Category: writing

As mentioned in a previous writing, my medical team found and removed a lymphoma tumor from my chest. As far as they can tell, they got the whole thing, despite me imagining the process as using an ice cream scoop. The scans showed that tumor to be the only one noticeable, and there were no other signs of trouble. Cancer, however, can hide as a single cell waiting to do its thing. That calls for get back to the ship and nuke it from orbit chemotherapy, just to be sure.

To the Heart

In preparation, the cardiologist ordered a new echocardiogram. This is like a sonogram but for looking at the heart. Last May’s echocardiogram took just the regular measurements to check for my cardiomyopathy (enlarged heart). Since chemo drugs can possibly damage some parts of the heart, they wanted to take base measurements before treatment so they have something to check later.

The echocardiogram really worried me. The tech holds the sonic transducer (the wand) tightly against my chest to assure good signal transfer to the heart and back. At the time of this test, I was just a few weeks out from my chest surgery, and things were still pretty tender around there.

The tech turned out to be really awesome and caused me no discomfort. I expressed my appreciation for her light touch. She said she often works with patients who have had mastectomies, and that has taught her to be gentle. I hadn’t thought about that, but it made perfect sense. As I go through treatment at the cancer center, I’m probably going to see or hear about a lot of people who are far worse off than I.

Indirectly to the Heart

The following Friday, September seventeenth, they installed a special port that makes it easier to do all the chemo activities. Special thanks to my friend of the last 25 years, Marli, for driving me to the appointment at way-too-dark in the morning.

The port item, called an Infusaport, includes a smallish, round thing with guide pins that sits under the skin below my right clavicle. It is connected to a tube that goes over the clavicle (under the skin) and then connects to a blood vessel that leads to the heart. The pump connector for chemo can easily align with the circle and its guides and puncture the skin to get a good line to my cardiovascular system. The goal is to minimize finding new veins to poke every time the team needs to stick something into me.

The installation went smoothly. They wanted me to be awake, but still slightly anesthetized. They underestimated my ability to nap whenever I want. The anesthesiologist had to wake me several times to ask if I was okay. I answered that I was and immediately nodded off again.

The surgery site is still sore, but is getting better. By next weekend, it will be healed well enough that I can shower like normal… when I don’t have the pump attached.

The Main Event

On Monday, September twentieth, I went for my first chemo treatment. I checked in, had blood drawn (through the new port), met with the oncologist, and then started the treatments.

The first drug is apparently a tough one. It must be administered slowly and in their presence. They started at a slow speed, checked my reaction in half an hour, and then started the next part at a slightly higher speed for another half hour. That continued for most of the morning until about one in the afternoon.

Fortunately, the chair they put me in was a very adjustable recliner. Between that and the heated blankets they kept offering, I was able to nap through most of the procedure.

During the second drug, they had me watch a couple of instructional videos. One was about the medicines and the second was about the pump I would wear for the rest of the week.

The pump video showed the interesting fact that the medicine being pumped into me needs to be treated like a very hazardous substance if it spills. The pump comes with an absorbent mat and a plastic bag for cleanup. They said to wear two layers of gloves. Any mess must be gathered up and sealed in plastic and taken back to the hospital for proper disposal. There are first aid steps for if you get the medicine on your skin or in your eyes. Though I know all chemicals react differently in their intended environment than they do in other environments, it was still a little unnerving to see all the warnings.

So I now have a bag full of pump and medicine strapped around my waist like some sort of overgrown fanny pack. It has the option to use shoulder straps, but around the waist seems like it is going to be easier to manage, not flailing around and such. At the moment, I could only use my left shoulder because of the recent port addition on the right, but the hoses are connected on the right. Having the pump around my waist means I can put it on the same side as the port.

On this coming Tuesday through Friday, I must go in to have the oncology folks inspect and refill my pump. On Friday, they remove the pump, temporarily, and give me other medicines to help counteract the side effects of the chemo.

I repeat this procedure every three weeks, for six times. The last one will start on January eighth. Some time after that, surgery will remove the Infusaport.

About that Work Thing

Being in the hospital all day meant that I could not go to work. I only teach one course section on Mondays, but class can’t really happen without the teacher. That is an issue. Since I will need to miss several Mondays during the semester, we needed a plan.

The course in question is an introductory programming course. The students are all beginners learning this stuff for the first time. It is a lot like learning a foreign language. They learn keywords (vocabulary), syntax (language rules), and the customs of programmers. To do this, they often follow along with a native speaker (me) as I write programs. This comes in handy when I can’t be there. For this course, the following along meets the requirements of the “instructor-led lab”.

