The Concertina Effect
What is it they say about best laid plans? The eagle-eyed among you will notice that I haven't updated this blog for almost three months now - but I do have a very good reason.
Having enjoyed a couple of weeks off over Christmas, I sat down at my desk on Monday January 5th, ready and eager to knuckle down to some real work again. I had a pretty tight schedule to stick to - two deadlines, one on February 6th, and another on March 31st, to meet - and, as ever, enough projects to keep me occupied for at least the first six months of the year, and I was looking forward to the challenge.
However, all my carefully-laid plans were thrown into chaos by a phone call that afternoon.
For some time my 14 year old son, David, had been experiencing an occasional rapid heartbeat when he played sport. No sickness or dizziness, just a racing heart, which would usually last for a minute or so before settling down. After undergoing various inconclusive tests, plus assurances from the specialist that the problem was not uncommon in teenage boys, it was decided to fit Dave with a heart monitor for the weekend of 2-4 January in the faint hope of getting to the - ahem - heart of the problem.
As luck would have it, on the Saturday morning when Dave was playing badminton, his heart did its jitterbug thing and the monitor was duly returned to the hospital on Monday morning, with the specialist assuring us that he was sure everything would be fine.
As it turned out, however, things were not fine. Instead the monitor readings showed up a 'potentially nasty irregularity' in Dave's heart, as a result of which we were asked to whisk him straight down to the Children's Cardiac Unit at Leeds General Infirmary the minute he got home from school.
For the next ten days Dave stayed in hospital, being constantly monitored and undergoing various tests, including an MRI scan. We were told that the readings had indicated a 5% chance that Dave might have a potentially life-threatening heart condition, and that only an exploratory operation - which was booked in for the following Thursday (January 15th) - would reveal the truth.
We spent those ten days on tenterhooks, unable to settle to anything, and making constant trips to and from Leeds LGI. It was an odd, slightly surreal time, made even more surreal by the fact that Dave wasn't ill at all. He spent those ten days mooching around bored, reading, watching DVDs, playing board games with us when we were there and trying to keep up with schoolwork.
The day of the operation was horrible. We arrived at the hospital at 8a.m. and then sat around for hours, having originally been told that Dave would be taken down to theatre at 9:30. In the end he was taken down at 1:30p.m. and we went down with him, staying by his side until the anaesthetic took effect and he drifted off to sleep.
That was the worst moment, watching him go under. I can only imagine it's a bit like watching someone die, because after shuddering for a few seconds, Dave's body went completely limp, to the extent that the anaesthetist had to put a finger under his chin to stop his jaw from dropping open. Until that moment I had felt reasonably calm, but watching Dave go to sleep brought all the emotion flooding out and for a few minutes I felt shaky, close to tears, and unable to speak.
Nel and I spent the next couple of hours wandering around Leeds, browsing aimlessly in bookshops and drinking coffee, waiting for the phone call from the hospital. We were told that the operation would normally take about 3-4 hours, and that the longer it took the better the news was likely to be, because it would probably mean that the surgeon had found a relatively minor problem (the 95% option) and would fix it straight away. However, if the problem was more serious, then the patient would be taken straight back up to the ward until it was decided - during discussions between patient, parents and surgeon - how best to proceed.
In this instance, therefore, we were happy for the hours to crawl by, but as it turned out, the call from the hospital, to say that Dave was back on the ward, came after 2 hours.
What did this mean? Was 2 hours good or bad? We ran back to the hospital, to find Dave conscious but feeling horribly sick from the anaesthetic and sore from the operation. We then had to wait another hour or so until the surgeon was free to see us. And finally, finally, we got the news we'd been hoping for.
Dave had (and please be aware that I'm eschewing technical terms here in the interests of clarity) a 'misfiring connection', which was causing his heart to go crazy now and again. It's apparently a fairly common problem, pretty minor and easily treatable (the surgeon basically just sent a hot wire up into the target area and burned the bastard out). Dave was allowed home the next day, and was back at school on Monday. He recovered quickly - hell, the two of us even went to see the Buzzcocks together on the Saturday night, two days after the operation - and (touchwood) everything now seems fine. Dave has played plenty of sport in the past six weeks with nary a whisper of a jitterbugging heart. We're fervently hoping that it stays that way.
