Wambtac’s summer schedule is out with  something for everyone: Level II workshops for Ghostwriter Certification Training grads, a quickie peek into how ghosts do fiction for novelists, even a clue-in for high school and community college students on how to write better papers. Details and registration are available at http://wambtac.com/left-coast-institute/summer-courses-2012/ .

Also, have gotten some interesting feedback on my upcoming title release, Buh Bye, M.S.!  It’s the sweet, heartwarming story of how I went mano-a-mano with multiple sclerosis for 42 years until I  finally kicked its miserable, capricious, maggot-ridden butt out of my system for good.

We’re raising money for the initial print run, but you can order in advance (and help that fund-raising effort) by going to http://wambtac.com/wc-publishing/buh-bye-ms/ .

Strong language and irreverent descriptions. May be unsuitable for the fainthearted and politically correct. Spiritual guidance advised.

Finally, we’re getting ready to launch a new service: Book Plans. Every book needs its own strategy to get ready for market, get into the market, and get sold at market. Watch this space for news on this upcoming new, exciting, and effective individualized action plan.

In January, I stopped being a freelance ghostwriter and became the Founder/Creative Director of Wambtac Communications LLC, a one-stop literary shop. We ghostwrite, we educate, we publish. Sounds succinct, doesn’t it? It’s actually a bit more elaborate than that.

We–meaning myself, my partner (aka daughter) Lona Nicholle, our teachers Liv Haugland and JD Moore, and our current intern Teri Stevens–ghostwrite books for people who have wonderful ideas. We are implementing a rather elaborate (read “time consuming and costly”) marketing/advertising campaign to let literary agents, publishers, CEOs, and one-percenters know that we have a growing cadre of professional Certified Ghostwriters who will do an excellent job on their or their clients’ books. Our intention is to spread those clients among the members of the Ghostwriter Guild, which is still in development but will be comprise our graduates from Ghostwriter Certification Training.

We’re  expanding GCT to a three-semester program: Nonfiction, Fiction, and Business, which includes the politics we cover in the class now plus a strong grounding in the book industry itself. Until then, we’re offering Level II classes in Line Editing, A&Rs, Book Proposals, and The Industry.

The idea of taking GCT into Cal State U Long Beach Extension Education is still being bantered around between the parties (them and us), but has  not yet come to fruition. Obviously, eh?

Our consumer-ed classes (The Story in Your Head, What You Know, Writing Your Life, Before Copy Editing, etc.) are also in development. Discussions are ongoing with ed2go.com for some of those, but most are going to come from us at Wanbtac.com.

The publishing part is semi-new. We’ve always been the ones to put out the four editions of This Business of Books  (5th edition in the works) and Secrets of a Ghostwriter.  Now we’re expanding to also publish other titles for writers, editors, and educators via On The List Publishing and general trade titles via Iridescent Orange Press. Our ebooks and multi-media products, such as MS Word for Writers, will be produced by Bad Walnut Media.

Sounds kinda ambitious, doesn’t i? It’s a great work-in-progress with a three-way mission: to help raise the literacy bar of the industry, one author at a time; to train/retrain displaced writers for lucrative ghostwriting careers; and to publish the good works they create if those authors cannot land a traditional New York publisher. We’ve got a fantastic operations director, Kata Schuyler, a great bookkeeper, Nyx Goldstone, a wonderful go-to assistant, Ben Picker, a good publicist, Devon Blaine, and an in-the-wings marketing guy who’s waiting for us to get our act (read $$) together. Which brings me to the logical wrap-up of this piece.

Every pitch session I’ve gone to lately insists one should always end on what one needs, so I’m sharing that, too. We’re a small, literacy-oriented organization, so of course we could use some seed money to launch these programs and products a bit faster. We’re also looking for a location so we can hold workshops and classes, and we could use a few extra pairs of volunteer’s hands around the office for our marketing campaigns.

Should I be putting all this in a blog post? Let’s be real: if I was the kind of person who worried about what I should and shouldn’t do, I wouldn’t be the kind of person of thought up such an elaborate scheme, brought three strangers into my house and made them family and now staff, or taught more than thirty people how to make a living ghostwriting for the absurd cost of approximately $8/hour for my time!