When the college first went remote due to Covid, I recorded my labs and the students thoroughly loved them. They liked that I took the time to address things people usually messed up. They also liked that they could pause the video while catching up, or replay something they didn’t understand.

For this section, where I am missing some Mondays, I’ve scheduled their instructor-led lab for Mondays. The section meets in person, generally, but the students will receive a lab video for the days that I will miss. Normally, the lab is due the same day as class (to ensure that they show up for class and participate) but it is due a day later for the video version so the students have time to ask questions. The video went up last Wednesday.

By luck, it turns out we won’t have to do this very often. Remember, it’s only every third Monday where I will be out. One of those Mondays is Thanksgiving week, and there is no class that week. Another falls on the last day of class for this section when the students take their final exam. The exam is online, with open book and notes, so any staff or teacher can proctor. The students just can’t talk to other people while taking the test. They also must complete the exam in two hours or less, meaning that looking things up slows their progress.

The dean of the department and I discussed this ahead of time. She checked with the appropriate administrative types and got it all cleared. It should work out.

The unusual part is that, with the lump removed, my voice is much stronger and records better. I may have to take up singing again, much to the dismay of the Boy Scouts in my old Troop 504 in the 1980s. “All together now!”

Going Forward

For the week, I will get my refills each afternoon, about forty minutes after my last class. Then I will be without the pump for a couple of weeks. The pump will be inconvenient, but nothing more.

The bigger worry is the side effects of the medications. Despite having a large, extended family, I don’t know the stories of many who have undergone chemotherapy. Even if those histories were available, there is so much variety between the mixtures of medicines, the history of one may not mean much for the experience of another.

I typically hover just over anemic, and one of the possible side effects is anemia. That will require watching.

Prednisone, a steroid that is part of the treatment, can cause an increase in blood glucose, which is a problem for someone with Type II diabetes. Normally, I control my blood sugar with diet, exercise, and some pills. The oncologist suggested that those efforts may not fight what the prednisone does. On the other hand, prednisone can only increase blood sugar by converting body fat to glucose, which may mean I’ll lose more weight… in an incredibly unhealthy way. Still, my doctors want me to drop another ten pounds; 170 here I come!

The Well-Wishers

I appreciate all the people who expressed concern over the lymphoma and have wished me well. Thank you for your sentiments.

Please understand that I am a very fortunate person. For whatever reason, I have experienced very little major illness or damage in my life; still no broken bones, for example. The damage I have taken has been hard for doctors to find because I seem to be a bit robust. Those of you from the family know that robust-ness seems to be a family trait.

My cardiomyopathy (enlarged heart) had symptoms going back to the age of eleven but was not diagnosed until my early thirties, back in 2001. At that time, the doctors expected me to live a couple of years. The following year, my cardiologist was so excited to see the improvement.

By 2013, my new cardiologist showed me the Seattle Heart Failure Model, a statistical model used for determining the likelihood of success for various heart treatments. He pointed out that, for people with my symptoms, there was a 97% mortality rate in fifteen years. He asked if I knew what that meant. I said, “It means that if there were one hundred people with my same heart condition, in fifteen years ninety-seven of them would be dead, and that I could probably get the other two as well.” When I last met with him, he said my last echocardiogram required an expert to find the damage, and that my current state is no longer covered by the Heart Failure model because I am a statistical anomaly.

Type II diabetes showed up some years later. The main issue was lack of energy burning exercise. A bad heart will slow a person down a lot. Having a job that requires sitting does the same (welcome to a career in I. T.). So, I started the treatment with pills, but the big determinant in my diabetes is diet and exercise. If I exercise enough during the day, I can eat anything and have normal blood sugar. If I eat almost no carbs during the day, even with no exercise I will have low, possibly dangerously low, blood sugar in the evening. Unfortunately, there are Bavarian Cream filled pastries out there that must be destroyed.

Now we find the lump. The symptoms of the lump have been there for several years at least. That means it has been big enough to cause trouble for a while. During that time, the material did not spread enough to cause other tumors. This suggests that it is unlikely that there is any other material. I still must undergo chemotherapy to be on the safe side, but the side effects of that are my only real concern. The likelihood of more cancer is pretty low at this point. Just lucky, and a bit durable.

In Conclusion

Things are progressing and they will all be fine. It is, at this point, an expensive nuisance. It probably keeps me from spending money on something stupid. Life is like that sometimes.

