Cleft
Category: Life

Each year, 1 in 700 infants is born with a cleft lip, cleft palate. My first child Porter, born this year, nine pounds, twelve ounces, falls into the minority. He's a healthy, typical baby: he cries when he's hungry, and when you change his diaper he pees on the wall and poops on your hand. He'll just need more medical care than most infants because of the gap in his lip and jaw.

The ultrasound technician discovered the cleft in utero. She scared the shit out of my wife and me because she didn't immediately explain what was wrong. Instead, she printed off the ultrasound and hurried from the room, mumbling something about how the doctor needed to see this. Of course, the doctor was gone and the technician, with her horrible bedside manner, had to explain to us what she saw. Then she hurried us out before we could ask any questions. The Internet proved to be much more calm and informative.

Whether due to heredity or environmental factors, such as exposure to chemicals, the lip and palate of some babies do not fully form and fuse, creating a gap that, if it's complete rather than partial, extends into the nose. Porter's cleft is complete; when he yawns I can see all the way into his nasal passage. Clefts cause feeding difficulties because, with a hole in his lip, a baby cannot create the necessary suction to breastfeed or drink from a normal bottle. Typically a cleft also causes fluid build-up in the ear, which, along with the incomplete jaw, causes problems with speech; if a child can't hear the words correctly, he can't speak them correctly. (I say "he" because clefts occur more commonly in males.) Luckily, specialists can correct these complications.

Until approximately fourteen years old, Porter will go through a handful of surgeries to close the cleft and to correct the slumping in his left nostril. He may also need speech therapy to fix any lisp or impediment. But before all that, two major processes will help make the surgeries easier. The first process is called lip taping, and this starts almost immediately after birth. Basically, two strips of tape, bound in the middle with a rubber band, are taped across the baby's upper lip; tension from the rubber band pulls the two sides of the baby's lip together, lessening the gap as the tissue grows. The second process is called nasoalveolar molding, or NAM, which also starts within the first month. The doctor molds a plate to the baby's hard palate, and this plate, similar to a retainer, slowly forces the two sides of the jaw to grow closer. Both processes make the surgeon's job easier because they decrease the width of the cleft.

After approximately four months of lip taping and nasoalveolar molding, Porter's lip will be sewn together and the slumping nostril will be slightly adjusted. Near his first birthday, before he starts talking, the doctors will extract bone from his hip and graft it into the hole in his jaw. They'll also install tubes in his ears to drain the fluid. And around adolescence, just before he graduates into high school, Porter will receive his last (hopefully his last) nose correction. The surgeons wait approximately fourteen years because pubescent growth of the nose can reverse previous corrections.

By the time the surgeons are finished, Porter's face will look as if nothing was ever missing. And hell, if he's self conscious about the faint scar on his lip, he can grow a mustache and goatee like his dad. Hopefully by then he'll have stopped peeing on the wall and pooping on my hand.

4:42 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

To Err
Current mood: anxious
Category: Writing and Poetry

Before writers submit a story to a magazine or anthology, we go (or should go) to painstaking lengths making everything perfect, from manuscript to cover letter.  But sometimes we forget crucial elements.  Like we forget to attach the story to the email.  In fact just yesterday I neglected to write a subject line on a submission to a prestigious editor.  Despite my fear of being a nuisance, I resubmitted and made sure to correct my initial mistake.  I haven't messed up like that in a while, and it reminded me of all the blunders I've made so far, one in particular.  The worst one.  I must warn you: look away now if your faint of heart.

Consider yourself warned.

Once upon a time an editor rejected my submission, so I forwarded the story to a friend interested in publishing it.  I quoted the editor's rejection letter and then added, "What does he know?"  Just as I sent it, I realized I hadn't forwarded the message to my friend--I'd hit reply; the message went to the editor who'd rejected the story!  He wrote back, "I don't know who Chip is, but this email obviously isn't for me."  It goes without saying, but I haven't subbed to that zine since.

I thought after that ordeal I would be extra careful not to screw up again, but alas, to err is human.  I just hope editors forgive.  Because to forgive is divine.

