This is the cover art for Stupefying Stories #24. It seems a fitting image to capture the essence of where we are as of today: climbing up out of the wreckage and looking around, trying to get our bearings and figure out the direction in which we should go.
One year ago today…
Fortunately, I keep a pretty good calendar. Unfortunately, the past year’s notes make incredibly damned depressing reading. One year ago today, things here seemed to be under control and Rampant Loon Press seemed to be making forward progress.
A week later, Karen was in the infusion room at the oncology clinic when she had an allergic reaction that put her straight into the ER in critical condition, and then into the ICU for a week. This was how we learned that her cancer had mutated again, the chemotherapy drug she’d been on was no longer effective against her cancer and was in fact now dangerously toxic to her, and the cancer had metastasized into her liver.
The next two months were just one appointment after another, one specialist after another, one hospital outpatient procedure after another. The chemo toxicity had damaged her heart; we needed to determine how badly and whether her lungs were involved as well. In one particularly ghastly turn of events she developed an autoimmune reaction to her implanted chemotherapy port and it began to push up through her skin, and so she needed surgery to have it removed and replaced. They were able to stop the spread of the cancer in her liver, but in April found it had metastasized into her cerebellum and was inoperable, so she needed immediate radiation therapy to keep it from getting larger or spreading.
By the end of April, though, the radiation had been deemed a great success and we seemed to have a new chemotherapy treatment plan that was working, so we made plans to get Stupefying Stories #24 out the door. The stories were copy-edited and approved. The authors were paid. The book was in layout and production, with about two weeks’ work remaining, and we set a release date of June 1st.
I’m not quite sure what happened in late May and June. My notes are sketchy and fragmentary. It appears that in and around various doctor and clinic appointments I spent a lot of time dealing with the fallout from our ISP’s unilateral decision to move our email hosting to Microsoft Exchange, in the process rendering all our various @rampantloonmedia.com email addresses unreliable.
[Nota bene: if you’re trying to contact me, use stupefyingstories@gmail.com. It’s the one email address that’s most reliable now.]
By July, things were going very wobbly on the rails. In hindsight it’s clear that the events that would lead to Karen’s final medical crisis and death were already in progress, it’s just that no one seemed to have a clear grasp of how all these things that seemed to be minor and easily treatable in and of themselves (and yet were inexplicably unresponsive to treatment) were interrelated. I do wish, though, that when a certain specialist told me Staphylococcus aureus is a relatively benign skin bacteria and Karen couldn’t possibly have an MSSA infection deep inside her pelvic bones, I’d slapped that doctor so hard I’d made her head spin on the top of her spinal column.
“Look at her chart, you blithering idiot! Look at how many bone biopsies she’s had in that area! What do you think ‘benign skin bacteria’ do when they get carried along down into a patient’s bone marrow by a biopsy needle?!?!?!”
July was bad; August was worse; September was a horror story. In October Karen went into the hospital through the ER again, for what turned out to be for the last time. On November 30th she was discharged to home hospice care, and on December 3rd she passed from this world in the way she’d wanted to leave: peacefully, at home, and surrounded by family.
_______________
It’s been two months now since Karen died. People seem to have trouble understanding that she was not “just” my wife, she was my partner, in just about every way it’s possible for two people to be partners—and that includes in the editorial processes and business activities of Rampant Loon Press and Stupefying Stories. It’s taken me two months just to work through all the urgent and immediate activities that must needs follow someone’s death. I am only now getting time to take stock of RLP and Stupefying Stories and ask myself: what the Hell was I doing before this whole s***storm hit, and what do I want to do now and going forward?
Well, first on the docket: getting the next few SHOWCASE stories lined up and in the queue to be published. (Seriously. They’re good. You should click on that link and see what you find.)
Secondly, getting Stupefying Stories #24 buttoned up and out the door. The authors have already been paid. The money is spent. No reason not to release the book. I’m looking at a March 1st date for the release, to give me time to ramp up a promotional campaign for it. Following that I’m looking at a June 1st release date for Stupefying Stories #25, as the issue is already fully funded, thanks to the generosity of our donors. Then, after that… we’ll see what happens.
Third, I need to get Guy Stewart’s Emerald of Earth out in book form, and re-sync with Pete Wood regarding all these Pete Wood Challenge stories that are floating in limbo. I’m sure there are other projects hanging fire out there that are not at the front of my mind right now; I’m going to need a little time to remember and get things moving forward again.
Please be patient with me. As far as RLP goes, I’m trying to replace a business partner who was irreplaceable. This is not going to be easy.
Kind regards,
Bruce Bethke
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