justice.

I was astounded to see the recent news about a long running dispute between farmers and local officials in Wukan, a coastal settlement of 20.000 people near China’s industrial heartland in Guangdong Province.

More so, because I am involved in writing a new book about Robert Kett’s uprising in Norfolk, England in July 1549. Like those poor peasant workers of the land who chose a man to lead them in Robert Kett aged 57 -  so did the Chinese;  he was called Xue Jinbo aged 42.

Like the Tudor peasants the Chinese have for so long been scared  to protest in a communist regime but now they are able to see how democracies  work in other lands, they gradually begin to show their  objections to the seizure of land by rich private developers  or government officials – but still given the safety in numbers, when masses join together, they set up blockades to keep the police at bay and to prevent arrests, all too bemused by what happened to the leader who was said to have undergone a fatal heart attack whilst in police custody when his family discovered his body bore signs of torture.

In the case of the Tudor peasants it was the rich farmers who were taking their lands upon which their livelihood depended and in protest they tore down the boundary hedges and fences the farmers had erected. This accumulated in the angry peasants forming a posse under the auspices of Robert Kett and his brother, William  which was set to become the biggest ever rebellion – but only to be repelled by the Governments forces which led to the brothers Kett being tortured and hung on the castle walls as an example to all those who contemplate similar protests.

All through the ages we see similar protests but none as large as the Norfolk rebellion which, like the Chinese protests festered over a period of years before the poor made their move.

But will we be seeing perhaps larger clashes as the Chinese government bring in armed riot police in attempt to suppress the uprising

Generally the western world has been kept in the dark about the unhappiness of the Chinese poor due to the land takeover, official corruption and an unresponsive legal system. Police brutality has been rife according to many internet sources and, apparently in 2010 there were as many as 180.000 outbursts relating to strikes, sit-ins, rallies and violent clashes which have mushroomed during the last decade.

And like the Tudor peasants the Chinese equivalent become more and more frustrated when no real action is being taken to deal with their qualms. China may be the world’s leading economy in the near future but to what cost?, something has to give in an age where ignorance is no longer bliss and because of the new technology all the world’s inhabitants begin to discover their true rights.

Unlike those poor Tudor’s whose well justified efforts were doomed from the start.

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QUEEN OF MISFORTUNE
A Lady Jane Grey Novel by Peter Carroll

A Love Story of Almost Shakespearean Dimension!

Queen Of Misfortune is the fictional story of Lady Jane Grey as told by her beloved tutor, John Aylmer. At the time of her execution a stranger is recorded to have assisted her when, blind folded, she lost her way upon the scaffold. Was it the same ‘stranger’ who was also recorded to have visited her when she was imprisoned in the Tower? Little is known of this unfortunate girl who was beheaded for treason in the 16^th Century. She was only 16. She is omitted from the list of monarchs but was actually queen for nine days. Author Peter Carroll, in his novel, follows John Aylmer’s close relationship with Jane as her tutor and later, as she grows up, her lover. [More...]

Available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Noble, and any other good bookstore.

I know I have briefly mentioned in a previous post what my daughter’s heart surgery involved.  To be honest I think they may actually refer to it as a procedure because they didn’t even have to do an incision to repair the valve around her heart. They inserted a small catheter in her thigh and went up to her heart to inflate a balloon that would repair her valve.  Sounds amazing?  We certainly thought so!  I said it many times throughout our whole experience and I will say it again “it’s amazing what they can do”.

During the duration of our stay in the hospital from the moment I began having complications to the time my girls came home, we met with several, and I mean several doctors and specialists.  We saw maternal fetal medicine (high risk) doctors, nutritionists, neonatologists, neurologists, respiratory therapists, eye doctors, gastroenterologists, lactation specialists, anesthesiologists and last but most certainly not least, cardiologists.  As you can imagine meeting with that many doctors and specialists can be overwhelming.  At times, so much information was given to us at one time that it was difficult keeping everything strait.  Especially with two babies who had different issues.  Talking to the doctors wasn’t always easy either.  While all the doctors we met with were fantastic in their field and undoubtedly played a role in both our daughter’s recoveries, it could certainly be frustrating at times. I think everyone can agree that both doctors and patients have more hurdles to jump through when it comes to receiving medical treatment these days, especially with insurance companies often dictating our care. It can without doubt affect the relationship between doctors and patients. We were very fortunate however to have one doctor in particular, a pediatric cardiologist, who restored our faith that the term “good bedside manner” still exists.

How often is it that you find a doctor who treats you like you are as important to them as they are to you?  Who goes out of his way to get to know your family and understands how scary it can be to have a child who is sick.  My faith is restored that there are doctors who will answer your calls personally, not through an answering service, at all hours of the day and night and will spend as much time talking with you as you really need. It’s especially nice never to feel rushed or leave an office with unanswered questions.  But if you did, you wouldn’t hesitate to call or email because the doctor himself makes sure to give you his card with all of his contact information at every visit.  Having a doctor who took a very scary and unfortunate situation and turned it into a positive experience made all the difference in the world for us.  It also made me realize moving forward, that I will never settle for less and luckily with such a great doctor we won’t have to. We have found at least one doctor who genuinely loves his job and does it for one simple reason, because he cares!

Thank you Dr. Willers for all you have done for our daughter.  Good luck with your new practice, The Children’s Heart Center of Western Massachusetts.  If there are other families like us who are scared when they discover their child has a heart condition, coming to you will be a very comforting experience all around!