9:46 PM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Starstruck
Current mood: embarrassed
Category: Writing and Poetry

Douglas Preston was signing books, and I was next in line. I held a copy of The Codex and The Relic. I had told myself I wouldn't get nervous--I had no reason to, and I was too cool for that anyway--but by the time I stepped up to his table, my hands were shaking.

"Hi," I said.

He smiled. "Hi. Nice to meet you."

I handed him the books to sign and then rested my hand on his table--I had to do something with it. He opened The Codex and started to write.

I said, "I have to say, I haven't read any of your books." Great, I thought. Just what he wants to hear.

He didn't look up. He just nodded and kept writing.

"The guy who owns the store said The Codex is like Indiana Jones. I love Indiana Jones."

Shut up, I told myself. He doesn't care. He doesn't even know you.

"My friend up at college had the Indiana Jones theme song for his ring tone on his cell," I continued. And then I started to hum the theme song. I was off-key. My face was heating up.

Just stop!

Finally, he finished signing the books and handed them back to me. "I put a little something from Eliot in there," he said. Somewhere in the confusion, I had told him I was a fan of T.S. Eliot, and he had remembered. What he wrote was, "Let us go then, you and I," which is the first line of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," one of my favorite poems.

I hurried out of the store and--forgot to pay for The Codex...

2:19 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

"[Roses of Blood is] from the dark side"--Mumu, religious zealot
Category: Writing and Poetry

My hometown is full of religious zealots. I have nothing against religion, but some people are just extreme. To illustrate how zealous these residents are, here are a few titles from Letters to the Editor, taken from the local paper...

"Potter fans are playing with the fire of Hell"
"God didn't invent theory of evolution--Satan did"

And that's just the beginning.

As an author, I always knew my hometown wouldn't be the best place to sell my books. But I did a book signing anyway. During the Friday art walk, I set up a table in the local art gallery. I sold enough copies to be happy, but this one lady freaked me out. She was overweight and if memory serves, she was wearing a mumu (sp?). She was a heavy breather--you know, those people who always sound as if they're making a prank call? She came to my table, took one look at my book cover...



...and then recoiled, holding her hands to her bosom. "That's from the dark side," she said.

I tried to interest her in a copy of the community college's literary magazine instead--"It's from the light side," I told her--but she kept shaking her head and backing up against the wall, just staring at me with these wide, terrified eyes.

"That's from the dark side," she said. And then she left.

So if you're out there, Mumu, reading this blog, I have one question: may I quote you?

1:18 AM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Hello, God. It's me, Stephen King
Current mood: amused
Category: Writing and Poetry

I work in a writing center at a community college, and one day, I was talking to a teacher about the Stephen King lecture I attended. A guy and his girlfriend were working on the computers nearby, and when I finished talking to the teacher, the guy's girlfriend turned to me and said, "So I heard who you are, and I just wanted to say--yeah--hi!" She thought I was Stephen King.

Her boyfriend clarified the confusion, and the girl's cheeks went red. She started laughing and slapping his arm, saying, "Nuh-uh! Are you kidding me!" Then she buried her face in her hands, laughing, unwilling to look at me.

"Yeah," I said, "I'm Stephen King. And you see him over there?" I pointed at my co-worker, Andrew, who wears a lip ring. "That's Dean Koontz. And if you're really patient, you'll get to see Anne Rice--she went to get Starbucks with Tom Clancy."

I have to tell you, I was flattered. Being mistaken for Stephen King--wow! But for those of you who are still uncertain, I'm not Stephen King. Yet I do write horror. My name is D.L. Snell, and my zombie/vampire novel, Roses of Blood on Barbwire Vines, debuts June 2007. I am a member of the Horror Writers Association and a graduate of Pacific University's Creative Writing program.

Still don't believe that I'm not Stephen King? Well then, perhaps this photographic evidence will convince you. I'm on the top, King is on the bottom:

You know, now that you mention it, I do see a resemblance. But take my word for it, folks: we are two separate people. Unless, of course, he's using me as a pseudonym. Hard to tell these days . . .

11:50 PM - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment