I’d just returned from my third trip to the emergency room in three days – this time, I’d been told I was fine and not to worry about my swollen big toes that I’d feared were a sign that blood clots were travelling all over my body – when I got the news. I turned on my computer to find an email from the publisher I’d had several email exchanges with in the past year (mentioned in earlier blog about my not being published) that she wanted to publish my novel!

That morning, at 4 a.m., on my way to the emergency room, I’d tried to give over, to death, if it must be. I was deeply discouraged and worn out from complications from the insertion of three stents in major cardiac arteries two weeks earlier. The insertions themselves had been successful, miraculous in my mind and the cause of much joy and relief. But the complications, which had required a trip to my nurse practitioner and innumerable calls to doctors and hospitals referring me to someone else to figure out what the problem was and two trips to the emergency room had me down. I’d memorized the telephone prompts to get in touch with an on-call nurse in the wee hours. As the electronic notes that recap encounters with medical personnel these days reported, I sounded “distressed” when I called that morning. You bet I was distressed.

Anyway, I came home to the email which I had dreamed for decades of someday receiving.

I immediately read the cogent parts to my husband.

I said, “Wow!” a lot. I danced. I said “I can’t believe it,” a lot.

I texted my son.

I danced some more, though it was a restrained dance, given the events of the last few weeks.

Not quite believing it was true, suspecting that some mistake had been made, I held off telling my college roommate with the two novels already published and a third one coming (see earlier blog about my not being published). When I did let her know, she wrote Mazel Tov in caps and with lots of exclamation points and said she was very happy for me. Then I got to tell a friend I was going on one of my “baby” post-procedure walks with, whose daughter had recently gotten a contract with one of the big five. Her excitement too was wonderfully gratifying.

Then I couldn’t restrain myself from telling my “On Tyranny” group (a discussion group formed to channel our anguish over the current state of our country). They too were excited and wanted to know what the novel was about. I said I’d love to talk about it another time, but I didn’t want to hijack the conversation about our national crisis.

I hesitated to tell my sister for fear of exacerbating an undercurrent of malaise over our respective novels and other stuff that had been muddying our relationship. After a day or so, when I finally told her, she too mostly said, “Wow!” (we are sisters after all) and “Congratulations!”

A week later, I’m surprised to find that I’m not dancing so much. I know that my spirits, especially after my recent ordeal, are much better than they might have been. No doubt, I am at much lower risk of heart attack than I was a week ago. Stress is known to be a contributing factor. But I’m not lindying (my dance of choice) around the clock. The lingering pall of the procedures and some not yet resolved complications are dulling my euphoria.

Still, I’m being published! My novel, A Wicked Grasp, will be out in the fall of 2027!