I had the second phase of my eye surgery this week.
In most respects it went more smoothly than the first phase, although I could have done without waking up in the middle of the procedure. Apparently this happens more often than you might think. As a rule, most patients are too woozy from the anesthesia to remember that it happened, but for my part it was an experience I would just as soon never repeat.
Cue the Ramones: I Wanna Be Sedated.
Recovery seems to be going slightly more smoothly this time. For the first two days after the procedure I just wanted to sleep, or at least to hide in the dark and avoid sunlight like a vampire. Fortunately for me it’s been foggy all week—well, what passes for a heavy fog here in Minnesota, anyway. Back home this would barely qualify as a light mist.
The greater challenge I’m facing is that now that I’ve had both eyes done, none of my pairs of glasses are even close to being the right prescription for my new eyes. I’ve been told it will be at least a few more weeks until things settle down enough for them to give me a new eye exam and write a new prescription, so I endured a few days of eye strain and pounding headaches before deciding to go digging through my bin of old eyeglasses, in hopes of finding a pair that were closer to what I need now. In this I was successful, sort of. I found a pair I can use while working on the computer, as long as I don’t stay at it for more than an hour or so at a stretch.
What this means for Stupefying Stories is that we’re back at work, and almost back to what passes for normal around here. We’re caught up on dealing with the SHOWCASE queue and making good progress on the CLANKALOG submissions queue. We’ll be sending out acceptances, rejections, and for those who received acceptances but no contracts before this longer-than-expected hiatus, contracts over the course of the next few days.
Important Note: If you receive a rejection from us, please do NOT send us a new submission as an attachment to your reply to the rejection. Doing so screws up our submission tracking system and makes it really easy for us to lose your new submission. If you want to send another story for our consideration, please send it in a NEW email message.
Thanks for your patience,
Bruce Bethke
Editor, Publisher, and Executive Cat-Herder in Chief
Stupefying Stories | Rampant Loon Press
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