I’ve often joked that when my treatment for enlarged heart started, “I am too big hearted, but the doctors are working on that.” When the diabetes started, the joke included, “…and I’m too sweet as well.” Now, with the tumor I must add, “Now they’ve started treatment because I experience too much inner growth.”

Many people worry when they hear about any sort of cancer, and though the worry may be well intended and appreciated, they should take some time to think about the fight as a noble effort. If I can stand in a blizzard and laugh at the North Wind, challenging it to do its worst, a little exhaustion and hair loss isn’t going to dampen my spirits. Even if something goes horribly wrong, and I lose the battle, I will go down fighting and making bad jokes. Not to worry, though; I have many more years and many more minds to corrupt before I return to the dirt.

The last thing I posted to this site was a while ago. Even that took an unusual amount of effort on my part. This reason is not that unusual in the world. My doctors found a lump.

Since about the age of eleven, I’ve had heart damage, probably caused by a flu-like virus. That’s how far back the symptoms go. Unfortunately, the heart issue was not properly diagnosed until my early thirties. At that time, I was nearly dead, but I’ve since improved quite a bit.

For years now, my main complaints were exhaustion and shortness of breath. Those can be symptoms of heart health and be easily dismissed. However, those are also the symptoms of other things.

I teach software development at my local community college. Some medical people suggested that staying up late to do grading and class prep was aggravating the exhaustion and breathing trouble (as well as preventing me from exercising regularly). It looked like I needed to give up teaching and go find a corporate job in information technology.

In spring of 2020, I told the dean of my department that I needed to leave teaching. We had been shorthanded and just hired a new guy. She asked if I could stick around for a year to help get the new guy all settled. Since I’m a sucker and I like working in education, I agreed.

The health issue did not improve, so in February of 2021, I told the new dean that I was leaving. I recommended a replacement for me. The school went through the hiring process and hired the person I recommended. That person was my replacement when I left my I.T. job at the same school to start teaching, so she seemed like a good candidate to replace me again.

The Twist

Then came May. While discussing a recent echocardiogram, the nurse practitioner and I talked in great detail about all my symptoms. She made it clear that my heart was not in bad enough shape to cause my breathing trouble. This was excellent news on the side of cardiac health. However, it meant there was something else. She referred me to the pulmonary people.

They did a breathing test and chest x-ray. The breathing test showed an obstruction. The x-ray showed a lump. A C-T scan confirmed there was a lump, but not much more. A PET scan filled in the details.

My internist explained that there was a lump on the backside of my sternum (breast bone) near the top. It was probably an enlarged thymus gland, and it needed to come out. The scan showed it was 3.8cm by 3.4cm by 2.4cm (about an inch and a half square and one inch thick).

A cardiothoracic surgeon arranged for a needle biopsy. That’s where they stick a needle into the lump and try to pull out enough stuff to look at. The results of this biopsy were inconclusive. The recommendation was for an excisional biopsy, i.e.: dig the whole thing out and look at it.

About three and a half weeks ago, I went to the hospital for surgery. The cardiothoracic surgeon went in and dug all of the lump out of me. From what I understand of his reputation, if he says he got all of it, then he got all of it. This surgery involved a partial sternotomy, where they cut through part of the sternum to open it like a barn door. When done, they wire the sternum pieces back together, like a farmer using tie-wire to wire shut a barn door.

By midday the following Saturday, they sent me home. By eight o’clock that night, I was headed back to the hospital with a fever of 103.6 degrees. I spent the next week hooked to intravenous feeds of strong antibiotics. They kicked me out again the following Saturday and gave me strong oral antibiotics for a week.

Since then, I’ve been gradually healing. I’m back to work, but only teaching part time.

The Effect

When writing all of this, the whole story doesn’t seem that long and should not have interfered with my writing or other activities. If you look carefully, though, you would see that the discovery of the lump was in May and the final release from the hospital was at the end of August. That’s the whole summer of doing some medical task and then waiting a week or two before the next activity. Such a long period with a mystery lump stops a lot of what your brain would otherwise do.

I am not prone to depression (as far as I know), but anyone can be messed up by a nebulous medical condition. During the summer, I found myself sitting for long periods of time simply blanked out. My mind was still there, still aware of what was going on around me, but I wasn’t being my usual, productive self. During these periods, I wasn’t actively thinking about anything; that part shut down.

Household chores got done. I met with friends as scheduled. Things that were on my to-do list that absolutely had to be completed were accomplished. For the rest of the time, there was only emptiness.

Oops, Unemployed!

