As I said before, I published my book in Jan of this year. After a few months of a great sales and wonderful reviews, I noticing some changes that had started happening around the house. It was just a few small things at first. There was an ant infestation that had taken over my bathroom which had never been an issue before in the 7 years we have own our home. No biggy though, right? It took 3 separate sprayings to finally get rid of them and my 4 year old daughter was now scared and left unable to use that bathroom. She is terrified of bugs; all bugs really even flies. Then the roof began leaking causing plaster damage and mold. We have a tin roof that has never needed repairs up to this point so we just thought, "Hey, it must be all the heavy storms we have had lately. We'll just call the insurance company and they we help with the repairs." Nothing is ever that easy. The insurance guy came out and told us that our roof looked great and he doesn't see any need in having it replaced. Even though the hell damage was obvious and the guy refused to go up on the roof to really look it over, he left without giving us the check we desperately needed for repairs. Ok, so we had hit some bad luck. We would pull together as a family and save up the money necessary to have the roof fixed but it would take sometime. For those of you that don't live in Kentucky, we have had the most rain in one summer that I have ever seen. Causing more damage while we try to save up to have it fixed.
Now I know, this all sounds like the normal trouble a homeowner can endure after living in their home so long with no trouble. Old houses need constant up keep and I'm guilty of neglecting it during the 7 years we have lived here. Did I mention my house is on stilts? So the rain wasn't just causing damage to the roof, it was making the ground under the house soft as well. This causes the house to shift as soil is being washed away and now the inside looks like an earthquake has hit. Still, this is all stuff that anyone would have just written off as a case of bad luck. Trust me, there's more.
So in May, I get a call at work from my Mom that my daughter has been in a car accident. My grandparents had been watching her and were returning home from a day at the park when a driver came into their lane and hit them head on. Thank goodness, the speed of the accident had only been 30-35 mph and everyone was wearing a seat belt. She was currently being taken by ambulance to the hospital with minor injuries and I was frantically trying to leave work to be there when she arrived. Since she was in the back with my 81 year old grandfather, they both only received fabric burns from the seat beats and whiplash. My grandmother who had been driving, incurred the same injuries except her arm was badly damaged and was bleeding profusely. There was a lot of swelling and we feared it was broken but everyone checked out with no broken bones. I almost had a heart attack and my 4 year old is now obsessed with death and dying. I guess after seeing all that blood and coming close to a near-death experience, I should expect such, but now a cut finger leaves her asking, "Am I going to die?" Definitely a question no mother of a young child wants to have to address. Here's a pic of her poor little neck which was saved by the belt that caused it.
So what, people have car accidents everyday. Even my book starts with a car accident that leaves a little girl an orphan. But that's not it! My husband decides to finally do something about his old scooter that has been left untouched next to our house for almost 2 years. He finds it covered in vines and now the engine is locked up. So he gets it into his head that he should make 'hot sauce' which apparently is a mechanic trick involving mixing multiple corrosive materials together and then pouring them into your motor. He tells me he has done this before but I can't say that I have ever heard of it before. Luckily my daughter and I were gone (my 4yr old had to have blood work done and I was the one elected to go) so we didn't get to see what happened, only the after math. I arrived home to fire trucks and police cars lining my road. Men in uniforms were scattered all over my yard and my husband was sitting on our porch naked except for a towel. Our kid was asleep in the car so I was able to quickly get to him to ask what had happened. His eyes were swollen and there were burns on his face and arms. He was shaking and was obviously in pain but I still had to ask, "Is the house okay?" I didn't know of his plan to fix the scooter or his plans with the 'hot sauce', so I figured he had tried to burn the house down. That would have been one way to fix all the problems that had started to happen and it would have explained the uniforms all over my yard. It turns out, the bottle he had made up with the chemicals in it, had exploded, spilling it's contents on my husband and the neighboring house owned by my Dad. He had jumped in the shower as soon as it had happened but the 'acid' was still burning his skin and eyes when the police showed up; responding to a call they had gotten from the neighbors when they heard his screams for help. That explained the towel and why he was naked but it still didn't prepare me for the chaos that followed. So the police tried to declare that my husband was making a bomb and that's what had exploded. They tried many different scenarios and searched my house trying to prove their theory. Mean while, an ambulance showed up and took him to the hospital leaving me to their questions. They detained me for three hours before they would let me go and find out what happened to him. I had to speak to the ATF guy and convince him we were only preppers not bomb makers before he would let me leave. After finding someone to watch our daughter, I rushed to the ER and found my husband lying on a bed with tubes coming out of his eyes. The chemicals that had been left in them, had caused severe cornea damage and took months to repair. During that time, he couldn't open his eyes or work and had to have drops placed in them every so many hours. We tried a placenta contact which dissolved in the matter of days and was suppose to replace the lost or dead cells in his eye. Still, it brought his chances of keeping his eye up from slim to none to possible.
Just when we thought we were in the clear, the police show up with a warrant for my husband's arrest. Charges: Wanton Endangerment first degree and Criminal Mischief first degree. They had no statements, no one had pressed charges, and very little evidence which was never shown to us even at his pre-trial. They claimed that he was making bomb. So they chose to pick him up on a Friday night on a 25,000 dollar bond leaving us with no ability to get him out till the following Monday. Even then, it was still Wednesday before he could be released and placed on house arrest until his pre-trail. I'm still scratching my head over that one. The man made a stupid mistake, I'll admit that, but he was in his own home, away from any potential victims if something went wrong. How is that endangerment? His detainment and week long house arrest almost cost him his job but luckily they were understanding. We had to pay for our own lawyer, the court fees, and the charges from his stay at the detention center. We were able to get the charges lowered considerably but the damages will take much longer to recover from. Here's a link to the newspaper article that was placed in the local paper about his charges for further validation that I'm not just making this up.
http://www.richmondregister.com/news/local_news/article_71c8ce60-32dd-5ea5-b211-a710b37cd1a1.html
Here is also some pics of his injuries and the weird contact he had to wear.
So, after all that, I started thinking; who has it out for me? Did I run over a Gypsy witch and didn't notice? Should I get a priest to bless my house? But everyone kept telling me that I was just having a run of bad luck. There was nothing 'other worldly' going on here. Well, until this last month when my 4yr old broke her arm playing inside. Two ER trips for her in less then 6 months!!! All she did was fall on her side onto the carpet while running. She didn't jump from a great height or hit her arm on anything as she fell and yet she broke it so bad, she had to have emergency surgery where pins were placed in her little wrist and the bones were straightened. She doesn't get the actual cast until Monday and then she will have to wear one for at least 3 months. So those few people that were unconvinced that I was cursed, started to change their tune. My stress level was going through the roof and sadly, my second book in my Coven of Secrets series has now been delayed. My family always comes first and there just isn't enough hours in the day to work a full time job, take care of them, and still have time to write. After everything, I started to consider giving it up. My sells had slowed down to nothing and money is tight which can be a problem when you're having to market yourself. I'm sure many Indie writers have come across this at one time or another. Then I noticed I had a new review. A five star one at that! So maybe I'm not such a bad writer after all! But I had out of the game for months. No marketing, no promotions. Surely everyone had forgotten about me by now??
I signed on to my author fb account for the first time since June today. There was a lot of clutter to shift through but I came across messages from my fans/friends asking me how the writing was going. They wanted to know when the next book was coming out. I was missed! That gave me the confidence to continue Jo's story no matter what. Even when my husband was diagnosed this week with MRSA, I didn't let it stop me. Bring it on Loki! By stopping you in my story, I will finally free myself from your rain of chaos. That and maybe I should go back to church. Couldn't hurt!