If you want that title to sell, be it ebook or paperback, here are some things to consider before you sit back and wait for the orders to roll in:

• Does your book have editorial accountability?
• Into what categories does your title fall?
• Have you developed your list of keywords?
• What is your marketing strategy?
• What is your promotional action plan?
• Do you have a one-pager about the book? A fact sheet? A one-paragraph bio? A list of suggested questions for interviewers?
• Do you have endorsement blurbs?
• Do you know what “thought leader” or corporation to go to for sponsorship and have a plan for approaching them?

The first is Michael J Dowling’s White Paper on Publishing Options, in which he very clearly spells out the advantages and disadvantages of today’s publishing options. Check it out at:
http://www.michaeljdowling.com/pdf/Michael-J-Dowling_Publishing-Options-White-Paper.pdf.

The second is my discussion with JW Najarian about ghostwriters and ghostwriting on his quite fascinating “Cause and Effect” site. Look for it at:
http://jwnajarian.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/claudia-suzanne-professional-ghost-writer-on-learning-how-to-find-one-or-be-one/

What a great time to be in the book business!

In the past few days, I’ve encountered two completely diverse situations that speak to the lack of commonality of this enormous, diverse community and how we perceive ourselves within that loose fellowship.

The first came up during my talk with a wonderful novelist. She sold  her first book to an online/POD publisher and subsequently joined its author community via blogging and blog commenting. Problem is, she feels isolated within this group, which she specifically joined to enjoy that wonderful sense of connection we all seek with our fellow writers and authors. Their writing goals and process seem so  different from hers.  The only common ground she can find is their mutual affection for the publisher and desire to get their stories down in writing.

I noticed the second situation in a LinkedIn group discussion as I read over the various answers to a question about the writing industry and thought about my own perspective on the topic. I admit it: I’m ever the optimist. I look at a problem and, like a Ferengi, I suppose, see opportunities and possibilities, not gloom and doom. Yes, the writing and book worlds have changed, enormously. But they haven’t ceased to exist–they’ve merely become different, and I don’t think the answer to “better pay for better writing” is in legislation, but in our individual selves.

So what is the point of this blog? I guess just to point out that writers come in all flavors. That our vast conglomerate of folk never has been and never will be a one-size-fits-all. Writing is so darn individualistic, it cannot and should never try to be stuffed into round holes. We are the last, great independents in a world hellbent on conformity.

Few will remember Gary Cooper or Alice Cooper in 100 years, but they’ll still know Dickens, Austin, and Rowling. And maybe, just maybe, you and me.

And, with nods to Dr. Who, Agatha Christie.

First, I detoxed. A lot. Got off wheat and, in fact, ALL grains for 18 months, twice. I did liver detoxes, colon detoxes, gallbladder detoxes, kidney and bladder detoxes. I cooked with coconut oil to help clear the plaque in my arteries. I took cayenne to strengthen my vascular system. I write all this in the past tense, but I still eat minimal grains (especially wheat), minimal sugar (including fruit), cook with coconut oil, take cayenne (in capsules) every day, and make sure my digestive track empties fully and easily.

Second, I built up. Lots of carrot juice. Lots of broccoli and spinach. Also lots of beets, but that’s mostly because I love beets (fresh cooked, not from a can). Bovine Colostrum. In my case, I made sure I had beef–not hamburger–a couple times a week. Chicken and pork never helped. Shrimp (shellfish) did. Catfish didn’t. Neither did cod, but that’s okay because while I love fish & chips, my body doesn’t appreciate the breading.

Third, I avoided chemicals in food, which means, yeah, I read labels. No, I don’t love to cook and I didn’t go strictly organic. Did try going vegetarian for two years; even went vegan for eight months. Both were BIG mistakes. People with MS need meat. I think I danced around the house for hours the day we discovered that! If nothing else, I made sure I had steak and eggs at least once a week. Protein, protein, protein–from beef–gave me strength. The powders and drinks and what-have-you were useless for me. I countered the cholesterol nonsense (yeah, utter nonsense) with the detoxes and coconut oil and cayenne.

