#brynnaraven

[brynnaraven]

Oh, readers. I wish I had news of a new chapter of Crazy Faith, but I don’t yet. Yet. We are moving through the final part of my husband’s brain cancer treatment, which is chemo, and that will be over in late October. He is doing remarkably well, but that is his way. He is such a warrior.

The week after my husband finished 28 radiation treatments, my Dad died very suddenly of a heart attack in February, with no previous indicators that this could happen. He had a lung condition from agent orange exposure in Vietnam, but no cardiac problems that we ever knew about. It was a massive and horrible thing that hit like a freight train. We are all still reeling from it, and the last three months have been a roller coaster to say the least. Because it wasn’t enough already, you know? My family and I have spent a lot of time helping my mom sort out affairs, I arranged the funeral since he was buried where I live and had to be transported, it’s been… I don’t have a word. The year isn’t half over and I’m already tapped. Honestly I’d really love to take a whole week, lock myself in a hotel alone, and write like four chapters, but I’m not sure it would happen. My brain just is so very tired and won’t enter FicMode yet. I try. I reread parts of CF to try and get things flowing, but then I cry when I read about Munro’s death. I won’t always. I will finish this damn story one day.

My Dad took me to see Last of the Mohicans in 1992. My Dad gave me my first longrifle. This is basically because of him. So I will finish it. I WANT to finish it! I just don’t know when. I’m sorry, y’all.

[brynnaraven]

Dear readers and fans,

I am so heartily sorry it’s been so long since my last chapter published for Crazy Faith. As many of you know, my sweet husband was diagnosed with brain cancer in late July 2021, and if my life was a rollercoaster before that, it’s a freaking hurricane now. Biopsy in August confirmed grade 2 oligodendroglioma with a favorable genetic profile that makes it most responsive to treatment, but the tumor was quite large - 9cm. He underwent surgery in October to remove the existing cranioplasty from his combat injury and resect the tumor, and his wonderful neurosurgeons were able to resect all but about 1cm of the mass in his right frontal lobe, and one of his epileptologists was also on the case to take some of the surrounding seizure-active tissue related to his injury. This was all pretty successful and he recovered fast and well like the walking miracle he has always been. 28 Radiation treatments started in December and this week he will finish, and then get a 4 week break before 14ish months of PCV chemotherapy begin. It’s a long and twisty road, and my brain has not been in a frame of mind to write, which is frustrating but normal I suppose.

Last week I myself had surgery to release my right carpal tunnel and on my right elbow to relocate my ulnar nerve where it won’t pop over my elbow and continue to be damaged - I have had problems with both for quite a while and it was time to get it fixed before permanent damage occurred. I need my hands working. That all went well thanks to my super awesome surgeon and OR team, all of whom I am privileged to work with daily. I’m hoping that during the time I’ve taken off to recover I will feel like writing next week after my restrictive splint comes off.

Thank you, truly, to those who have sent private messages over the last several months. I’ve always joked about my life being wild, but this has absolutely been a test of just how wild it can get. Can we be done now? Because I’d really love a few blissfully boring years after all this is over, or some wildness in the form of family adventures and not brain cancer.

[brynnaraven]

Nathaniel and Cora ❤️

[brynnaraven]

Gee, thanks for reminding me, subtitles. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[brynnaraven]

YOU. GUYS. In the eight MILLION times I have watched Last of the Mohicans I have failed to notice this minute detail until right now. These stills are from the scene where Nathaniel goes looking for Cora, and they subsequently kiss. LOOK AT WHAT IS TIED TO HIS WAMPUM STRAP. It’s a piece of Cora’s blue silk riding dress that was ruined on the journey to the fort. That’s what he was cutting to use for shooting patches during the famous surgery “I’m looking at you, Miss” scene. GOOD HEAVENS! The inner thoughts I could have written in my first fic about that kiss if Cora had noticed THAT tied there... like I might need to write a short oneshot about just her noticing this, because while it is likely tied there for completely utilitarian reasons (keeping it at the ready if he needed another patch quickly), it just makes my romantic little brain all squishy to see it tied there, like a visual of how they have been bound together. And I secretly feel like Nathaniel might have been sentimental enough to tie it there just because of what it was...his “reason to stay”. Even though he’d never admit to it. 😉

[brynnaraven]

NEW ONE-SHOT POSTED:

“Another Forty Yards”, a Last of the Mohicans story by BrynnaRaven

Summary:

Fort William Henry. As Nathaniel, Uncas and the Colonial militia prepare to send Munro's courier to Fort Edward to request reinforcements, and the militia subsequently plans to leave the fort to protect their families, Nathaniel is also deep in thought about the piece of blue silk he carries with him for shooting patches, and his feelings for the woman who gave it to him. FFN and AO3 links provided below the photo. If you read it, I’d love it if you would comment and let me know how you liked it! ❤️

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13840685/1/Another-Forty-Yards

https://archiveofourown.org/works/30044124

[brynnaraven]

Aurora Borealis over Churchill, Manitoba, Canada 2/15/21 and 2/16/21. Easy to imagine how Nathaniel and Cora fell under their spell in Crazy Faith. ❤️

[brynnaraven]

OK readers… remember how I’m always delayed in writing because my life keeps exploding? Get a load of the latest reason my next chapter is so delayed: My husband has a brain tumor.

We discovered this over the past six months or so as he was having a battery of imaging and inpatient EEG tests to prepare for what we hoped would be an epilepsy surgery to lessen or even totally cure the seizures he has had since his brain injury in Iraq 15 years ago (if you’ve read Flying Into the Fire, you know part of this story). In July after the last contrast MRI, we found out instead that what we’d be doing is a tumor resection. Imaging showed a 9cm mass (which we have nicknamed “The Predator”), and this thing is probably the reason his seizures have changed for the worse the last few years. It appears to be a low grade glioma of some kind - which, if you’re going to have a brain tumor, is the better type to have, because glioblastoma will kill you fast and furious where glioma is slow and relatively benign for years until it converts to malignancy. That being said, some glioma cell types are more problematic and more likely to convert than others, so we still need to know what kind it is and how aggressive his neurosurgeons have to be with resecting it, what kind of radiation and possibly chemo he would need, etc.

Today, August 12, he is having an inpatient biopsy to get all this information. Resection planning is the next step after pathology results come back. I will be on leave from work intermittently for these procedures, and I am hoping my brain will choose writing as a distraction for things like hospital stays and 6-8 hour tumor resection surgeries.

But… humor is a good coping mechanism for us nurses, and I gave him this hat complete with a little hand sewn 9cm tumor.