Barb Caffrey's Blog

Folks, earlier this week news came out that Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurt has deep vein thrombosis and multiple pulmonary emboli. (More than one pulmonary embolism, in short.) Worse yet, the blood clots were in both lungs, not just one…and I know from personal experience that healing up from just one is a chore in and of itself.

In my case, they found the pulmonary embolism while it was resolving. They said I was very lucky to have survived it on my own. No one knows for sure what set my pulmonary embolism off, but there are multiple possibilities that start with Covid, Covid, and Covid. (The resolving pulmonary embolism was found in February of 2020, IIRC. We did not yet know that Covid was in the United States as of then, nor did we have any way to test for it, much less to treat it. To my mind it remains the most likely possibility by far.)

Anyway, in Jalen Hurt’s case, he played a game overseas in London, meaning he had an overseas and lengthy flight when he did not yet know he had any health issues going on, then played the roughest American sport we have, and only then was diagnosed with both deep vein thrombosis and the multiple pulmonary emboli.

In some ways, Hurt is much luckier than I was. But in others…this could’ve gone really bad, really fast. People with DVT have to take extra care on flights from what I recall. And people with any blood clots or pulmonary emboli have to take blood thinners until the blood clots are gone. Worse yet, unless you are a pro athlete like Hurt or Damian Lillard, you are likely to be on them the rest of your life.

(Yes, I take blood thinners. I wish I didn’t have to. Moving on…)

Speaking of Damian Lillard, he recently said that when the Bucks waived him about fifteen months ago that he was not only shocked, but it was extremely frustrating for him to deal with. This does not surprise me. Lillard is a human being. He did everything he possibly could to help the Bucks while he was in Milwaukee, coming back much more quickly than most people from a blood clot in his leg, only to then tear his Achilles tendon in the playoffs. He had bad luck, yes. But he also had a lot of heart, and I know I’m not the only fan who was not just shocked, but disgusted and frustrated when Lillard was waived.

In a way, I guess it was a good thing, because the Portland Trailblazers immediately re-signed Lillard (he was drafted by them and played many years with them before being traded to the Bucks) even knowing he would be out the entire year due to needing to heal from that surgery to repair the Achilles tendon. This means he gets to see his kids far more often (he’s a devoted dad, and more power to him), as they live in Portland and go to school there. He’s getting paid twice, once by the Bucks, once by the Trailblazers, and because of how the Bucks waived and stretched his contract, Lillard will eventually get more money than he would’ve otherwise just from that contract alone.

It still was a shocking and senseless act. Lillard is going to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer in the Basketball Hall of Fame someday. He was a great teammate. He was and is a phenomenally good man, did a lot of quiet charitable things from what I could tell (I always like that; while it’s good if players do any charitable things, I think it is better if the star’s name is carefully kept out of it), and Milwaukee fans appreciated him — so much so, when he returned with the Trail Blazers last year, albeit injured, the fans gave him a raucous standing ovation.

I think that tickled Lillard. (If he ever reads this, “tickled” is Midwestern slang for a woman of a certain age, namely me, meaning “very appreciative” and maybe even “making someone else smile.”) He may not have realized the Bucks fanbase was very much against what the Bucks leadership did.

And ultimately, the whole “waive and stretch” thing didn’t even help, because the Bucks missed the playoffs, Giannis ended up traded to Miami along with Bobby Portis, and now the Bucks get to start over with a bunch of young, green players and a younger, possibly hipper coach.

I don’t know why the Bucks GM Jon Horst still has his job. I do understand why Doc Rivers is gone, though I don’t think he was the major problem. Ultimately, it is up to the GM to get the right players to fit into the team as it stood, and that just did not happen last year with the Bucks whatsoever.

My hope this year for Lillard is that he’ll score fifty or sixty points on the Bucks once he’s healthy enough to do so. That he’ll get to enjoy many things with his kids that he wouldn’t have had if he hadn’t been waived. And that he’ll always know that he has fans in Milwaukee who saw what he was doing and deeply appreciated it.

Now, it’s time to give you another chapter of my soon-to-be-released novel, JASPER’S PROMISE (written by permission in author Christopher G. Nuttall’s Schooled in Magic universe). Previous chapters are to be found here and here.**

Let’s get on with the show!

Excerpt starts:

Chapter Six

I’d tossed and turned all night on that huge bed. I had no idea what I was getting into, and I was suddenly afraid I’d be sent away, rather than taught as my mother had wanted—and as I needed.

In the morning, I went to eat in the mess hall, which is where the Gorgon found me.

“Finish your breakfast,” she said with a smile. If you could ignore the snakes on her head, she was a very pretty woman. I knew she was way out of my league, though…she’d gone to Whitehall, for pity’s sake, and was a confidante of Lady Emily herself. I resolved right then and there to treat her at minimum like a friendly older sister…or if I was fortunate, like the teacher I needed so badly but never had.

I choked down my last few bites, then followed her down a series of long halls. Just when I thought I was truly lost, we came to a big, open room filled with books—“Not heirlooms,” the Gorgon said, laughing, when I asked—and three people. The first, a man perhaps seven years older than me, introduced himself as Lord Caleb, one of the members of the Heart’s Eye Board of Directors. The second was a hard-eyed woman, not in her first youth; I guessed she was probably Administrator Irene. The third was a young man who was almost too beautiful for his own skin; I wondered idly if he’d used his magic to permanently make himself look that way (as I felt no hint of a glamour). He was introduced as the Head Librarian, Jayson, also a member of the Board of Directors.