Fourth, I refused–purposely, fervently, and with malice of forethought–to think of myself as fragile. That’s a trap. I never accepted my condition as permanent. I never thought “Why me?” I never let myself slide into victim-hood, never, never, never. I never stopped working, even when I could only work for two or three hours a day–not at a time, a day. I learned to plant my feet so I was steadier. I learned to lean so I didn’t feel like I had to fall. I learned to give my body what it needed at the moment, always reminding it that this condition was not going to stand. I was coming back. I learned to let other people’s problems be theirs, not mine, which reduced a tremendous amount of stress. I learned to release the anger and pain I harbored from my childhood, from my family, from my clients, from my circumstances. This part was sinisterly tough to accept at first, but was an absolute godsend afterwards. I forgave and released and moved on.

Fifth–and this part came only about a decade ago–I drank Noni juice. Drank it for two and a half years before I discovered noni capsules and switched to those. Noni changed my life. Changed my life. I don’t know that it would have been so effective if I hadn’t set my body up for it. (I used to say I was the healthiest disabled person anyone had ever seen.) Noni truncated the disability. I could work for full days. I could tolerate hot weather. My Reynaud’s problems diminished. My night vision improved. My MS symptoms became manageable. For me, Noni was a miracle.

Sixth, after years of all of the above, I started taking an oral chelation provided by one of my clients. It took probably 12-18 months to really make a difference, although I started feeling stronger about 3-4 months into the regimen. My night vision not only came back, my normal vision improved so much I no longer wear bifocals. My balance improved. The bodily functions I had to constantly monitor regulated. Eventually, the MS was pushed back so far, I barely acknowledged it as I went about my daily life.

Finally, I released it. My husband died, and I psychically said, “I was diagnosed with this damn thing the year we met. If you have to leave, take it with you.” He’d passed on by then, but he was still actively hanging around the house. About six months later, I got a terrible, terrible case of the flu. The flu. I hadn’t had a cold or flu last for more than a few hours for decades; the MS, which was virulently killing off the myelin sheath in my body, was not about to let some outside bug exist in my system. I was sick for over a week. A few weeks later, I realized one day that I wasn’t watching my bladder. My vision was fine, and I hadn’t had an optic migraine all summer. My balance was fine. I could hold a cup or a glass or a plate and not be concerned that I might drop it. I felt everything in my body, everywhere–no dead areas, no numbness. No stasis across my back. No problem with heat whatsoever. I felt it gone. I can FEEL it not here anymore.

Sounds crazy, eh? But I don’t have MS anymore. My Reynaud’s is totally under control. My skin is clear, my eyes have no more discolorations, my tongue is pink, rounded, and full, not flat. I have energy. I sleep well no matter what the weather. I can take deep breaths without resistance.

Have I cured everything? Naw. The thoracic outlet compression that took away my career as a professional drummer remains, as does the mitral valve prolapse and slight scoliosis. All structural stuff that doesn’t affect me if I don’t try to pretend I can now go out and be the athlete I never was. Because I hit my head so many times starting so early in my life, I deal with sporadic memory problems. My husband knew how to work around it, but it drives my kids nuts.

Oh, well.

That’s the whole story, soup to nuts. If I’ve forgotten anything … well, I do tend to forget things now and then. There’s an actual name for it: intermittent amnesia. I did another one of those house dances the day I finally found it.

It had only taken me 15 years to remember to look it up.

On the List. I use that phrase so often that my newly reorganized company is replacing our long-standing imprint, WCPublishing, with On the List Publishing. OTLP joins Iridescent Orange Press and Bad Walnut Media, two completely new imprints, under a new division: Read As Written Publishing Group.

About that newly reorganized company: we’re still Wambtac Communications. In January, we’ll become Wambtac Communications LLC. Besides a seriously expanded publishing enterprise, we’re also expanding our educational pursuits. Ghostwriter Certification Training is splitting into two semesters and will be joined this fall by The Story in Your Head, a fiction workshop co-taught by JD Moore; Before Copy Editing, fiction and nonfiction; and, if the storm don’t come and the creek don’t rise, What You Know, a nonfiction/memoir workshop.

We’e also adding other new teachers to our roster besides JD (are they all GCT grads? Well, I’ll be damned–most of them are!) and a Ghostwriter Guild.