Deliriously happy though we were, the knock-on effect of all this was that my work schedule was shot to shit. I eventually started a 100-minute audio script (for a project which I'm not allowed to talk about yet, because it has yet to be officially announced) on January 19, instead of January 5, with a contracted delivery date of February 6. Yikes. In the event my deadline was kindly extended to March 1 (and in actual fact, I delivered this morning, 3 days late), albeit with the deadline for a further audio script (again, something I'm not yet allowed to talk about in detail) still set at a very definite March 31, because of immovable recording dates due to actor availability. It's a tight schedule, but I should be able to manage it.
However, the real victims of this 'concertina effect' were peripheral things like this blog, which I literally couldn't find even a spare hour to devote to updating. I'm only managing to do it now because I need at least a slight breather between finishing one project and plunging into the next.
As it goes, I've nothing much to report release-wise. My next book, as I've mentioned previously, will be Torchwood: Bay of the Dead, which is out early in May. Before that, in a couple of weeks time, the audio book of my September 2008 Doctor Who novel, Ghosts of India will be released by BBC Audio, read by the wonderful David Troughton. I've admired the work of David Troughton, who of course is the son of the second Doctor, Patrick Troughton, for many years (remember his hilariously edgy performance in the brilliant A Very Peculiar Practice back in the 80s), and so it's an incredible thrill to hear him read the words that I've written.
The only thing left to add for now is that I'll be making a couple of personal appearances over the next two months. This coming Saturday (March 7) at 1p.m., Rob Shearman and I will be talking about writing for Doctor Who at Nottingham Central Library, and then on Sunday April 5 at 4p.m. I'll be appearing at the Hyde Park Picture House in Headingley, Leeds, where I'm being interviewed about writing for Hellboy as part of the Leeds Young Person's Film Festival.
And that's it. Until next time...
Having enjoyed a couple of weeks off over Christmas, I sat down at my desk on Monday January 5th, ready and eager to knuckle down to some real work again. I had a pretty tight schedule to stick to - two deadlines, one on February 6th, and another on March 31st, to meet - and, as ever, enough projects to keep me occupied for at least the first six months of the year, and I was looking forward to the challenge.
However, all my carefully-laid plans were thrown into chaos by a phone call that afternoon.
For some time my 14 year old son, David, had been experiencing an occasional rapid heartbeat when he played sport. No sickness or dizziness, just a racing heart, which would usually last for a minute or so before settling down. After undergoing various inconclusive tests, plus assurances from the specialist that the problem was not uncommon in teenage boys, it was decided to fit Dave with a heart monitor for the weekend of 2-4 January in the faint hope of getting to the - ahem - heart of the problem.
As luck would have it, on the Saturday morning when Dave was playing badminton, his heart did its jitterbug thing and the monitor was duly returned to the hospital on Monday morning, with the specialist assuring us that he was sure everything would be fine.
As it turned out, however, things were not fine. Instead the monitor readings showed up a 'potentially nasty irregularity' in Dave's heart, as a result of which we were asked to whisk him straight down to the Children's Cardiac Unit at Leeds General Infirmary the minute he got home from school.
For the next ten days Dave stayed in hospital, being constantly monitored and undergoing various tests, including an MRI scan. We were told that the readings had indicated a 5% chance that Dave might have a potentially life-threatening heart condition, and that only an exploratory operation - which was booked in for the following Thursday (January 15th) - would reveal the truth.
We spent those ten days on tenterhooks, unable to settle to anything, and making constant trips to and from Leeds LGI. It was an odd, slightly surreal time, made even more surreal by the fact that Dave wasn't ill at all. He spent those ten days mooching around bored, reading, watching DVDs, playing board games with us when we were there and trying to keep up with schoolwork.
The day of the operation was horrible. We arrived at the hospital at 8a.m. and then sat around for hours, having originally been told that Dave would be taken down to theatre at 9:30. In the end he was taken down at 1:30p.m. and we went down with him, staying by his side until the anaesthetic took effect and he drifted off to sleep.
