By Donnell Ann Bell

It’s no secret I’m on hiatus and have had a few writing setbacks, particularly after my publisher announced her retirement and the copyright lawsuit against Anthropic (Bartz v. Anthropic) originated in August 2024.

Still, I’ve worked years to become traditionally published, and the idea of allowing my books, to disappear is untenable. So, in the interim, I’ve finished re-editing my backlist, and doing the second thing I love best – reading! Editing, reading (particularly critiquing and beta reading for my critique partners) has kept my dream of writing alive.

Not being so sedentary has reaped benefits, too, and in my (cough/cough) late sixties, I’m more fit than I’ve ever been. Then again, I’ve learned an active lifestyle can cause conflict as muscles rebel, joints complain and injury occurs.

And because life isn’t happy unless it generates one surprise after another, thought I’d share another issue that caused a setback. On July 17, 2026, after my husband and I took a road trip, I developed pain in my left arm. Frightened, and thinking heart attack, I was diagnosed instead with a pulmonary embolism (blood clot in my lung). I was shocked because my oxygen level read 97 percent. Still, I came away much relieved when my cardiac enzymes proved normal.

Not having any idea that a PE could be dangerous, I assumed that a shot of Lovenox and the prescription blood thinners the ER docs prescribed would be an end to it.

I would soon learn differently. I’d been going to physical therapy, having great success. Two days after the ER visit, I showed up for my appointment, but when I told my therapists about my weekend, they became wide eyed and panic-stricken. “What are you doing here? You can’t be here! We can’t work on you with a PE. You have to be cleared.”

Well, that was inconvenient. Still, naïve about all that was involved, I made an appointment with my primary care doc, thinking it was she who would clear me. She, too, proved most uncooperative. Instead, she spent an hour going over my tests, telling me all that was involved, explaining the dangers of an embolism, blood thinner side effects, forbid me to play pickleball (not to hit my head) and ordered me to drink water and walk.

I was in physical therapy and hadn’t played pickleball for two months. I drank water and walked anyway. So I considered it no big deal. But when I prepared to leave and asked her to clear me so I could return to physical therapy she said, “I can’t clear you. You have to see a  cardiologist and a pulmonologist! They have to clear you.”

Suddenly, getting cleared was becoming an issue. I had plans to spend a month in Colorado with my kids and grandchildren. That was off the table now for both road and air travel. Moreover, I had become a member of the “ologist” world, which took four to six weeks at a minimum to be seen. I was not happy.

Still, I did what I was told and dutifully increased walking and became waterlogged. I met with the cardiologist first. After an EKG, ultrasounds, he declared I had a strong heart and when I asked about physical activity, he pronounced, “You can do whatever you want to.”

I took his words to the bank. Singing Zippity Do Dah I practically danced out of his office. I hadn’t even gotten to my car, however, when my pulmonologist’s assistant called and said the pulmonologist wanted me to see a hematologist and report for a Pet scan!

Twelve vials of blood later, I’ve conferred with the hematologist and have an understanding what’s going on in my body.

I’m not excited about all the time it took. But as they and their staffs pointed out there were many people with even more serious problems that had to go ahead of me. To date I’ve had a mammogram ultrasound, CT and Pet scans and have just recently become cleared to return to more than just walking. Moreover, I’m down fifteen pounds.

Further I’m grateful to all of the therapists and doctors who wouldn’t let me ignore what was going on in my body. And as you can see, as a writer and all these setbacks, I always chalk it up to “It’s all material.”