Pretty ambitious, eh? But I’m not doing it alone! We’ve got a new President, a new COO, new CFO, new strategic alliances with designers and printers and advisors and PR people …

It’s all coming soon. Watch this space. It’s all on the list.

When we last left our reluctant storyteller—that would be me—she had wrestled her intruder, a.k.a. multiple sclerosis,  to a virtual standstill. The symptoms were chronic but not progressing, and nothing new had darkened the horizon for quite awhile, health-wise.

Lest you think I did this all myself, let me assure you I had more help than Houston has during a shuttle launch. My parents supported me emotionally, physically, and monetarily, stalwartly and uncomplainingly, throughout the entire nasty affair. My daughter, Lona (short for Ilona in case you hadn’t figured that out), gave up wide stretches of her childhood, youth, and young adulthood to drive for me, fetch for me, remember for me, do for me, worry for me, and sometimes even think for me. Bera researched, suggested, denounced, prodded, guided, and did everything but slap me upside the head with a 2 x 4 to help me.  Ron, bless his wacky, wonderful heart, just kept sending those Chelation tablets. My friends all deserve a Presidential medal just for hanging with me all this time because I was never —trust me on this—stoic or silent. My mother-in-law, Doris, gave me the kind of support one might expect from a BFF without ever once making me feel I was too needy or intrusive. And Tom …

And Tom.

Tom had a psychological break in October, 2006, just about 18 months after his mom died. It was as predictable and expected as Phoenix heat in July or wind down Michigan Avenue in the winter, but remember the old musician story about the guy who knows that in five years, he’s going to turn a corner and somebody’s going to punch him in the nose? As much as I could have clocked Tom’s crash with an egg timer, it was still a punch in the nose.

This was right in the middle of us “acquiring” the three young adults we took into our home (and hearts) and sent to community college. Tom balked at every single new person that came along until the point when he said, “Go get her!” about Tyger (a.k.a. Kathy) after Lona described Tyger’s living conditions down in Texas; “Go get the cat!” about Nyxie (a.k.a. she doesn’t like her real name so I won’t use it) when he heard no one was actively caring for Taru at her parents’ house while she slept on our floor to avoid the 45-minute drive to and from work every day; and “Get your ass in here!” about Kata (a.k.a. Eric) when he was sleeping on our back porch because he’d gotten himself into trouble and had no place else to go and the weather had turned cold and rainy.

My husband was a very strict, hard-nosed guy with a soft, marshmallow center. Or, as one friend wrote on his death: “He was a gentle soul with a bombastic spirit.”

I have to believe our expanded family gave him something and someone else to worry about over the next three and a half years. I know he grew to love and cherish them. And rely on them; he definitely came to rely on every one of them, almost as much as he relied on Lona.

Of course, he relied on me most of all.

Those years were very tough. He rallied now and then, but mostly he wanted to die. He had no plan; he wasn’t actively suicidal. He was just done. The live-music business was dying (it’s beginning to revive again now—also predictable—in a haunting example of too little, too late). He had finally finished his beloved History B.A. the previous semester and was calf-deep in a master’s program but, “To what end?” we bantered endlessly. No one was going to give  a 50+ year old life-long freelance musician a straight job, no matter how many letters of recommendation he produced or how many applications he painstakingly filled out. His position playing the piano at Knott’s Berry Farm had become bone-achingly dreary, and his need for constant connection with me drainingly obsessive.

So we talked, which is to say, he talked. I listened. (Ironically [or not] I had written a  song for him called “I’ll Still Listen” back at the beginning of our marriage; he wrote one for me called “Just For Laughs”—an unwitting foreshadowing of our lives together.) He despaired; I encouraged. He grew nasty as he got more despondent. I grew angry as I got more impatient.

And the MS gave way, just a little bit.

We both put on weight, which gave him more cause to lose hope. I hated the way I looked, but could not help noticing that for all my extra weight, I physically felt better.

Was my miserable parasite invading his psyche?

In November, 2009, I took him to the ER (whoa—talk about your turnabouts). Doubled over with pain, he “knew” he had another kidney stone, that’s how bad it hurt, and demanded Toridol, if that’s the right spelling, for the pain. The damn ER doctor ignored his belligerent request and ran some tests.

