My Ten Year Update

Howdy, everyone! I pray this finds you all doing well, all things considered.

It has been ten years since DDay happened for me: May 11, 2011. As I've looked back over everything that has happened in that time, I am awed that I am where I'm at. When I was headed toward DDay, I was writing up a storm (I write SciFi/Fantasy novels) and employed at a small Texas city, Cottonwood Shores as their financial officer. Then DDay hit and upended everything in that regards. On top of that, politics at work grew to the point that I was hoisted out in July of 2011, and due directly to DDay, my writing took a backseat for nearly two years. About the only thing I wrote during that time was blog posts, mostly about infidelity. Then piled on top of that, in 2012 I started to experience symptoms of what I would eventually discover was Parkinson's. It initially progressed fairly rapidly. I was diagnosed in 2013, and by the end of 2014, I had significant bladder, constipation problems, along with early onset dyskenisia (a side effect of the medications).

So much so that I was able to get disability with the govt. at the beginning of  2015. Which gave me the time to do some extensive exercise, which ended up reversing my bladder and constipation issues and slowed the progression down to a much slower crawl instead of a dead run. So finances grew better at that point as well as symptoms improved, overall. Except for the dyskenisa, that grew worse, and the more medications I required made the dyskensia more pronounced. To the point that the only way I could give me a better quality of life was to have Deep Brain Stimulation surgery, which I did in Sept. 2017. That made life much more bearable, almost normal at times. I say almost normal, becuase I do have a bit more electricty flowing through my nerveous system. Which can make me a little more erratic in my movements. Currently, my disease has progressed to the point that tremors are starting to return. So I stopped my job that I had been working at since Aug of last year, so I could focus more on my writing as I know my time is growing smaller that I can get these things done.

At any rate, most who have read my book, "Healing Infidelity" under the pen name (which in this case is my real name) Rick Copple, will have a clue what I've been through. I am happy to report that Gabi and I are still doing well, still love each other very deeply. I can't say that we have kept up doing all the things in our book. That said, we are both totally focused on each other. Since 2018 we moved to Colorado to be closer to the grandkids, and so part of our time and attention goes toward that as well. That said, I feel much more love and respected than pre-DDay. Though things never return back to pre-affair days, I felt I got my old wife back around 4-6 years after DDay. And that was because she did do the hard things to recover herself. I knew she no longer thought about her AP and had fallen out of love with him when I saw her gradually lose her concern for what he might be going through. I had my pre-affair wife back, which though her affairs started in earnest in the fall of 2010, it really began in early 2010 with her infatuation with other guy's attention. Anyway, we are doing great in that department. I am, still, a bit more sensitive to situations that could indicate a problem, however.

My writing eventually picked back up, usually in bursts. One such burst was in 2018 when i published 3 novels, and one non-fiction book which is, "Healing Infidelity Through Faith." In total, I have at least 12 published books under the pen name RLCopple, two devotional books under the pen name Timothy Copple, and 2 books under Rick Copple which I've already mentioned. I'm currently writing a fantasy book and another book about atheism. I also have another fantasy book I've got out for editing which I hope to publish in the next couple of months.

So that's where I'm at, 10 years down the road from DDay. It's been a long,  and at times difficult road, but I've made it to the end of 10 years. Now, guess I'll have to start preparing for what the next 10 will throw at me!

My prayer for everyone is to "thine own self be true." Good advice, no matter the subject, but especially for those of us who have experienced the trauma of being cheated on, as well as those who have cheated as well.