That was the worst moment, watching him go under. I can only imagine it's a bit like watching someone die, because after shuddering for a few seconds, Dave's body went completely limp, to the extent that the anaesthetist had to put a finger under his chin to stop his jaw from dropping open. Until that moment I had felt reasonably calm, but watching Dave go to sleep brought all the emotion flooding out and for a few minutes I felt shaky, close to tears, and unable to speak.
Nel and I spent the next couple of hours wandering around Leeds, browsing aimlessly in bookshops and drinking coffee, waiting for the phone call from the hospital. We were told that the operation would normally take about 3-4 hours, and that the longer it took the better the news was likely to be, because it would probably mean that the surgeon had found a relatively minor problem (the 95% option) and would fix it straight away. However, if the problem was more serious, then the patient would be taken straight back up to the ward until it was decided - during discussions between patient, parents and surgeon - how best to proceed.
In this instance, therefore, we were happy for the hours to crawl by, but as it turned out, the call from the hospital, to say that Dave was back on the ward, came after 2 hours.
What did this mean? Was 2 hours good or bad? We ran back to the hospital, to find Dave conscious but feeling horribly sick from the anaesthetic and sore from the operation. We then had to wait another hour or so until the surgeon was free to see us. And finally, finally, we got the news we'd been hoping for.
Dave had (and please be aware that I'm eschewing technical terms here in the interests of clarity) a 'misfiring connection', which was causing his heart to go crazy now and again. It's apparently a fairly common problem, pretty minor and easily treatable (the surgeon basically just sent a hot wire up into the target area and burned the bastard out). Dave was allowed home the next day, and was back at school on Monday. He recovered quickly - hell, the two of us even went to see the Buzzcocks together on the Saturday night, two days after the operation - and (touchwood) everything now seems fine. Dave has played plenty of sport in the past six weeks with nary a whisper of a jitterbugging heart. We're fervently hoping that it stays that way.
Deliriously happy though we were, the knock-on effect of all this was that my work schedule was shot to shit. I eventually started a 100-minute audio script (for a project which I'm not allowed to talk about yet, because it has yet to be officially announced) on January 19, instead of January 5, with a contracted delivery date of February 6. Yikes. In the event my deadline was kindly extended to March 1 (and in actual fact, I delivered this morning, 3 days late), albeit with the deadline for a further audio script (again, something I'm not yet allowed to talk about in detail) still set at a very definite March 31, because of immovable recording dates due to actor availability. It's a tight schedule, but I should be able to manage it.
However, the real victims of this 'concertina effect' were peripheral things like this blog, which I literally couldn't find even a spare hour to devote to updating. I'm only managing to do it now because I need at least a slight breather between finishing one project and plunging into the next.
As it goes, I've nothing much to report release-wise. My next book, as I've mentioned previously, will be Torchwood: Bay of the Dead, which is out early in May. Before that, in a couple of weeks time, the audio book of my September 2008 Doctor Who novel, Ghosts of India will be released by BBC Audio, read by the wonderful David Troughton. I've admired the work of David Troughton, who of course is the son of the second Doctor, Patrick Troughton, for many years (remember his hilariously edgy performance in the brilliant A Very Peculiar Practice back in the 80s), and so it's an incredible thrill to hear him read the words that I've written.
The only thing left to add for now is that I'll be making a couple of personal appearances over the next two months. This coming Saturday (March 7) at 1p.m., Rob Shearman and I will be talking about writing for Doctor Who at Nottingham Central Library, and then on Sunday April 5 at 4p.m. I'll be appearing at the Hyde Park Picture House in Headingley, Leeds, where I'm being interviewed about writing for Hellboy as part of the Leeds Young Person's Film Festival.
And that's it. Until next time...
posted by Mark M at 7:34 PM
2 Comments:
Glad to read that David is doing well Mark, life sure has a way of throwing curve balls at us!
Take Care and good luck with the projects in hand...
Damn dude, been wondering what was up, good luck
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