It wasn’t a kidney stone. It was pancreatis. Very painful. He spent three days in the hospital, hallucinating from continual doses of heavy pain medications and telling me to, “Get the hell out of here.” I got the hell out.

I also jumped through a couple dozen hoops to get him on a county medical plan so he could continue to get medical attention when he came home from the hospital.

Instead, he continued to look for a straight job during the day and went out nights to figure out how to break into the dueling-piano world. He was a natural. But he was tired.

Tired was something I understood. My tiredness—not fatigue at this point, just tiredness—came from ghosting for my clients, creating the final edition of the definitive textbook (one reviewer called it the “seminal text”) on ghostwriting, teaching my expanded training program, handling the house, dealing with the kids and their school issues, and providing his almost nonstop psychological support. We tried going to a few actual therapists, but they did not give him what he wanted or needed, which became ever obviously more and more of me.

I didn’t voice it at the time, but in retrospect, the more of my time and energy he demanded, the less the MS did.

Huh.

On April 14, Tom turned 58 playing what would be his last gig, at the Villa Nova in Newport Beach. We’d sent word out that he was subbing for Rick Sherman that night, and friends and fellow musicians filled the room. The kids and I left after a few hours; I had to work in the morning and they had classes.

The next day, I took him to the Emergency Room in pain again. They sent him home with a few prescriptions. We didn’t have time to fill them, because the day after that, he returned via ambulance, spitting up blood.

I’m going to cut to the chase here. Between April 16 and May 29, 2010, we went in and out of the hospital. Tom received first one, then six, then another six units of blood for what was first a bleeding, then an obstructive duodenal ulcer. His demands for pain medication alienated every nurse and hospitalist (yeah, that’s what they’re called) who interacted with him, to the point that one gastroenterologist called me in the middle of a Saturday and said he didn’t want to have anything to do with Tom anymore.

On May 29, after that same gastroenterologist had run some tests and sent Tom to UCI to have a procedure done so he could eat again, we learned Tom had stage 4 cancer that had metastasized to his liver. “He has 6 to 12 months. There’s nothing we can do. You can leave (the outpatient bed) whenever you’re ready. I’m sorry.”

Okay, life changed.

Not going to go through that next month step by step. Use your imagination. Or don’t. Wish my Intermittent Amnesia would kick in for some this. But it won’t.

He died June 28 at 10:35 AM. I was by then functioning with a single brain cell. Did what I had to do, with enormous, above-and-beyond help from my parents, my kids, my brother and sister-in-law, Tom’s brother-by-love Leon Natker, and my own beloved rabbi, Bernie King, alev ha sholem.

The MS did not make a single peep. Not the slightest whimper. Sure, I slept a lot, but that was grief. My hair fell out—textbook grief.

The sun kept coming up every single day. Tom stayed dead long after the joke stopped being funny. He sent me a song the day he died through Bera. I remember the fact and the feel of it, nothing more. Had a few stasis incidents, utterly vanquished by Rescue Remedy. In November, I’d come to the end of my emotional rope and took off with Lona in my new, reliable vehicle (to replace that 1978 van that, yeah, Tom was still driving and Greg Vail now uses “temporarily” until…he doesn’t).

We were only going to be gone for a day or two, so, throwing caution to the wind, and not really caring one way or the other, I took no supplements with me.

We were gone for six days. I was fine until my body reminded me that MS or no MS, I was still a girl with a four-generation gastric dysfunction. Otherwise—no ill effects.

In  January, I got sick as a dog. With the flu.

For decades, I never got sick. No cold, no flu, no bug could get very far in my body, which was in active search-and-destroy mode, killing off my nerve connectors and brain cells and—wait, is that something new? Let’s kill it!—whatever else that had the audacity to penetrate my system. Now, I was on my back, coughing, wheezing, hacking, sneezing, whimpering sick. For well over a week.

The MS was definitely gone.

It took me another few months of paying close attention to accept it as a reality, but yeah—the enemy had been vanquished. Banished.  Expelled, ejected, cast out.

Like those memory lapses, it was gone, gone, gone.

Did Tom take it with him? Did my physical dreck leech into him and die along with his poor, cancer-ridden body? Did his soul, knowing he was about to shed his corporeal mass, suck it from mine?