This led to another very stressful situation. As noted above, in February I gave my notice that I was quitting my job. I planned on arranging a new job over summer while I was still receiving contract pay (and benefits) from the teaching gig. Early on, there were some interviews and such, but the information about the lump made job hunting harder. How do you tell a potential employer that you won’t be available as you start a job because of a serious medical issue? The sitting blank eventually stopped a lot of my job hunting.

There were other options. My replacement for the teaching position had to leave her position as the team lead. That was my old job before I went to teaching. They needed someone to replace her. I wanted to apply, but I also needed extra cash. To help with that, I contacted her direct boss and the vice president over her boss and explained all the reasons for some changes. I described why the pay needed to be higher. I explained why the job should be changed from team lead (an unofficial title) to manager (an official title). They were very good arguments.

The VP agreed and made the changes. Then he offered the improved position to the woman who was to replace me in the teaching job. She accepted. There was no longer a teacher to replace me and the start of the semester was coming fast. At least the direct boss sent me an email thanking me for the arguments in favor of the job changes.

That should mean that I would be able to go back to teaching because they would be in a dire position. It didn’t work out that way. The department arranged everything to deal with the missing teacher scenario. By the time I got there, they only had three courses available to teach, meaning that I would be teaching part-time as an adjunct instructor.

This isn’t all bad. I need the recovery time from the surgery. I will probably start chemotherapy before long; the lump turned out to be a large B-cell lymphoma. The teaching is enough to cover my basic bills. The government healthcare exchange website helped me hook up with insurance.

The big issue is the future. My dean and program chair want me back permanently full-time. I’ve heard rumors that there may be an administrator who does not. Even if they can bring me back full-time for spring, I would still be unemployed from mid-December to mid-January. I would also need to apply for the new full-time position for the following year, which would leave me unemployed for the summer.

Given that kind of instability, I might be better off finding a corporate I. T. job and leaving education. That would be sad because I am a pretty good teacher. Even the students who don’t do well in my classes generally like me. As much as I’m not a summer person, I have gotten a lot of writing done in summers. The uncertain future is a source of great stress.

Conclusion

So that’s what happened. Life threw a wrench in the works and it disrupted everything. I always tell my students, “If everything goes smoothly, you don’t get a good story out of it.” I just need to find where this story will take me next.

I settled for the big chain store on the outskirts of town. They would be open later and would probably have a wider selection of products. There was also plenty of light and people. Signs in the parking lot said there were surveillance cameras. Given the afternoon, I wanted more security.

The toothbrush aisle and its neighbors had everything I needed for the bathroom. On my way to find locks, I went past the groceries and grabbed a box with a pasta kit. I hadn’t looked too closely at my kitchen, so I didn’t know if the bad guys tampered with anything.

I finally found the lock display. There were quite a few. Sergeant Beringer said to buy the best I could and suggested that price reflected quality. The prices did range pretty far, but several locks topped at the high end. Using my phone, I did a few quick Internet searches to see if there was a notable difference.

“Hi!” said the voice beside my cart.

I jumped, startled. If the person had intended harm, I would have been dead.

The voice came from a small woman standing at the other end of my shopping cart. She looked familiar.

She waved her hand a little, and her face turned red. “Sorry,” she said, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

I tried to regain my composure. “It’s okay,” I said. “Today’s has just been a little stressful.”

“Sorry to hear that. You’re the zombie guy, right?”

Uh oh, another fan. “Uh, yeah, I’m Timmy, Timmy Hunt.”

She reached out her hand for shaking. “I’m Hannah Thompson. I work at the convenience store. I see you when you come in, but you always look like you’re busy.”

I shook her hand. That’s where I had seen her before. I learned long ago that it is best to let people think that they made more of an impression than they did, mostly because of my poor social skills. “Right, I see you there all the time.” I probably did but had been too lost in my own little world.

Though she was out of uniform, so to speak, she was definitely the same woman. About five and half feet tall, and, what was the polite phrase, delightfully plump. Her sandy blonde hair hung a little past her shoulders, and that seemed important at the moment. Have you ever noticed how some inconsequential things can sometimes seem really important?

She nodded to my cart. “Buying a new lock; did someone break in?”

I don’t know why, it was probably because I had no one else to talk to, but I gave her the whole story. I included the worries about the toothbrush and the food.

She seemed to pay attention to every word. “That’s terrible,” she said. “I don’t know why people have to act that way. At least nobody got hurt. Is that your new food?” She pointed to the pasta kit in my cart.

