22 Comments on “Think Good Thoughts for Toby Buckell”

1. Uh, wow.

   Yeah, that’s a heck of a thing to be dealing with at any age.

2. Mortality reminders are teh suxxorz, especially when they come as EKG results.

3. Hang in there Toby! We’re rooting for ya!

4. Christian:

   Those good wishes might be better applied at Toby’s own site.

5. I’m going to assume that thinking good thoughts for many, many people doesn’t dilute them or lessen their effectiveness for any one person.

   Get well, Toby. OM TARE TU TARE TURE SVAHA.

6. I left a comment over there, but wanted to repeat it here.

   I went in to the hospital about 18 months ago thinking I was having a heart attack, and it turned out it was an endocrine problem causing my heart & blood pressure problems. I am incredibly grateful to the heart doctor who ordered extra bloodwork. (as well as the doctors who actually *cured* me) I now have boringly normal blood pressure, and before I was living on the outskirts of Stroke City.

   If you even *suspect* you are having some sort of heart issue, go to the hospital, and while there, make them do comprehensive blood work.

7. Oops, good point John. I just went over and did that.

8. Do writers get health insurance as a benefit from their publisher? ‘Cause that looks like some seriously expensive treatment…

9. Rick:

   No. But I do believe Toby has insurance through his wife.

10. Yikes! I hope he gets better!

    First Borders and B&N (at least in my area) refuse to carry his latest book, and now this.

11. Haplo, seriously? What was the reason?

12. “Do writers get health insurance as a benefit from their publisher?”

    Talk about a fucked up system. “We’re no commies we don’t need no socialized health care.”

13. Jeez, I just saw him on Saturday at WindyCon outside Chicago. He was frantically scribbling a list of books adapted into movies, but it didn’t seem that stressful.

14. I’ve already left my best wishes at his site. Let’s face it, Toby is one of the authors we really can’t afford to lose.

15. Left mine over there and have been pestering him to cheer him up via Twitter as well.

    On the upside, Science! has provided us with a lot of workarounds for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and a lot of explanations for how it occurs. Undoubtedly, he’s in for a bunch of genetic testing– which they’ll then conduct on his relatives, to help determine their risk factors and protect them too.

16. Good Mojo deployed on site, and another shout of him being a jolly good egg here. I agree with Ardaniel Collier @ 15 that this is a Fixable Thing, and therefore this diagnosis would actually be Good News Everyone as there’s a known patch, as it were.

17. #11 – It’s off topic so I don’t want to noise up the thread too much. I emailed him when I couldn’t find the book. His response was along the lines “Newish, Young author, they don’t want to take a chance on stocking the book, and getting stuck with it.” Note I had asked specifically about Borders, but I wasn’t able to find the book at B&N either, so I assume its the same reasoning.

    So I ordered from Amazon…to bad for the Brick and Mortars.

18. I wish him well.

19. Haplo@17: As continued book sales would be to the advantage in Toby’s pending insurance co-pay, it doesn’t seem wildly off topic to me. So —

    B&Ns stock him. Saw two copies of Sly Mongoose at one of mine (Columbus, Ohio) not two hours ago. I know they had a copy of Ragamuffin within the last few weeks, and Crystal Rain still shows up from time to time. Different B&Ns have different stocking criteria. Besides, they don’t “get stuck” with anything. What doesn’t sell gets returned and eventually discounted or pulped.

    Border’s issues are, for now at least, not B&Ns.

20. I know the IEEE offers a health plan for its members. You’ll shell out big bucks, since there’s no employer contribution, but it’s a better deal than going solo. Does the SFWA have a similar deal?

21. Well, glad I was promoting Toby this weekend.

    We have a new neighborhood bookstore down the street. Seeing they had Scalzi on the shelf, but not Buckell, recommended him to one of the owners. Not a scifi reader herself, she was happy to get the 411 on our guy, and was going to bring his books.

22. Authors are considered self-employed. The lucky ones get their insurance through their spouse’s job or the Other Day Job. Quite a number of us are running around without insurance, unfortunately.