A different viewpoint on staying at home and the (not so) hidden blessing of normality. Seelie, just like me, is a MS warrior so her words resonated with me. A lot.

Seelie Kay writes about lawyers in love, with a dash of kink. The award-winning writer, editor, and author has more than 30 years of experience in law, journalism, marketing, and public relations. Writing under a nom de plume, Ms. Kay’s wicked pen and overly inquisitive mind has resulted in more than a dozen works of fiction, including the Kinky Briefs Series, the Feisty Lawyers Series, and several novellas, including The President’s Wife, The President’s Daughter, and The Garage Dweller.

When not spinning her kinky tales, Ms. Kay ghostwrites nonfiction for lawyers and other professionals. She has also written for such publications as the Minneapolis Star, Kenosha News, Twin Cities Magazine, Virginia Lawyers Weekly, Illinois Legal Times, Wisconsin Opinions and the Wisconsin Law Journal.  

A graduate of the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, and St. Louis University School of Law, Ms. Kay also attended Northwestern University. She has been admitted to the bar in Wisconsin and Missouri.  

Ms. Kay resides in a bucolic exurb outside Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she shares a home with her son and enjoys opera, gourmet cooking, organic gardening, and an occasional bottle of red wine. 

She is an MS warrior and ruthlessly battles the disease on a daily basis. Her message to those diagnosed with MS: Never give up. You define MS, it does not define you!

Break out of “the cabin” and get outside!

After weeks and weeks of staying at home, I think it’s time to break out of “the cabin” and get outside! Whether you’d gardening or walking or having a picnic in the park, it’s time to take a few deep breaths and just enjoy.

This has been a time of significant readjustment and not all of it has been pleasant. Businesses shut down. Schools closed. Stay at home orders were issued. People switched to telecommuting. Suddenly, social distancing, masks, constant hands washing and isolation became the norm.

Our world changed overnight.

Except mine changed not at all.

Let me explain. I have Multiple Sclerosis, a somewhat mysterious disease that affects its victims in multiple ways. Since I was diagnosed in 2002, I have had few exacerbations. My mobility has slowly been impaired, but not to the point where I cannot function independently. Until last September. Then, I suffered a serious outbreak that left me partially paralyzed. Unfortunately, several erroneous medical decisions and poor rehabilitative care (in an institution) worsened the impact of the attack. I went into the hospital able to walk. I left unable to crawl.

When I returned home, I still required round-the-clock-care and assistance with almost every daily living activity. Most had given up on me. Professionals telling me I would never walk again. Family members telling me it was time to give up. That I had to adjust to my new normal.

I refused. I knew the old me was in there somewhere and I was determined to get it back. Each day I set tiny goals for myself. Lift up a water bottle. Brush my teeth, Comb my hair. Then I moved on to larger goals. Move my toes. Bend a leg, Sit up in bed. Soon I was sitting in a wheelchair and moving around the house. I even wrote and published a book, “Martimus” and a holiday short, “The Last Christmas.” I am now working on a new book.

However, one task has eluded me. The ability to transfer to and from my wheelchair. That has involved a process of trial and error. It has been a matter of awakening muscles and triggering nerves. Retraining the brain. While each day has brought me closer to my goal, it has been a painfully slow process. It has also been a painful one. (Reawakening nerves, when nerve endings have been destroyed by MS, is not for the faint of heart.) I continue to fight toward that goal. And once I can transfer, I will move on the relearning how to walk. I will not give up.

While the rest of the world was dealing with the pandemic, my life has revolved around something most take for granted: Mobility. That’s why I am urging you to get outside. Take a walk. Have a picnic in a park. Play a round of golf.

When you lose your mobility, you realize just how precious it is. All you want to do is get it back. I need to see people out there moving. It gives me hope. The hope that one day, I will again be able to join you.

Find Seelie here:

Author Links:

www.seeliekay.com

www.seeliekay.blogspot.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SeelieKay

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/seelie.kay.77

Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/Seelie-Kay/e/B074RDRWNZ/

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Seelie brings along her latest story. Martimus  (Feisty Lawyers Book 5) by Seelie Kay released at the beginning of June in the romantic Suspense genre.

Martimus. An underwater habitat dedicated to pharmaceutical research. Martimus. A facility that staffs its vessel with inmate labor. Martimus. The place where inmates visit and never return.

Agent Cate Creighton is in love. Unfortunately, as the Agency honeypot, she is knee-deep in an assignment that tests the bounds of her new relationship. It seems eight socialites have gone missing, all wealthy twenty-somethings with influential parents. No one seems to care until a former vice president’s daughter disappears.

When the vice-president shares a tale of false arrest, a broken promise of deportation, an illegal diversion into a private prison, and an alleged trip to an unwater habitat called Martimus, Cate and her colleagues must find a way to follow the same path. In other words, they must enter the right prison, meet the right fixer, wind up on Martimus, and hopefully return in one piece. And it looks like Cate is the perfect bait.

That doesn’t sit well with Cate’s lover, former U.S. Navy Seal Warren Hazelton. He intends to protect her until death ‘til do they part.

Fortunately, another possibility appears, in the form of an MISix agent who has interfered in one too many Agency operations. Tillie Henderson owes them and they are all too willing to serve her up on a plate. It’s race against time as the Agency attempts to lure their adversary out of hiding and into their somewhat ambiguous trap. Maybe then Cate can finally focus on love.

Publisher:  https://www.extasybooks.com/978-1-4874-2862-4-martimus/

“Could they be treating the inmates like guinea pigs?” Hope asked. “Testing their limits? Tracking actual survival rates?”

Warren sighed. “Possibly. It’s not like they have to answer to anyone. They are located in international waters. No country in particular has legal oversight. I imagine they could be doing anything they want without recourse. Unfortunately, when the prospect of a reduced sentence is dangled in front of some people, they grab it, damn the consequences. If one or two inmates suffer some sort of harm or die along the way, they chalk it up to collateral damage.”

“And who’s going to know?” Cate shook her head. “Someone dies, they probably flush them down a chute into the deep sea and they become shark chum. No evidence left behind.”

Hope cringed. “God, that’s kind of evil. But that still doesn’t answer our original question. Where the hell is Fuzzy? Has he already served out his sentence? Has he been released, and if he has, where the hell is he? He’s the one we need to find. He could have a lot of the answers.”

“That lack of governmental oversight is troubling,” Tom said. “If Cassie McIntyre is down there, I can’t believe the CIA isn’t all over it. At least, our government should be doing a welfare check through the Red Cross or something.”

Warren grimaced. “Unless no one knows she is down there. Think about it. They are on the bottom of the ocean, more than two miles under the sea. It’s not like you can just go down there and knock on the door. Any regular monitoring would be impossible.”

Cate nodded. “And we haven’t been able to confirm that she embarked on the same path as Fuzzy. All we’ve got are suspicions. Right now, she’s missing. We need to sit down with her family and get more information. And we need to find other prisoners who contracted with Martimus.

“Otherwise, we’ve got nothing.”