For some reason, it embarrassed me that I was eating something that seemed so childish. “I figured it would do well enough for tonight.”

She clasped her hands together in front of her chest in an exaggerated manner. “That’s my favorite!”

Before I realized what was coming out of my mouth, I said, “There’s plenty enough for two.”

“I accept!”

At that point, my brain tried to reboot. Some anonymous, hidden part from deep inside my brain very smoothly asked this woman I barely knew to join me for supper. Worse yet, she accepted the invitation and I was going to have to continue being sociable. The smooth-talking part of my mind was nowhere to be found and a few other parts screamed in terror.

“Great,” I said, “but there may be a little delay. I should probably get the lock fixed.”

She nodded her understanding and then a thought came to her. “If you don’t mind a different cook in your kitchen, I could make supper while you work on the lock. Would that be okay?”

“That would be great,” said the smooth-talking bastard lurking in my head.

A few minutes later, we were checked out and in the parking lot. I think she grabbed a few more grocery items as we walked through the store. I gave her the address in case we got separated, and then she followed my van in her little, green sedan.

It was already dark out. I parked on the street and grabbed my flashlight in one hand and my shopping in the other. By the time I climbed out of the van, Hannah was already out of her car. Like me, she had a store bag in one hand, but her other hand held the baseball bat propped on her shoulder.

“We’ll have to use the back door,” I said and nodded toward the back of the house.

We carefully walked around the house. Listening carefully first, I unlocked the door. With a bit of hesitation, I reached in and turned on the lights.

It was odd that I could walk into possible zombie infested buildings without much trepidation, but my own house after a burglary was a total fright fest.

With lights on and no one home, we relaxed a bit. We dropped off our bags and she did the expected look around the place.

“So, the zombie thing is really what you do?” she asked as she walked around looking at the things on the walls and the books on the shelves.

I braced for the standard, negative reaction. “Yep, that’s what I do.”

She nodded a few times. “That’s cool. Some people said you were probably just a secret analyst spy for the government and the zombie stuff was just your cover. I didn’t think it was a very good cover…” She paused for a moment. “Unless you really are a spy.”

I smiled. Usually, if I gave any consideration to what people thought of me, it was never something cool, pleasant, or dignified. MY imagination typically used words like “loser” and “fraud”. The idea that someone might think I was a spy seemed unlikely and amusing.

“No,” I said, “I’m not a spy or anything cool. It’s just the zombie thing.”

She walked back to me. “Do we get a lot of zombies in Iowa?” It was a very pleasant delivery for that question.

“No.” I smiled, but I didn’t know why. “I haven’t yet found a single one.”

We stood there for a moment, just smiling at each other.

“Anyway,” she said, breaking the moment, “I’ll get started on supper and you can get the lock fixed.”

With unnecessary enthusiasm, I bounded away to fix the lock.

The repair didn’t take long and I’m pretty sure I followed all the directions. Honestly, I wasn’t very focused. My brain worked oddly and it probably had something to do with the woman making supper in my kitchen. Normally, something affecting my thinking made me furious. This time, I seemed to be okay with the whole thing. That should have been wrong too, but wasn’t.

By the time I put the tools away and washed up, she had set the table and laid out the food. The only other person to sit at that table with me had been Rich when we discussed some investments. That had been years ago.

Hannah smiled as she stood with her hands clasped behind her back. “I hope you like it.”

In addition to the boxed pasta kit, there was a salad, steamed broccoli, and rolls. It looked really good. The echoing growl from my belly agreed.

“That looks great. I really appreciate you going through the effort.” In truth, I did appreciate it. I also appreciated the company. It had been a while since I thought about the breakin and the place definitely felt more home-like.

Over dinner, we chatted a little. She asked how I got started with Zombie Abatement. She also told me that her mother died of cancer about a year and a half ago and how she had been on her own since then.

After supper, we both cleaned up. She found all the food storage containers and put things away.

“You know,” I said, “you really should take that food with you. There’s too much for me to eat and it will just spoil.”

She smiled again. She seemed to do that a lot. “I guess I will just have to come over and help you eat it.”

“That sounds like a plan,” said the smooth-talking voice again.

Planning happened next. She gave me her contact info, including her home address. She also laid out her work schedule for the next two weeks. I had to explain that I didn’t have a real schedule but was working “on-call” instead. Either way, we decided to go for a drive the next afternoon to be followed by dinner.

I walked her out, going through the front door this time. When we got to her car, she unlocked it and put her baseball bat back in. Then she turned to face me.

“I had a really great time,” she said.

