Stable

Breathing

If you’re still here all these months later without any updates at all, then God bless you for staying in the game with me a stretch longer.

As you are still here, I’m going to open up a little about my health. I’m sure more than a few people have now just logged out of my substack post, because your health is quite similar to your indie novel. NO ONE CARES ABOUT IT QUITE AS MUCH AS YOU DO. Or so I’ve learned. Anyway, I’ll give you a quick summary just so you know where I’ve been at the last few months and years. Perhaps if you’re going through something similar, you can relate.

At the end of 2019, when I was writing ALWAYS THE DEAD — a story about a guy suffering from Tuberculosis — I was hit with what I thought was a bad chest infection. Cough. Fever. Chest ache. Breathlessness. And strangely pins and needles in my hands and feet (which comes snd goes even today.) I seriously felt as though I was the main protag of my novel.

I got better. The covid pandemic hit a few months later. I suspect what I had was a very early variant of that damned sickness. I would go on to get it three more times over the next few years. With the loss of smell that’s never really recovered either.

From the autumn 2023 I developed a wheezy cough, which I assumed was a smoker’s cough. I started smoking at the age of 16 and barring the most hard-core stuff I’ve smoked pretty much everything there is to smoke. Even banana peel. I used to smoke cigars like cigarettes too. Why? Because I was a fucking idiot, thats why. I absolutely loved my Lucky Strikes though and every time I was coughing my lungs out with covid or a chest cold I (stupidly) continued smoking. However, around 2022, I developed serious shortness of breath. Which I assumed was seasonal allergies, asthma or having to wear a mask all the time.

Despite all this I continued to go to the boxing gym at least twice a week. Even having to wear a mask while soft-sparring and doing the pad-work. I was extremely breathless but assumed I was just smoking too much. I pushed myself extremely hard and dropped from 82kg down to 72kg which I thought was due to diet and exercise not because I was ill.

At around the end of 2023 early 2024 I decided to go to the hospital for a CT scan because the cough and breathlessness hadn’t gotten any better, I had passed out and fainted a couple of times and I had also noticed some of my toes had gone blue and had become clubbed. My fingernails too were looking a little weird. Wider. All this I assumed was asthma and long covid.

However, when my hospital contacted me to come in for further tests because they suspected I had lung disease, I was dumbstruck and shitting myself. Something made worse when I googled the disease and the survival rates. Anyway, I won’t bore you with all that jazz because I think I’ve written about it previously. It’s shit. And you can’t talk to anyone about it because most folks don’t want to hear about it. Even those who love you can only listen to your health woes so many times. I got pretty depressed at one point, to be frank.

I really have a huge respect for people who have serious illnesses and continue to stay upbeat and positive. They’re real heroes. True hard cases.

Over the last two years I’ve been in and out of the hospital doing tests of all kinds.

If you’ve ever had to do Pulmonary Tests over and over again until your eyes are streaming and your chest aches, I salute you. I’ve had to do all those tests at least five times over the last two years since my diagnosis and I really fucking hate them.

I actually passed all the tests pretty well and learned that although they’re somewhat badly scarred I have the lungs of an athletic swimmer. This was probably caused by doing boxing regularly at a time my oxygen saturation would have been in the low nineties. Boxing quite literally saved my life, I believe. Without the Sweet Science my lungs would be struggling to supply my blood with enough oxygen to properly function. So the extra 20% lung capacity I have gained cancels out the scarring in a way, although my lungs are hypersensitive and my airways constrict with the slightest provocation.

I had to give up smoking. Which I miss everyday single day. That early morning cigarette and coffee. The after dinner smoke. But giving up is easy when it’s a case of buying yourself a few more years.

The good news is my lung scarring hasn’t changed over the last two years which means it is currently stable. Or as my doctor poetically described it, ‘the smouldering ashes of a fire that’s burned itself out.’

I still have to go to the hospital every six months for a CT, blood tests and the breathing tests just in case the scarring begins to increase again, but for the time being I’m all good with that.

Hopefully this will be the last substack where I drone on about my health and I can go back to trying to sell my novels ha!

My third daughter Riona Nora was born in February of this year. She’s almost crawling now and is laughing every day.

I’m currently working six or seven days a week because I’m the main breadwinner for the time being while my wife looks after the baby. Hence, the reason I haven’t been writing so much or publishing so much. Needs when needs must. I do miss it. I miss the community. I miss some of the great friends I made, like you reading this. Because if you are still reading this all these months later then you’re definitely a mate. And a good one at that. Thank you.

Writing is the only thing in my life I’ve ever been good at. I am never going to give it up. I’ve worked way too hard at it. Sometimes you do have to step away to get your life in order before you can settle down infront of the keyboard again.

The ideas are all still in my head though. Am currently writing a crime caper in my mind that will no doubt find itself into book form yet.

Again, I just want to say thank you. I’m not selling anything or promoting my books. I’m not even really writing anything entertaining, but you’re still here and that means a lot to me.

Wishing you all the best always,

Steve

P.S

If you ever feel like you’ve got no one to talk to, feel free to hit me up anytime. I’m aware I’m annoyingly slow at replies but I’ll try my best.