The Children’s Heart Center of Western Massachusetts

Michael Willers, MD

Tel (413)285-2273

Email: michael.willers@childheartcenter.org

www.childheartcenter.org

Hampden Road in Harrow Weald, just North of London, holds special memories for me. It all started there – the laughter, the sadness of my wartime childhood. On a recent visit I saw the house I knew so well, but it seems so small. My parents, two brothers and I lived there. Gone are the colourful front gardens, the well kempt privet hedges, all concreted over now to make way for the abundance of cars which, cant fit into a road made for horse and carriage.

Now living in Devon, I have shared stories with local folk who lived in Plymouth, who equally remember the horrors of air raids and the losing of loved ones on the battle front as well as at home with the air bombings. Most of us have the same thing in common, we put aside the horrors of war to remember the good things that came out of it.

Significantly, most remember how spirited we were, I guess because we were all in the same boat – and truly – depending if your glass is half full or half empty. For me the spirit of the time had never gone. We can surely rekindle all that was good then. Materially we are much better off now, but spiritually, emotionally – are we the happier because of the way we now live?

I clearly remember wash day Monday’s when we all had to scatter, get out of mum’s way. She spent the whole day over a copper, boiling and washing, then mangling it all before she pegged it out on the line. Then in the evening we would have the left over from the Sunday joint which, somehow we seemed to afford, along with bubble and squeak (left over cabbage and potatoes) we had it cold with pickles and a steaming suet pudding to follow – which kept us growing boys in good stead.

Friday’s was bath day. It was in the kitchen next to the copper – we pulled up a hinged table which covered it and latched it to the wall. The copper we used for hot water to fill the bath with saucepans. We would all jump in one after the other, the whole family, topping up the water between to heat it up.

The toilet was outside and in the winter you made your visit as brief as possible. Sometimes our windows were iced up on the inside, the winter’s seemed much more harsh then. We had open coal fires but to help the economy we chopped up logs and I remember how we used to toast crumpets and chestnuts over a log fire. By picking up acorns for the pigs dropped from the numerous Oak trees, we could make some pocket money, five shillings per cwt from the local pig farmer.

Most of us kept hens and cockerels in hutches for eggs and meat and our gardens were full with all manner of vegetables. There was really something to work hard for, to help dad with the garden and cherish the produce, it was an achievement. All these things, the good things I particularly remember about the forties, during and after the war when we still had rationing for a while.

Like most mums mine worked so hard then because everything was manual, but somehow she always seemed happy enough, she sacrificed so much for us kids but she was strict too, and many times I felt the weight of the copper stick across my behind, I must have deserved it yet, looking back, I thank her for teaching me the values so important then.

I had about a mile to walk to school, but most kids walked then unless they had a bicycle. It was all part of the way we were, meeting our pals enroute no matter what the weather. Most of us had ‘macs’ if it rained and when we got to school, we all had our own lockers and places to hang our clothes. And then, going to our classes, we remained there, no moving from class to class then, the teachers came to you. We would all have our own individual desks and there never seemed any worry about pilfering. If there was the Head would take it very seriously and the necessary punishment of the cane was firmly administered to the culprit.

Indeed, if we talked or misbehaved in class, it would often be two or three lashes of the cane across the palms. Being the ‘tough guy’ I purposely misbehaved just to show off in front of the girls I could take the cane. But a certain new teacher, a Welshman called Mr. Samuel, cured me of that, we wore short trousers then until we were fourteen, he made me bend over between his knees, pulled up the trouser leg and gave me three of the best. I was so embarrassed, in front of a mixed class too, I was always well behaved from her on then.

Mind you I think he went too far because one of my friends Dad came along and punched him on the nose for doing the same to his son. And after that we all had to report to the head for punishment.

But I do strongly feel the way we were brought up then taught us how to properly behave, to value the morals and high respect for our fellow beings as well as each other.

In the early part of the war, when the air raids started, the shelters were still being built. We were thankful that a communal shelter in the local recreation ground was completed.

With our neighbours, we used to tramp down to the shelter, a good half mile away, with a large cart loaded with bedding and one would spend the night there. Despite the awful circumstances we then all shared, spirits were high: sing-songs in the shelter every night, everybody did their bit. Their was always a comedian to keep our chins up. We youngsters enjoyed every minute. It was an adventure. From our perspective it was an adventure because we were too young to understand how it was for the grown ups.

A shelter was built in the street which saved us the regular trek to the recreation ground. I missed all the friends we had made at the recreation ground but we soon made more. We then progressed to the luxury of an Anderson shelter built in our back garden.

Ironically, when bombs fell nearby, we were all in the house. I remember a huge thud which seemed to last forever. For the first time in my life I was really frightened for my life, but dad kept reassuring us it would soon be all over. A direct hit had destroyed two houses in what we called “the bend” in Hampden Road. Our windows were blown in with the blast of the bomb but we came out without a scratch.

During that night my mother, expecting another child, went into premature labour. While my elder brother rushed to the telephone kiosk to call the midwife, my father frantically cleared fragments of glass in the bedroom. God was watching over us that night; the bombing stopped, the all-clear sounded and I was presented with a new brother.

Hampden Road suffered no further hits during the war. A landmine parachuted into the grounds of the nearby Kodak works one night. My father was on night-watch there. Fortunately it didn’t explode.

We collected bits of shrapnel and compared our finds before storing them in biscuit tins. Without a sense of humour life would have been unbearable. There was always someone to help a less fortunate neighbour; unsung heroes were in plenty..

Later in the war Hitler turned his secret weapons on us. In broadcasts from Germany Lord Haw Haw warned us of the destruction the weapon could bring.