“We’re here,” the older woman said, “because you told my assistant the Gorgon that you had a rare talent—that for the teleportation of small items. We would like you to demonstrate that for us now.”

I bit back a sarcastic retort, something along the lines of, What do you think I’m doing here?, because I could tell this was a woman who was not to be crossed. Her aura of power was formidable, and I definitely didn’t want her dismissing me right away for refusing to do her bidding.

Instead, I said, “I’m happy to do so.” I walked around the room, looking for a good place to stand where the book I intended to teleport shouldn’t hit anyone in the face. I worked best with line-of-sight, I told them, as I found a good place. There was a loose-leafed spiral notebook—must be one of those new inventions, I thought—that didn’t look too heavy.

Before I could get too scared, I closed my eyes and concentrated. I did my best to “feel” the book, asking it without words if it would come to my hand. Then I opened my eyes, gestured…and the book was in my hand.

Almost immediately, a bad headache hit me. I staggered to a chair the beautiful young man—Jayson?—pulled out, and handed the book to Administrator Irene.

“You can do this often?” she asked.

“Yes, but at a cost,” I admitted. “My mother had hoped that someone here would be able to help me refine this talent, as well as teach me a number of spells, as she didn’t know many.”

“Which spells do you know?” the Gorgon asked, after looking to Irene for permission.

“I can hide myself in the shadows, if I concentrate hard. I can bring light to my fingers, though that’s not a spell. I can tell if someone’s telling the truth; Mom had a cantrip for it, and I seem to have a talent for it. I also know how to purify water so it’s safe to drink. But I know no transmogrification spells, not even the one that turns other students into frogs. Most of the basic spells have never been taught to me, as my mother didn’t know them. I am eager to learn them, though, and will do whatever remedial study you ask me to do in order to stay here and learn magic to the limits of my ability, in order to do good in this world.”

Caleb frowned, but lightly. “I know someone who can help.”

“Your brother?” Irene asked.

“Yes,” Caleb agreed. “He taught quite a few students with, shall we say, sketchy magical backgrounds in Beneficence when he broke his arm and couldn’t go back for his sixth and final year at Stronghold, and he found he had a gift for teaching. I believe he’d come here, if I asked…though we may need to ask his fiancée, Alba, if she wants to accompany him. She has some magical gifts, though she’s nowhere near as formidable as her mother—”

“I’ve met her mother. Only Lady Barb was a tougher Mediator than Alba’s mother was, in her prime. Even now, I wouldn’t want to cross her.” Irene puffed a laugh, which lightened her expression considerably.  “But Alba’s welcome here, of course. She knows some interesting things, you’ve said, about plants and how they grow and actually have magic, or can be imbued with such. She’d be an asset even without your brother Croce.”

As they discussed this amongst themselves, I realized that I’d won. My teleportation talent was rare enough they were willing to take a chance on me.

Someone was willing to teach me, even knowing my sketchy magical background. I could stay at Heart’s Eye, and learn…maybe, down the line, I could even work with the nonmagicians. Surely a few of them had to be nicer than my stepfather. (Right?)

My mother’s dream would come true.

My dream, too.

But before I got too euphoric, I asked Jayson if there were books I could study before Lord Caleb’s brother, Lord Croce, got there.

“I can find a few, sure,” Jayson said easily. “Read them in the Library, and no one will ever know you’re brushing up on the basics.”

I must’ve looked startled, because Jayson added, “Magical students are famous for their pranks, and some can be quite…I won’t say vicious, exactly, but maybe exacting? They view being pranked as a rite of passage, and while I don’t agree with this—”

“Neither do I,” Irene said. “But it’s ingrained in a lot of them. It’ll take time to root it out, so it’s better to prepare you for what you’re likely to see in order to become the man—the magician—you were born to be.”

She stood up, extended a hand, and said these magic words: “Welcome to Heart’s Eye University, Jasper. May you find joy in your studies here.”

I eagerly clasped her hand, and believed I was truly on my way to better things.

But of course it didn’t turn out to be that simple…because if it had been, maybe I wouldn’t have shifted to bullying in order to protect myself.

And maybe, in that reality where everything went smoothly and no one ever pranked anyone else, I’d never have turned into Jasper, that ass, rather than “Jasper, a young man with an unusual talent and a willingness to learn everything put in front of him,” which is what I had been hoping for.

But that reality was not this one. As I was about to learn.

The hard way.

#End Excerpt

I hope you enjoyed that chapter. And I very much hope you will enjoy the rest of JASPER’S PROMISE, which will be out before the end of the year…and maybe before Thanksgiving. (We’ll see.)

—

**The reason I put these three subjects together is, I survived my pulmonary embolism. Jalen Hurt survived multiple pulmonary emboli. Damian Lillard fully recovered within a few months — something almost unheard of — from the blood clot in his leg and hasn’t had a recurrence since.

You can keep going with your life even after extremely difficult things happen. Even multiple difficult things. It’s not easy, many times we’d rather not be having to deal with all this adversity (regardless of what that adversity is), but the important thing is to keep going.

If it takes a little longer, so what?