On a More Personal Note, by Diane Scott Lewis

 Lately my husband has had a terrible cough. Doctors could not figure it out. Then his calcium levels went through the roof.

They put him in the hospital for major tests. His lymph nodes are swollen. More tests. We finally got the results. Cancer, the word you never want to hear.

It's thrown us all in disarray. He'll start radiation soon, at a hospital 40 minutes away. They have an excellent cancer center there. I'm still in a daze. He is emotionally up and down.

My sons will help drive him back and forth. Even our wine lady offered to drive. I'm speeding along a backroad.

How to cope? How to keep writing? It's literally one day at a time.

I must resurrect my off-beat sense of humor for a situation that is far from amusing. Plus comfort a man who is staring at his own mortality.

My friend in England is going through this with her husband. Her advice is a great comfort. Even my publisher is involved, her husband now deceased, was a great believer in help from the spirit world. We'll use any means possible to get through this.

My oldest (longest) friend has been there, too; by now she may wish she could hide!

Now I must get my head back into the YA novel I'm working on for publication next year. It's all surreal.

I'm a Type A who needs to dial down to a B.

Prayers if you got 'em!