Donna Maree Hanson, Author, Phd in Creative Writing

The knee surgery was nowhere near as bad as I expected. I had definite ideas about the amount of pain I would be in because I had surgery on my knee for a tumour 14 years ago, which was excruciating. This was different. The pain management was brilliant. Not being in excruciating pain makes recovery so much better. I had partial knee replacements and they are far less brutal than total knee replacements, if my recovery is anything to go by.

What type of pain relief did I get? I had an epidural, I had nerve blocks in both thighs, I had Palexia slow release, panodol and also if I needed Endone or Parlexia rapid release. I think getting the epidural and the nerve block was the ouchiest part prior to going into theatre. Moving too, also, was not entirely comfortable post-surgery but basically I was surprised at how little pain I was in. And the staff had me up and walking the next day. The nerve blocks lasted for four days and by then I was over the worst apparently. I think the hardest thing was coming off the high grade opioids like Palexia slow release. I didn’t even notice I was taking them until I stopped. After two weeks on them I had withdrawals and felt like crap for a few days.

Other issues besides getting used to the legs and what they could and couldn’t do, was being restless at night without the meds. These days though I’m not restless at all or on meds much. Sometimes I take panodol and more often just heat packs. I went to rehab and that helped a lot. It was an outpatient rehab program at the hospital twice a week-one hour in the gym and one hour in the pool doing hydrotherapy for five weeks after week 3. I also had to take a trip across the ditch to New Zealand to see family.

Anyway, close to normal now and I’m in week ten. The scars take time to mature and I have swelling around the knees, but a big thumbs up to partial knee replacements. I would have to have waited years for total replacements, while I marked time for the other parts of my knee wear out. Now I feel kind of spritely again and I’m able to write a lot sooner than I thought I would.

I’ve been writing short stories. Two.

Revising a Regency romance I drafted before I started the Phd so last looked at in 2016. I’ve been revising this for a while.

Drafting a new paranormal romance, featuring Gene Cohen from the The Cursed Ones series and a new witch called Lily DeVere. This kind of makes it a cross over between the Spellbound in Sydney series.

I’ve got lots on my plate in the drafted to be revised, restructured to the yet to be drafted categories. Once I have my head in the right space I’ll work out a timetable and commit some time, particularly the Phd novel and research. The catch is I’m back at the day job and there is only so much time I can spend on the computer due to back/neck issues.

In other news too, Matthew and I are heading to Tasmania in October for Terror Australis, including a week’s writing retreat, workshops and the festival featuring Ann Cleeves and Gary Disher. Website here. This is after we come back from Bali and Singapore so a busy time ahead. I’d like to write some crime fiction-it’s one of my favourite genres. Let’s face it I love all genre fiction.