One if these, the V1 pilotless flying bomb – nicknamed the Doodlebug – came down in a steep hill on Harrow Weald Common. My pals and I were playing nearby and fearlessly ran to the spot. Its nose was buried deep into the ground but it had not exploded. We ventured nearer, but were send packing by the Civil Defense who erected a barbed wire barrier around it.

A prisoner- of- war camp for Italian prisoners was sited in the field at the rear of our house.. Having heard about the German camps. I could not understand why the prisoners had so much freedom. I guess we were brought up to believe our enemies were like creatures from another planet. I soon discovered they were like us.

Some of them treated us kindly, and my pal and I spent an hour sharing tea with a prisoner through the barbed wire. Afterwards they were all allowed to venture out. Some of our neighbours sympathized with them and invited them to tea. Most of them seemed confused. They could not understand why they were at war with Britain and blamed Mussolini.

Although the war was horrible I will always remember and cherish the great spirit shown by the people of all ages. Peace was grand but a certain spirit of companionship and selflessness had gone forever.

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QUEEN OF MISFORTUNE
A Lady Jane Grey Novel by Peter Carroll

A Love Story of Almost Shakespearean Dimension!

Queen Of Misfortune is the fictional story of Lady Jane Grey as told by her beloved tutor, John Aylmer. At the time of her execution a stranger is recorded to have assisted her when, blind folded, she lost her way upon the scaffold. Was it the same ‘stranger’ who was also recorded to have visited her when she was imprisoned in the Tower? Little is known of this unfortunate girl who was beheaded for treason in the 16^th Century. She was only 16. She is omitted from the list of monarchs but was actually queen for nine days. Author Peter Carroll, in his novel, follows John Aylmer’s close relationship with Jane as her tutor and later, as she grows up, her lover. [More...]

Available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Noble, and any other good bookstore.

We had known before the girls were born that one of them, the recipient of the Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome, was going to need heart surgery.  What we didn’t know was when she would need it or exactly what it would involve.  We were relieved after her delivery that surgery was not needed immediately to save her life, but that she was going to be given time to grow and get stronger before having any procedures done.  Because the doctors decided to wait, they monitored her very closely.  She had continuous echocardiograms and they were also watching for symptoms that her heart was becoming weak.  Walking into the NICU everyday was scary enough, but I never knew when the time would come and they would tell me she was getting weaker and needed the surgery.  I jumped when I wasn’t at the hospital and the phone rang because I feared it would be her cardiologist saying it “was time”.  We were very fortunate that it ended up being almost two months before surgery was needed.  It meant she had two months to grow, get stronger and have a better chance of a faster recovery from surgery.  What I didn’t anticipate was that I wouldn’t be able to be with my baby when she finally went in for the procedure, which by the way, involved inserting a catheter in her leg to her heart to repair a valve.  It’s amazing what they can do, but that’s a whole other story.

It was such a blessing that our little girl had some time before the surgery, it also meant her twin sister had a chance grow as well.  After 52 days in the NICU, we found out that both girls were finally ready to come home. With the good news however came some other news as well.  We also found out that it was time for the heart procedure, and worst of all, it needed to be done at a children’s hospital nearly three hours away.  This meant one baby girl was coming home and one was going to the city for her heart procedure.  It was hard enough imagining the girls having to be apart from one another, but how was I going to be with both babies at the same time?  The answer was far too obvious, I wasn’t.  You may be thinking to yourself, why didn’t you just bring both babies to the city? Well, don’t think that thought didn’t cross my mind, but the reality was that even though both girls didn’t have a heart problems, they were both preemies who barley weighed five pounds, and neither one of them could afford to get sick. I was told right off the bat that my baby who had been discharged wouldn’t be allowed in the part of the hospital where her sister was because the of quarantine policies. It was also recommended that she be kept home where she was not exposed to many germs herself.  So now that I knew all being together wasn’t an option, I had to face the fact that I couldn’t be two places at once.

Having to deal with different emotions was very difficult for both me and my husband.  We were so happy the girls were ready to come home, and we were so scared about being apart and even more scared about the heart procedure.  Worst off, we had to make the difficult decision of who would go to the city with one baby for the surgery and who would stay home with her sister.  The decision was not easy!  At the time, I was breastfeeding only one baby, the one coming home, and for medical reasons the other baby girl was on formula.  Logically, it made sense for me to be with the baby girl who would need my milk.  Yet it did not seem natural or even realistic for me not to be at the surgery. As any parent could understand, I needed to be there to hold my little girl and comfort her. But after several hours of going back and forth, we decided I would stay home and my husband would make the trip to the city.  That night we brought one of our baby girls home.  I wept uncontrollably as I said goodbye to her sister who would be leaving early in the morning, by ambulance, to go have her procedure.  I know parents who watched me leave with my baby couldn’t understand why I cried. After all, it was the moment they were waiting for, to finally bring their baby home.  What they probably didn’t know, was that I was leaving the other half of my heart at the hospital and it would be days before I would see my other baby girl again.

I spent the next few days adjusting to having a new baby home, and I stayed by the phone impatiently waiting for updates on how the procedure was going.  When I was feeling scared, which was often, I snuggled with my baby girl. She seemed to know her sister was far away, but she also gave me a sense that everything was going to be okay.  I was relieved when I found out that the surgery went perfectly, without any complications and that my baby girl was recovering comfortably in the NICU at the children’s hospital.  My husband never left her side and we found comfort knowing it was only a matter of days before this would all be behind us. I also found comfort knowing that even though we were miles apart, we were all getting through it together.  The day my husband’s car pulled into the driveway and I saw my other baby girl again was one of the best days of my life. We were finally together again, we were home, and after a long road, we were ready to start our new life. I truly felt whole again.

A contribution by Maria McCutchen, author of “It’s All in Your Head – A Life of Mental Fogginess And Physical Pain”

Trying to stay positive when you feel awful, due to medical issues, can be the hardest challenge of your life. You may wonder, what is there to stay positive for? Is there any point?  You may not feel like trying to find positives in your life when you feel like your life is all about negativity. But it is important to remain positive – to find things in your life that keep you positive and keep you focused.

When you have a long term or chronic medical condition, focusing on something good in your life can help take the attention off your negative, medical problem. There are things you can do to help you find the positive – things you can focus on to “help” take your mind off the negative.

Ÿ  A Hobby - If you don’t have a hobby already, try developing one. Having a hobby can not only make you happy, but it can help take your mind off of your problems and the way you feel. You may want to start with a small hobby and build from there. If you immediately go into a big, full-blown hobby that requires too much time, energy, or strength, it can end up being more frustrating than it does good for you.

Ÿ  Exercise – Trying to get in a little exercise every day can help take your mind off your troubles. Exercising releases endorphins, natural, feel-good hormones that can lift your spirits as well as keep you in good health and in good shape.

Ÿ  Family and Friends – When you start to shut people out of your life because you don’t feel well, can actually make you feel worse. By keeping friends and family in your life – keep them involved – they will feel needed and you will have a good support system.

Focusing on the good things rather than everything that is wrong with your life or your health can bring more smiles to your face. Before long, you may forget that you are living with a medical condition; instead, you will be focusing on positive, uplifting areas of life and what you “can” do, rather than negative things that you “can’t” do.

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It’s All in Your Head – A Life of Mental Fogginess And Physical Pain

by Maria McCutchen

Maria McCutchen did not have time to be sick. With a husband who had just lost a job, two young sons, and a cross-country move on the horizon, who had time to be sick? Maria didn’t have time for a common cold, let alone a major medical condition. But one day while shopping in the grocery store where she had shopped hundreds of times before, she couldn’t find the milk. It was then she knew what she was feeling was more than just stress or exhaustion. There was something very wrong.

After consulting a few doctors, Maria discovered she had a rare brain cyst known as a posterior fossa arachnoid cyst—a very large brain cyst. Hearing these cysts were normally asymptomatic was of little comfort, especially because she felt her mind and body slipping away more and more every day. Normal mental and physical functions were becoming harder to control. Even if the doctors didn’t believe the cyst was a problem, she knew it was.

It would take months of living inside a shell of a person that she’d become, months of living in a mental fogginess and sometimes even physical pain, before she would finally get the medical attention she needed. It’s All in Your Head chronicles her harrowing medical odyssey and her attempts to regain some sort of semblance of her old life after treatment.

In researching for my new novel based on Robert Kett’s Norfolk uprising in 1549, I was surprised to learn that during that period, inflation in England was said to be rampant, unemployment was rising and civil unrest was spreading throughout the land.

Considering present day problems nothing indeed changes and certainly history repeats.

But more significant, the problems seems to repeat because of the divisions between the rich and the poor, when the gentry then were starting to make huge profits at the sufferance of the poor by taking their lands, fencing them off and using them for grazing sheep.

No wonder the peasants played up and formed a large group, under the auspices of Robert Kett, to fight for their common rights, their very survival was on the line and they were willing to surrender their lives for the cause.

Of course, because they were ill equipped with weapons of war they came out the worst and thousands were killed, Robert Kett, as example, was hung from the walls of Norwich castle until his body rotted.

It was the largest ever uprising to hit England before and since but I would like to think their efforts were not entirely vain.

It seems to me that primarily, greed has always been the cause. Providence has it that powerful nations decline and now we see the evidence mostly all over the world in recession.

Perhaps it is a good thing that recessions happen that  we can experience the tough times, although to date and in the western world it is nothing compared with how we had to really live on the basics during and after the last world war.

Perhaps there is worse to come, for the moment many are still able to live a life of comparable comfort to how it was then and indeed how it was in Kett’s time,

No doubt, as those harsh wartime years proved, being hard up was good for the soul, we were all in the same boat more -or -less but spirits were high and when the war was done it made us look to a brave new world.

Arguably, the late fifties and sixties were the best time ever for Britain and much of the western world, when Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, rightly announced in July 1957 that we’d never had it so good.

England  was rocking to the sound of the new music revolution when all the former stuffy Victorian ways were  left behind and we all felt so good, there was plenty of work, one could walk out of a job and into a new one the very same week, in fact we were encouraged to go to the Labour Exchange and find a job we really wanted to do, the premise being, that everybody would be happier and content as prescribed by .Jacob Bronowski in BBC TV series called The Ascent of Man in 1974.

But alas, as history has proved we perhaps went a little too far and lost some of those precious and meaningful virtues, Come the eighties and onwards apathy became widespread and it seemed we were going through a very selfish period given the ’I’m alright Jack’ society when the Unions gained power and instituted damaging strikes, which arguably eventually harmed Britain in such a way that many of our great industries went down the drain  and then were bought up by opportunist foreigners.

And now, that disturbing division between the rich and the poor rears its ugly head again, we have a situation where the public have helped the banks keep on top but they still continue to give  huge salaries and bonuses  to the top executives, as indeed do many of the utility  companies which really hurts – and I do wonder just how long the British public will put up with the ‘couldn’t care less’ attitude of those fats cats, who are really the main culprits in  the cause and effect of recession.

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QUEEN OF MISFORTUNE
A Lady Jane Grey Novel by Peter Carroll

A Love Story of Almost Shakespearean Dimension!