Most of the parts of my brain had gone back to screaming, so the smooth-talker came to the rescue. “Me too.”

She paused for a moment. I had the idea she was contemplating something. I didn’t have to wait long to find out what.

“I’m glad to finally get to know you, Timmy.” Then she launched forward, threw her arms around me, and kissed me.

Presumably, the smooth-talking part of my brain knew how to handle this situation as well, because the rest of my brain seemed to shut down. It didn’t start to reboot until she pulled back a little, smiled one more time, and then climbed into her car.

I watched her drive off.

Some unknown amount of time went by before the rest of the brain rebooted and told me I should go back inside.

I just ended my teaching career. The spring 2021 semester was a busy one. The last couple of weeks really took their toll. Then, as with every semester wrap up, the following weeks ran hectic. Now, as the dust settles, all the summer stuff starts. Where will it go?

The global pandemic challenged the semester. We cut our class sizes in half. I had to develop replacements for the group activities that help the students so much. Though the classes met in person, there were still students who needed to connect remotely, often for health reasons. All these things added chaos to the term.

In addition, in February, I gave my notice that I would not be returning in the autumn. In the academic world, everyone must hire in spring for the following fall. I needed to prepare all of my materials to hand over to my replacement. Most things sat neatly packaged, but all things change as one learns and grows. Still, there was work to do.

Because it was my last semester, I need to find a new job. Immediately, the world showed me that, if you teach introductory I. T. classes for six years, you get really good at introductory I. T. and that your higher-level skills fall behind. In addition to sending out resumes everywhere, I’ve been taking online courses to modernize my skill set. These activities have also eaten my time.

In a normal summer, time presents itself for my own projects. Several software projects sit at the ready. The rest of Timmy’s Zombie Abatement Service chomps at the bit. Another tale of murder and haunting lurks in the shadows awaiting an opportunity to burst forth. Then, there are all the regular household chores and exercise goals that we all must face.

Instead, the priority this summer is building job skills and finding a source of proper employment. I also need to finish rebuilding one of my classes (I’m technically on contract until the end of August). These tasks take precedence over all others.

One of my software projects could, potentially, become a software product that I could sell as a service. Having my own company would be interesting, but I’m not confident that it would produce enough profit for me to live on by September. It may work out to be a good side gig, once I have reliable income.

Anyway, writing is the thing that keeps me most sane. I will be trying to schedule regular bouts of creativity just for mental health reasons. It is pre-printed on my daily to-do list. Soon, Timmy will be finding out more about stolen corpses and coral pendants. That’s the plan, anyway.

Check back soon.

Five long minutes passed as I waited for the cops to arrive. Usually, if I was sitting in my van for a while, I would have reviewed notes or otherwise tried to be productive. Not this time. Instead, I sat in the darkness of my van under gloomy November skies, my arms wrapped around me. The wind blew past, and I jumped at every leaf or piece of trash that moved.

Three sheriff SUVs rolled up at about the same time. One parked directly in line with my front door. The second parked a couple of car lengths up the street from there. The third pulled in behind me.

I got out of my van as they showed up, careful to keep my hands in plain sight the whole time.

Two of the deputies wore the regular uniforms, but the third guy, the one parked behind me, was in a suit. The one in the suit asked, “Are you Mr. Hunt?”

“Yes, sir.”

He walked over to me while the others walked toward my building. I hadn’t seen him before at the sheriff’s office. He was just a little taller than me, but a lot more muscular. His dark hair was neatly trimmed, so he definitely looked like a cop. It was odd that the wind didn’t move his hair; maybe he had something in it. “Have you seen anyone?” he asked.

I shook my head in the negative. “No, I saw that the lock was broken and ran to my van to call you guys. I haven’t seen anything else.”

He nodded an acknowledgment and held his hand up in a sort of blocking motion. “Okay, you just wait here while we take a look.”

By “we” he seemed to mean the uniformed deputies. One checked out the door while the other walked around the exterior, presumably looking for signs of crime. Once the outside checker made a complete circuit, both drew their sidearms and slowly entered.

Having strangers enter my home rattled my sense of safety and my place in the world. Trying to fix the issue by having more strangers go inside, even if I called them, really cemented the issue. Sure, the new batch were deputies, and they looked a little familiar, but I didn’t really know them. Acid filled my guts and I felt like I could puke at any moment.

I also knew that not everyone approved of my hobby and all the accoutrements involved. Many of the books on my shelves covered strange occult topics as well as gore, mental illness, and some of history’s more disturbing killings. Add that to the odd artwork and various trinkets I had collected over the years, I could only assume the deputies were building a mighty worrisome mental image of me.