Okay, so this isn’t the last blog in this series.  I guess I have one more to write. But not now. It’s Sunday, the only time I have to visit my parents. Back anon.

I still had to deal with some lingering problems, of course. My balance didn’t. The stasis stayed. The headaches changed their visitation schedule at will. My night vision came and went, as if it was family (fish and family stink after three days, my mother-in-law always reminded me. My night vision must have had the same mother-in-law). And I took on a new wrinkle: optic migraines. Very pretty albeit completely distracting while they’re happening, usually 20-25 minutes, after which the headache made its regularly scheduled appearance.

Tom, Bera, and I tried to look at the creep that had invaded my systems from different angles, and made some logical deductions. We conceptualized MS as akin to an electrical problem. My impulses weren’t making it through my wires. Why? It all came down to two basic problems: inflammation and spasm.

To reduce inflammation, I relied on arnica. I used both the homeopathic tablets (Hyland or Borion, didn’t matter which) and the topical gel. I prefer Roberts Research Laboratories Arnica Gel; it’s excellent, absorbs quickly, and smells nice. If things got severe, I could take more tablets and reapply every fifteen minutes. If that didn’t work, I defaulted to some left-over naproxen. But naproxen isn’t good for my internal organs (I forget which one it affects—liver? Kidneys? Gallbladder? One of those. Maybe the stomach. Whatever), so I stalled on taking it except in extreme instances.

BTW: my mother used arnica gel on her leg after her knee-replacement surgery. It always helped bring down the swelling, which relieved the pain. It only didn’t help when she didn’t use it. I have found this to be true across the board: if you don’t rub it in (or dissolve it under your tongue, depending on which form you’re using), it doesn’t work at all. Not even a little. Doesn’t sound reasonable, does it? But I’ve done this experiment over and over, and the result is always the same: use it, it helps. Don’t use it, it doesn’t. Amazing, eh?

Bach Rescue Remedy took care of the spasms probably 97.86% of the time. Three dropperfuls under the tongue repeated as often as necessary, which was usually not more than two or three times per flare-up. Again, in extreme, incorrigible episodes, I popped a left-over robaxin. I’m sure my supply of both allopathic drugs were long past their expiration dates, but they still worked on those rare occasions when the arnica and Rescue Remedy didn’t pull it off.

When I got too fatigued, my husband ran out and bought potato chips. Not the healthy baked or vegetable kind. The old-fashioned, greasy, salty kind. The salt-grease combination make me feel better, stronger, and less tired. Why? Because…. That’s it. Because. It worked. I didn’t think I needed to know why it worked.

BTW: yogurt—not so much. Yogurt, which was suppose to make me feel better and feed the healthy bacteria in my gut just made me queasy. Go figure. Bera says my body is backwards: everything I did according to Hoyle didn’t work. Everything I did that shouldn’t help, did. Tom says some doctor once told me I was a drug reactor. I always took his word for that, because I don’t remember it. (Were he here physically right now, he’d roll his eyes, heave a massive sigh, and walk away, so just take that as given.)

Between the Noni, arnica, and Rescue Remedy to combat the MS and the cayenne capsules to keep the Reynaud’s at bay, I did pretty well for a couple of years. I certainly handled my more debilitating symptoms better than most of the other people I knew with MS. It felt like I’d pushed the interloper back to remitting/relapsing with just a few always-present exceptions:  the visual distortions and limitations, the lack of balance, the tenuous sphincter compromise, and blah, blah, blah. BUT—if I lived carefully, which I mostly did (mostly), I’d get along for the rest of my life without any canes, wheelchairs, or allopathic interventions. That’s what I was aiming for, that’s what I got.

In early 2003, a former client sent me a new client: wacky, wonderful Ron. Wacky, wonderful Ron lived on the other side of the country from me, had a great story to tell, and was part owner of a now-defunct supplement company that owned the patent on a Superior Antioxidant Oral Chelation Formula he said I just had to try. Besides a long list of vitamins and minerals, it had a proprietary blend of minerals and nutraceuticals (don’t ya just love that new made-up word?) that would change my life.

Yeah, right.