Queen Of Misfortune is the fictional story of Lady Jane Grey as told by her beloved tutor, John Aylmer. At the time of her execution a stranger is recorded to have assisted her when, blind folded, she lost her way upon the scaffold. Was it the same ‘stranger’ who was also recorded to have visited her when she was imprisoned in the Tower? Little is known of this unfortunate girl who was beheaded for treason in the 16^th Century. She was only 16. She is omitted from the list of monarchs but was actually queen for nine days. Author Peter Carroll, in his novel, follows John Aylmer’s close relationship with Jane as her tutor and later, as she grows up, her lover. [More...]

Available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Noble, and any other good bookstore.

Click on image to buy from Amazon.Com

Hal is a mild-mannered IRS bureaucrat who suspects that his wife is cheating with her younger, more virile coworker. At a drunken dinner party, Hal volunteers to fly to Belize in search of Susan’s employer, T.—the protagonist of Lydia Millet’s much-lauded novel How the Dead Dream—who has vanished in a tropical jungle, initiating a darkly humorous descent into strange and unpredictable terrain.

Salon raved that Millet’s “writing is always flawlessly beautiful, reaching for an experience that precedes language itself.” In Ghost Lights, she combines her characteristic wit and a sharp eye for the weirdness that governs human (and nonhuman) interactions. With the scathing satire and tender honesty of Sam Lipsyte and a dark, quirky, absurdist style reminiscent of Joy Williams, Millet has created a comic, startling, and surprisingly philosophical story about idealism and disillusionment, home and not home, and the singular, heartbreaking devotion of parenthood.

About Lydia Millet

Lydia Millet won the 2003 PEN-USA Award for her third novel, My Happy Life, and her short story collection Love in Infant Monkeys was one of three finalists for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize. Her latest novel, Ghost Lights, is due November 2011 from W. W. Norton.

Editorial Reviews

“[Lydia Millet] takes aim at the metaphysical jugular…her gorgeous narration…exists in some extraordinary place, at once discursive, editorial, and ruminative…. If literature can under the best circumstances transport, then Millet’s extraordinary vision brings us in on the float.” (Minna Proctor - Bookforum )

“In Lydia Millet’s brilliant new novel, a skeptical tax man follows a runaway millionaire to Latin America.

Can it be a coincidence that this year — when the issue of taxes has become an abyss that both divides and conquers our national government — we also have two new books about IRS workers by important novelists of ideas? The first, of course, is David Foster Wallace’s posthumously published The Pale King…. The second is Lydia Millet’s new novel, Ghost Lights….

…Millet is seldom compared to J.M Coetzee, who seems an obvious and fruitful influence on…Ghost Lights…. Their prose has a similar, lovely stillness, and both portray characters nudged beyond typical human navel-gazing….” (Laura Miller - Salon.com )

Reader Review

Attuned to the winds of change that roar unexpectedly through the most ordinary of lives, Millet dissects the interior landscape of IRS employee Hal Lindley in Southern California circa 1994. Susan and Hal’s placid, quiet world has already been shaken by an accident that renders their daughter, Casey, a paraplegic. By habit, Hal measures daily life in small increments, the surface of domesticity most recently ruffled by the disappearance of Susan Lindley’s ambitious boss somewhere in South America. Susan anxiously awaits the return of “T.” in the flourishing real estate business with the only other employee, Robert, an enthusiastic Yale graduate, all business on hold. Unsettled, Hal ruminates on the minutiae of marriage to Susan, fueling the vague fears and suspicions of an insecure man learning too late he might have been sleepwalking through his days. In a burst of jealousy and rebellion, Hall volunteers to go to South America in search of the missing young mogul.

Burning with shame at the duplicity he has discovered on the home front, Hal embarks on an otherworldly quest as the pieces of his life fall into place far from the familiar parameters of home. With the sleight of hand of a true storyteller, Millet’s protagonist escapes the confines of his own limitations with an urgency that propels him into a dimension of consciousness that is both enlightening and tragic. This is a conventional life examined, the secret corridors of Hal’s psyche thrown open to the howling winds of new experience. Memories of home blend with the novelty of adventure, all enriched by Hal’s discoveries, though he cannot avoid paying the high tariff on wisdom: “He had turned out to be a hothouse flower- a hothouse flower from the first world that wilted in the third.” The quietly forceful Millet explores Hal’s newly-awakened interior world, an introspective man assaulted by truths that had thus far eluded him, caught in the extremes of T’s failed enterprise, slyly delivering her coup de grace in a deceptively simple tale that might leave you breathless in recognition. – Luan Gaines, Amazon.Com Customer Review

Melancholy Frontiers

The New York Times Book Review – November 23, 2011 (Excerpt)

At a glance, 2011 seems to have been a banner year for the Internal Revenue Service in fiction. It began with “The Pale King,” David Foster Wallace’s orphaned novel about employees at an Illinois branch of the organization. Now comes Lydia Millet’s “Ghost Lights,” in which an I.R.S. agent goes looking for his wife’s missing boss in a Central American jungle. If Philip Roth puts out the story of a retired tax collector’s amour fou with a young libertarian by January, we might look for fireworks over the Treasury ­Department.

What, if anything, does all this literary attention mean? That the Tea Party controls every aspect of the national conversation? That fiction has run out of interesting subjects? That taxes really are as inescapable as death? Possibly, although a closer look should reassure us, because it reveals that in Wallace the animating (sic) theme is actually boredom, and in Millet the hero’s occupation is incidental to the book’s primary question: whether recognizing that your life has become a sleepwalk allows you then to wake up.