In a few tense minutes, they came back out and joined the suited guy and me. The taller one, I thought I had seen him at the station before, said, “The house is clear. Other than the front door lock, there wasn’t any sign of damage.”

“Thanks, Barry,” said the suited guy.

The deputies headed back toward their SUVs. The suited guy turned back to me and handed me a business card. “I’m Sergeant Bill Beringer. Do you have any idea who might want to break into your house?”

“Maybe,” I said. “There’s a guy named Johnny Franks. We worked for Mary Seiferts who owns an apartment building over on Field Street. He was breaking locks when he forgot his key. The one lock I saw was broken like the one on my door. Anyway, I found him behind her building when he was very drunk. Worried that he would freeze to death, I called nine-one-one to get him some help. When they picked him up, it turned out he may have been involved in crimes elsewhere.”

Unlike Sergeant Hargrave, Sergeant Beringer didn’t write anything in a notebook. Instead, he stared intently like he was memorizing every aspect of the scene. He could probably play back the memory later, looking over the detail of every blade of grass. At least, that’s how it felt.

“Do you think Franks might blame you for his arrest and could have been trying to get revenge?”

That had definitely been my thought. As I sat in my van waiting for law enforcement to show up, that was about the only thing going through my mind. “It’s a possibility, I guess. I just thought the broken lock looked familiar. For all I know, maybe everybody breaks locks like that these days.”

“Have you seen Franks since that night?”

I thought for a moment just to be sure. “Not that I can think of.”

“I see,” Beringer responded in a tone that told me nothing about how he took my statements. “It’s my understanding that you are helping Sergeant Hargrave on another case involving a drug lab and arson. Is there anything about this entry into your home that might be connected to that investigation?”

That was a new take. I had spent so much time obsessing over the danger of Johnny Franks that I hadn’t given any thought to any other threats. “I suppose so, but I don’t know of anything specific,” I said. “Honestly, I’m new to the idea of guessing what a criminal thinks about. I’m really out of my element with that stuff.”

He stood, as though waiting for something else from me. With nothing else coming, he turned and motioned toward the deputies. The shorter one headed toward us.

Beringer pointed toward my front door and said to me, “Let’s go inside. You can look the place over and tell us if anything is missing or damaged.”

As we walked in, Beringer instructed, “If you see something out of place or questionable, don’t touch it. Just point it out and we’ll record it and see if we can get any evidence.”

Up until then, I hadn’t noticed that the uniformed deputies wore cameras. The microphone for their radio, I thought that’s what it was, hung from their shoulder, stopping before it reached the badge. Just below that, a small digital camera hung, taking in everything. That made me feel both safer and more paranoid.

The deputy that followed us also carried a small, black plastic toolbox. I assumed it was for evidence gathering. I had seen things like that in movies.

I expected a disaster, with everything in the house thrown around and smashed. Instead, it was like nothing had happened at all. That was almost creepier. Still, just inside the door, I took a deep breath. The place smelled like home, and that helped. It’s funny how you don’t notice what your home smells like all the time, until you come home after too long away. I hadn’t been gone that long, but waiting in the van felt like forever.

Being methodical, I looked over every artifact and art piece. It wasn’t until I got to the books that something jumped out as wrong. Three of the books, about zombie-style rituals from Polynesia, were not lined up straight.

Lining up my books was a personality quirk of mine. I was kind of a nut about it. I read once that it kept the lateral pressures against the sides of the books even, thus prolonging their lives. Since then, I had been obsessed.

“Over here,” I said. “These three books aren’t lined up with the others the way I usually do it. It looks like someone pulled them out and didn’t put them back correctly.”

Beringer bent forward, hands clasped behind his back, to look at the books, peering at them from every angle without making physical contact. Once he seemed satisfied, he stood straight and motioned to the deputy.

The deputy sat his case on the floor near the books, opened it up, and started his work. He started by taking photos from several angles with a camera from the box. Then, it looked like he gathered finger prints, like they do in the movies, using a little brush and some powder.

While he did his work, I moved on, across the rest of my books. I checked the kitchen, the bathroom, and bedroom. Nothing stood out as wrong. Having read on the Internet about what people do to toothbrushes, I decided that I would replace mine to be on the safe side. I was going to have to go buy a new lock anyway, so I would already be shopping.

How I hadn’t noticed before was a mystery. I had been so focused on the little details that I hadn’t noticed the big one.