But it was free, and as Arthur Godfrey used to say, for free, you take. So I took. When the first bottle showed up I sent a copy of the label to Bera, who said, “Go ahead. It won’t hurt you.”

Oh, goody, because I just loved taking handfuls of supplements. But I’m diligent if nothing else, so I followed the recommended build-up program: one mornings and evenings for a week, then two twice a day, etc., until I reached maintenance of two in the morning and three at night. It became part of my daily regimen, just another couple, three tablets in my cup of pills that, of course, included the cayenne and Noni capsules, a Omega-3 gel cap to improve brain function, and an Aloelax capsule for…obvious reasons.

It’s a girl thing.

Ron kept sending me bottles of Chelation, I so kept taking it. After a couple of years, I noticed my night vision getting better. A few years later, I noticed I felt stronger—a strange thing to feel I admit, but remember I used to be a drummer: I knew what it felt like to feel strong.

By the time Tom’s mother died in May 2005 (the day after my birthday because I asked her to please, don’t die on my birthday, I’ve already lost a cat on my birthday and if she died on the 27^th, I would never be able to eat chocolate cake again, so God bless her, she waited until the next morning), I felt pretty darn strong. Vigorous, even—remember “The lusty month of May”? From Camelot? Geez, now I feel old—and able to do something about it, too. Eighteen months later, I’d had the pedal to the metal so hard for so long that we were, for the first time in our marriage, completely out of debt.

It was an occasion, I tell you. A veritable triumph for a disabled ghostwriter who, although she made a lot of money per annum, was married to a musician, which thus negated most if not all gains tax season after tax season. For the first time since we’d walked up the steps of Chicago City Hall, thanks to having more vigor than I’d ever had before in life (Noni + Chelation equaled energy⁴), the credit card debts were gone, the financing debts were gone, and the IRS had Offer-and-Compromised out.

It didn’t last, of course, but that wasn’t anyone’s fault. Sometimes shit happens. In October 2006, stuff that had nothing whatsoever to do with me or my squatter-infested body came along to strain our finances, our marriage, and our life in general.

It all ended as badly as humanly possible, but thanks to Tom’s and my connection via the zero point field, I shed the last vestiges of MS.

Which is a whole ‘nother story.

Bera, who had been recommending this protocol and that and charting (I now find out) my stunning lack of progress throughout the years, had also been insisting I take Noni juice for about, oh, a long time. That winter, she worked out a deal with the South Pacific Trading Company for me to buy it at a greatly reduced cost so I would finally (Please! Please! I’m begging you!) give Noni a try.

Starting sometime in early February, 2001, I drank three ounces of Noni, a juice that tastes different to everyone, every morning. Bera wanted me to drink it twice a day, but while it tasted like parmesan cheese to my landlady, to me it tasted like the bottom of a sewer. This was not good-tasting stuff. I downed it from a glass in my left hand followed immediately with an eight-ounce glass of water from my right. Blech, blech, pftui, ew, blech.

In July, 2001, I drove Bera and husband Ron’s 10-wheeler moving van from Orange, California to Bernalillo, New Mexico, which is just about three tumbleweeds past Albuquerque, on the left.

In the heat.

With night vision.

And energy.

ENERGY.

Real, honest-to-God energy, the kind I hadn’t had since…well, never. I’d never had so much energy, not at any previous stage in my life.

When I came home and went back to work, I discovered that what used to take three months I could now accomplish in three or four weeks. Weeks!

Would it have been as effective if I hadn’t readied my system with all those supplements and detoxes beforehand, if I didn’t do a liver cleanse three or four times a year, if I didn’t lay off grains (ALL grains) as much as possible and chomp down broccoli like it was the latest blend of nectar and ambrosia? Maybe, maybe not—how would I know? I can’t even remember all the things I swallowed, rubbed in, and slurped up that didn’t worked. But the Noni did. I felt better than I had in decades. Noni juice was a miracle!

But…not a cure.

The cure, the two icing-on-the-cake elements that dissipated multiple sclerosis so entirely that it could not sustain itself in my body and had to slink away whimpering like the pathetic, slimey  maggot it is, was a one-two punch from my wacky but loveable client in Mississippi and the zero point field.

The zero point field? The one via which Tom and I were/are psychically connected?

Yeah, that one.