The hero of “Ghost Lights” is named Hal (the connections with Wallace end here, or once it’s noted that Hal lives in Southern California, as Wallace did). He’s married, in his early 50s, and the father of a 20-something daughter. He would be happy, except that his wife is cheating on him and his daughter is paraplegic as the result of an accident for which he blames himself. Also, he has for some time been in limbo, bored by his colleagues, by Los Angeles and by himself. [Read the full article...]

VAMPIRE ASCENDING
by Lorelei Bell

Exciting Hunt For A Vampire Serial Killer in Chicago

Sabrina Strong is a Touch Clairvoyant who knows a secret. She knows her mother was turned into a vampire when Sabrina was ten. Now that she is grown up, a powerful magnate in the Chicago business world hires her to reveal the identity of who relentlessly murders vampires in his ultra-modern stronghold of a hotel. [Read More...]

Vampire Ascending is now available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Noble, and any other good bookstore.

Many over the age of sixty will remember with sadness and joy the vibrant days of the 1940s. Those younger, given the wonder of modern technology, now have an excellent opportunity to discover how we lived then and how  much the world has changed since.

For those of us living on the edge of London – who were wartime children, the conflict seemed to be part and parcel of life. We didn’t know any different. We were certainly not starved of adventure, so much was going on. It was great to see the Spitfires and Hurricanes coming and going from their RAF base at Northolt. We felt so proud – most of us wanted to be fighter pilots when we grew up. I can remember clearly standing in our back garden with my pals and watching a dogfight between Spitfires and invading German Messerschmitt’s fighter planes. It continued for about five minutes and, although they were very high, we could hear their guns firing. Much to our disappointment nothing happened but we cheered loudly when a Spitfire chased a German and disappeared over the horizon.

We all collected shrapnel – the jagged fragments of anti-aircraft shells – and eagerly compared our findings. After an air raid it could be found everywhere in the fields and stuck in barks of trees. Last decade I discovered some bullets embedded in an old oak in Livermead, Torquay. A  Miss Mary Hawkins, now deceased, remembered hearing an overhead aircraft firing its ammunition before it set off over the coast back to Germany.

Once we spotted a light aircraft which was unusual because we had become accustomed to the drone of bomb laden planes. It was a “Jerry” because we spotted the black crosses on the wings, and we couldn’t understand why the air raid warning hadn’t sounded. It wasn’t dropping bombs – instead mysterious strips of brown paper tape showered down. Just afterwards the siren was heard and we quickly made for the Anderson air-raid shelter at the bottom of the garden. Later we discovered the tape was the enemy’s method of interfering with our communication systems. Coming up to D-Day the main streets  were frequently visited by allied servicemen of all nations. Those from the commonwealth forces wore an identification tag on their sleeves showing their country. There were Canadians, Poles, Australians and French. The Americans were very distinctive in their gabardine uniforms – they seemed always to smoke cigars and chew gum. “Got any gum, chum” became a well- known phrase and they were certainly very generous with their hand-outs of gum and candy to the local youngsters. Single young women didn’t’ do so bad either when their American boyfriends lavished them with nylon stockings and such, when in the UK they were still wearing old fashioned Lyle. They were known as GI’s an abbreviation for their uniforms being Government Issue.

Processions were commonplace too. Our own Home Guard frequently marched the streets and we youngsters tagged behind with broomsticks over our shoulders doubling as make believe rifles. It was all a great adventure. We sensed a new feeling of hope and resilience which abounded everywhere. D-Day was imminent and there was a strong feeling of confidence that Hitler could now be beaten. Winston Churchill told the nation so over the wireless and loudspeakers in factories and everywhere. He was our inspiration and without a doubt, captured the spirit and sheer determination of a Britain which was still great. He was the right man for the right job at the right time. At the time those who could afford their own motor cars were asked to restrict their journeys unless absolutely necessary. If there was an air raid the driver should stop immediately and park the vehicle away from the road before finding shelter. Priority was given to the movement of military vehicles. American jeeps were seen everywhere and queries were raised by disgruntled local car-owners that the Yanks were using the jeeps for everything other than military purposes, even for giving rides to girlfriends. But it was generally accepted that the GIs, along with our troops, could be at the battlefront at any time so why shouldn’t they let their hair down.

Full of the excitement of the time we youngsters fought our own wars in the streets and fields All manner of implements were salvaged from bomb sites to make our own headquarters and we even made jeeps from old pram wheels, tin baths and old cupboards. Small wooden supports were strapped across a central plank which sufficed as our wings and we became air fighters having imaginary dogfights in the sky. Of course the RAF always won. Parents told us stories of what it would be like when the war ended. For us of course it was the status quo, we had known nothing different. They told us about the things to eat which were unheard of as far as we were concerned. Example – a banana, what was that and did we eat the skins! Our main diet then was porridge, stews for dinner and bread and dripping for tea, anything to fill our tummies sufficiently given the meagre food rationing. Sweets came in very short supply and chicken was a Christmas luxury. We kept our own chickens so we were fortunate to have more eggs than the ration book allowed. Our parents also talked about lights everywhere in the streets and on buildings. It seemed that when the war ended it would be like a fairytale place to live. Teachers, eager to promote high spirits, were telling us to keep our chins up and that the life of misery now shared by us all would soon end and we would all be happy again. It was not like that though. We youngsters were having a whale of a time – we were certainly not miserable. Looking back I guess it was a case of what we never had we never missed, although we were always conscious of the trauma the war caused. It amazes me to this day how the British managed to hold out despite the terrible consequences of war and still managed to cope with big families, as there were then. Glad they did. Perhaps D-DAY came at just the right time.

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QUEEN OF MISFORTUNE
A Lady Jane Grey Novel by Peter Carroll

A Love Story of Almost Shakespearean Dimension!