My computer was missing from the desk.

“Sergeant,” I called.

Beringer looked up at me and then followed my line of sight to my desk. “What is it?” he asked.

“My laptop computer is missing,” I said.

The sergeant walked to the desk and closely observed every part of it. He leaned and crouched, viewing the desk from every angle, all without touching it. Once satisfied, he rose straight up and called to the deputy.

The deputy had just finished where he was and was gathering his tools and a couple of bags containing my misaligned books. He came over to the desk.

Beringer turned to me and said, “Please describe the computer and anything else that was on the desk, to the best of your ability.”

If he hadn’t asked, I probably could have described everything in complete detail. As soon as I got the question, my mind went fuzzy. I could see a mental picture of the desk the way it was when I left it, but all the details were blurred out. I had to concentrate.

“I can’t remember all the details,” I said. “Those papers were there and it looks like they may have moved; I’m usually neater than that.” An idea popped into my head. “The laptop was just a normal laptop, but I have the model and serial number stored online.” Though he was my financial advisor, Rick also gave good tech advice, and he told me to store stuff online, including the serial numbers of all my stuff.

The deputy brushed dust all over the top and edges of my desk, looking for the elusive fingerprints. You would think that today’s crooks would be aware enough to not touch anything with the uncovered pads of their fingers. We’ve been taught that in movies and TV since childhood. Being late November, nobody would question someone wearing gloves.

“I can access the records with my phone,” I said. Slowly and deliberately, with no sudden moves, damn I was paranoid, I pulled my cell phone from my pocket. After logging in, I swiped a couple of times to find the required app. The third item on the list was my laptop.

Holding up my cell phone screen so Beringer could see, I said, “There it is.”

He leaned forward and looked, again as though he was memorizing everything. Then he smiled slightly. “Could you please text that to the number on the card I gave you? Thank you.”

A wave of embarrassment swept over me as I realized that he probably couldn’t see the tiny print on the screen and definitely wasn’t going to remember all that data. Oops.

I pulled his card out of my pocket and composed the text while he turned his attention back to the deputy and the desk.

They finished getting everything they could from the outside of the desk. Using gloved hands, they opened the drawers one by one and asked me if anything looked out of place. Normally, the drawers only held office supplies and nothing of value. It all looked fine.

The crime scene investigation wrapped up and the sergeant and deputy gathered their things to leave. The thought of being alone in my recently violated home sent a tingle through my intestines. I wasn’t quite ready for them to leave yet.

“Sergeant?” I asked. “Do you think it will be safe here? I mean, are they likely to come back?”

Beringer looked at me as though he was summing up everything he could think of related to me and my place in the universe. “It’s hard to say. If they just wanted to break in and steal stuff or frighten you, they’re probably done. We will check the fingerprints as soon as we get back to the office, and if it is Franks or one of his associates, we will have them picked up soon enough. To be on the safe side, our regular patrols will include this area for a while, just to keep an eye on things.” He started to turn but stopped, “You will want to get your lock fixed as soon as you can.”

That was the very thing next on my list. “Any recommendations for a lock?”

He pursed his lips together and looked toward the floor, presumably in thought. When he looked back to me he said, “Quality has a price. Whatever you get, make sure it is good quality, maybe a high end brand and high end model. Maybe get the best you can get for now and then talk to a security expert to get optimal advice for your situation.”

He turned and left, taking his deputy with him.

I followed as far as my front door and then watched as they huddled for a couple of minutes before leaving in their individual vehicles.

Normally, being at home felt cozy and comfortable. That had changed. Now, the walls seemed imaginary, like any fiend could walk through whenever it wanted to. The urge to get out welled up in me. I fought the desire to run away, to run as fast as I could.

Taking some deep, calming breaths, I got myself together. The front door lock was broken. I needed to go buy a new lock. That would leave my place open. I came up with a solution.

Closing and latching the front door, I got some pennies and wedged them into the cracks between the door and the door frame. I heard somewhere that this would keep the door from opening. It was probably just an urban legend or something, but it was all I had and it gave me some sense of comfort, whether justified or not.

With the front door fastened, I exited through the back door, with its lock intact. I was very careful to exit quietly, looking around me for any sign of trouble. Trying to not look suspicious, I walked around the house toward my van. It’s hard to not look like you are up to no good when you are cautiously peering around the corner of your house before round that corner.

Buttoning up my home securely made me feel somewhat better. I think it was the sense of control. With my new-found confidence and sense of purpose, I headed for the store to buy a sturdy lock and a sanitary toothbrush.