Queen Of Misfortune is the fictional story of Lady Jane Grey as told by her beloved tutor, John Aylmer. At the time of her execution a stranger is recorded to have assisted her when, blind folded, she lost her way upon the scaffold. Was it the same ‘stranger’ who was also recorded to have visited her when she was imprisoned in the Tower? Little is known of this unfortunate girl who was beheaded for treason in the 16^th Century. She was only 16. She is omitted from the list of monarchs but was actually queen for nine days. Author Peter Carroll, in his novel, follows John Aylmer’s close relationship with Jane as her tutor and later, as she grows up, her lover. [More...]

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Wilfred Thesiger (1910-2003), the last of the great gentlemen explorer-adventurers, journeyed for sixty years to some of the remotest, most dangerous places on earth from the mountains of western Asia to the marshes of Iraq. The author of Arabian Sands and The Marsh Arabs and The Life of my Choice, he was a legend in his own lifetime but his character and motivations have remained an intriguing enigma.

In this authorized biography–written with Thesiger’s support before he died in 2003 and with unique access to the rich Thesiger archive–Alexander Maitland investigates this fascinating figure’s family influences, his wartime experiences, his philosophy as a hunter and conservationist, his writing and photography, his friendships with Arabs and Africans amongst whom he lived, and his now-acknowledged homosexuality.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

About Alexander Maitland

ALEXANDER MAITLAND was a close friend of Thesiger for forty years. He edited Thesiger’s anthology, My Life and Travels and helped produce Thesiger’s My Kenya Days: The Danakil Diary. He is the author of biographies of Freya Stark and John Hanning Speke.

Editorial Reviews

“Biographies of famous travelers-and Mr. Maitland’s Wilfred Thesiger is an especially good example of the genre-are always an excuse to ponder first principles . . . Mr. Maitland has interesting things to say about all the books, noting the way, for example, in which the autobiography,The Life of My Choice (1987), embellishes without ever quite betraying its original material.” – The Wall Street Journal

“For Maitland, Thesinger’s friend and literary collaborator for 40 years, this biography is clearly a labor of love. But it is also balanced, and doesn’t avoid Thesinger’s quirks or limitations . . . A superb tribute to an admirable but enigmatic man.” – Booklist

“It’s the inner journey that resonates most in this sweeping biography of a late exemplar of the British yen for exotic self-exile . . . Maitland (Speke and the Discovery of the Source of the Nile), Thesiger’s longtime friend and editor, serves up a vivid account of his adventures and a perceptive portrait of a complex man–ebullient hunter, repressed homosexual, man’s man, and spiritual seeker who hoped that desert sand would scour clean his soul . . . The scenery is magnificent, and Thesiger makes for a charismatic travel companion.” –Publishers Weekly

Reader Review

Today’s satellite images allow us to peer into the most remote places on Earth. We have weather images, erupting volcanoes, and oil spills. Some satellites can identify individual vehicles. “The Age of Exploration”, usually viewed as that era of sailing ships that gave European society its first indication of the Western Hemisphere, Australia and detailed Africa and Asia, is a limited definition. Many internal lands remained out of ken for decades, even centuries. One man capped the end of pre-satellite exploration with extensive travels in many places. This account of the life of Wilfred Thesiger traces his many journeys from wanderings in Abyssinia, across the Arabian desert lands and around East Africa. It’s a gripping account of an enigmatic figure – one we’ll never see again. Maitland’s highly detailed narrative, culled from documents and personal acquaintance with Thesiger, will not be easily displaced.

The son of a diplomat in Addis Abbaba, capital of what was then Abyssinia, Thesiger had an adventuresome childhood. The life toughened him from an early age. It also led both to an unsettled existence matched by an enduring desire to return there throughout his life. Even when far afield, the Ethiopian hills beckoned him. Adding to that lure was a friendship with a man who ultimately became Emperor of that nation, Haile Salassie. Family circumstances removed him from Addis, and he found ways to exercise his wanderlust. The intrusion of WWII gave Thesiger an opportunity to put his exploration and language skills to work. Having mastered Arabic in addition to his academic training, he was able to negotiate arrangements with various tribes. In the Western Desert, after El Alamein, his exploits are exciting reading.

The disruptive era of war lingered in the Middle East as oil became the focus of The Powers. Thesiger’s deep aversion to the internal combustion engine kept him away from petroleum exploration. Instead, he was commissioned to hunt locusts! The job allowed him to penetrate into Arabia’s “Empty Quarter” where some people had never seen a European. These jaunts nearly had Thesiger incarcerated or killed as local sheikhs resented European intrusion. In other exercises, Thesiger is largely credited with bringing to view Iraq’s “Marsh Arabs”. These enigmatic people lived an isolated existence in an immense area. Thesiger spent long, fruitful periods with them, often acting as a medical technician [he had no formal medical training]. His fondness for young Arab men gained a further hold in those years. As a semi-official circumcisor for the locals, there was ample opportunity.

Maitland, while not overly adulatory of Thesiger in this book, notes some of his subject’s more disparate thoughts and habits. Apart from his detestation of the internal combustion engine, the wanderer never found the need for music. That’s a bit out of character for a man who manifested the “Old School” attitudes of middle-class Britons. He even over-dressed on many unlikely occasions, rejecting an appeal to “peel some layers” at a dinner in Kenya. His attachment to his mother was intense. The loss of his father and Kathleen’s later re-marriage only seem to have strengthened that tie. Perhaps, suggests Maitland, the years spent with an abusive headmaster of Thesiger’s preparatory school drove him from “father figures” and may have led to his propensity for young men. Although all those relationships appear to be platonic, Thesiger seems to have avoided sex as demeaning or repulsive.

Thesiger left a legacy of writings of his travels and the people he met. Maitland suggests Thesiger’s orientation was always toward people over places. Geography was merely background to be dealt with as he visited, exchanged greetings, partook of the same fare as the locals and generally “blended in”. He fit in, sometimes uncomfortably, with the mob of others producing similar travel accounts. He stood above those other writers, however, to become the giant of 20th Century voyagers on the ground. The most compelling of his works, which Maitland draws on extensively, is “The Life of My Choice”, his autobiographical rendition. As Maitland makes clear, that book remains only the beginning in depicting this rather fabulous figure. Never truly Arab – he never considered becoming a Muslim – yet certainly not really British, despite his attitudes, Thesiger was a man without a country, yet of many. – Stephen A. Haines, Amazon.Com Customer Review 

Alexander Maitland’s “Wilfred Thesiger: The Life of the Great Explorer,” reviewed by Michael Dirda

The Washington Post Book Review – November 23, 2011 (Excerpt)

The cover of this fine, detailed and perhaps slightly overlong biography depicts a barefoot Bedouin and his sparsely laden camel standing alone in the middle of sandy nothingness. It is only by peering closely that one can make out the beaky nose and English features of Wilfred Thesiger (1910-2003), whose “Arabian Sands” (1959) is widely regarded as one of the greatest travel books of modern times. T.H. White — the revered author of “The Sword in the Stone” — once called it, with forgivable exaggeration, “the best book I have ever read.” Illustrated with Thesiger’s haunting black-and-white photographs and characterized by a terse lyricism, this desert classic records two grueling camel journeys, undertaken in the late 1940s, across the forbiddingly desolate Empty Quarter of Arabia.

Oddly enough, Thesiger waited a decade to write up his Arabian adventures, which included climbing and crossing sand dunes 700 feet high, murderous threats from warring Arab tribes, and near-constant hunger and thirst — and then did so while cozily ensconced in a hotel in Copenhagen. He composed his other famous book, “The Marsh Arabs” (1964), while residing in a pensione in Florence. As Alexander Maitland reminds us, this great wanderer through Arabia, Persia (as he called Iran), Central Asia and Africa was emphatically a man of contradictions. [Read the full article...]

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THE BLEEDING HILLS
A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith.
- 2 Timothy iv. 7

The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]

The Bleeding Hills is available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Nobel, and any other good bookstore.

In the NICU we were encouraged every day to spend some time holding our babies as close to our skin as possible.  Skin-to-skin contact, also known as kangaroo care, has been proven to be important for the development of babies, especially preemies.  Not only do they benefit from the warmth from your body, but it has been proven that babies benefit from the rhythm of their parents heartbeat and their familiar smell.  We took as many opportunities as possible to “kangaroo” with our babies.  It became part of our daily routine, and I was sure to continue this when we brought the girls home.  What I recently realized, as the girls grow and become stronger, is that this time spent together has new benefits that are equally as important as when they were in the hospital.

Now that they are older, we call it snuggle time and it is my favorite part of the day. It usually takes place early in the morning when the house is quiet and cool as the sun is making its way over the mountain, and I am snuggled on the couch with my baby girls.  Full from their first bottles of the day, they lay wrapped up on either side of me, staring and cooing.  In this moment, I forget about the rest of the day and chores that still need to be done. I don’t even see the pile of dirty clothes that sit by the stairs, or the dishes in the sink from the night before.  I let everything go, and I take in every second because I realize that these moments won’t last forever.  There will always be dirty laundry and dishes, but there will be a day, too soon, when this moment will only be a memory.   What I began to realize in these moments, was that my girls were not taking this same opportunity.  They were not taking the moment to forget about the world around them, in fact they were doing just the opposite.  They were taking this opportunity to learn about the world.  Then it hit me, I have a very important job to do. My job is so much more than, making bottles, changing diapers and doing dishes. My job is guiding my children through the journey to becoming adults.  To guide them to becoming women who are strong, independent and have self confidence.  I realized that doesn’t start years from now, that starts at this very moment.  The funny thing is that this wasn’t the first time I thought about any of this.  I prepared myself for parenting in many ways.  Yet, for some reason at this moment, everything just clicked. My babies are always watching me, studying me, and learning from me.  They are not only studying my physical features, but my actions, the way I present myself and even my feelings.  What people say is really true, they are like little sponges, soaking everything up and absorbing everything they see and hear.

The girls took turns touching my face, grabbing at my nose and lips and investigating each part as if it were the first time they had ever seen this part of my body. As they focused on one part of my face, their eyebrows moved up and down as if to be very worried about what they were finding.  “Don’t worry” I said “your nose won’t be this big “and I smiled.  One girl pulls her hand away from my nose, moving to the part of my body where the sound just came out of.  Grabbing at my lips and pulling at them.  She is investigating me, learning and growing right before my very eyes.   As this time comes to an end and each girl drifts off into their morning nap, I get ready to start my day. I felt as though I had suddenly discovered just how important I am to my children.  I also became very frightened.  After all, this wasn’t a nine-to-five job we were talking about, this was being responsible for life, two lives.  I took a deep breath, and took a moment to realize who I am, who my husband is, and the people we have become ourselves.  We are strong, and even in extremely difficult challenges, we have always come out the other side.  Perhaps most importantly, we love each other and we love our children more than words could explain.  I knew there were things I wanted to work on, there is always room for self growth, but I also know that I am ready for this challenge.  I am ready to present the world to my girls and it is going to start off each day the same way, with a little snuggle time!