Hello my British chums and happy *checks notes, screams internally* nearly November! I hope your autumn has been the very best kind, filled with golden light and vibrant leaves, and absolutely nothing like the sopping great monsoons that have been periodically dashing London over the past few weeks.

I met Unbound's head of editorial, Deandra, over Zoom yesterday which was lovely, and she gently suggested I write a little update to fill you in on the progress that's being made with the book. In hugely good news, all the essays are in and 15 of those are labelled fluorescent green in my spreadsheet of doom signififying that they're all ready to go into the manuscript and then to go into the in-house editing process. I have two to edit from scratch, four to give second edits to, and then one [cough] that I need to write myself.

The slight fly in the ointment over the past couple of months has been something I genuinely didn't see coming, and which hit me like a bloody truck. On August 22, I had done every edit available to me and was feeling pretty thrilled. On August 23, I went into hospital to have my left hip replaced – much like some labradors, or indeed Sybil, my joints have been dodgy since birth – and while the operation went fine (I had an epidural and sedation, and if I could have an epidural every week for the rest of my life, I would) the following week I started bleeding a lot, and ended up going to A&E at another hospital, and then being readmitted to a third hospital where I had a second operation, this time under the wildly less lovely general anaesthetic, and stayed for nine days (beautiful views of London, but otherwise absolutely do not recommend).

When I came out, I was assigned to a weekly hospital clinic for antibiotics, as I'd sustained two fairly massive infections which, if they got into the hip joint, could require me to have my sparkly new hip prosthesis removed and then replaced. I went to the clinic every week, had a Picc line put into my arm, and had daily visits from the community nurse team to give me my antibiotics – this was all incredible, and I was hugely grateful, but it did also mean my husband spent our two-week holiday (and his birthday) looking after me and our menagerie of animals instead of enjoying nice pub lunches and roaring fires on our annual holiday to Wales.

I have never had mega antibiotics before, and I was truly unprepared for the brain fog. It was as though clouds had taken over my head, and I couldn't concentrate on anything: not books, not telly, only a few match-3 games on my phone and occasional diversions into whether or not the Queen had died on Twitter. I stretched out the money I'd put aside for a month of recovery into two months, and kept apologising to the book's writers for my ongoing failure to either send them their edits or to deal with the ones they had sent to me. I just couldn't do it. I had nothing in my head apart from tiredness and clouds. 

As I started getting better, and was walking on crutches, then on one crutch, and then limping around at home without crutches but like a Halloween monster, I found the lack of direction and control incredibly hard. If I touched my scar (which I avoided doing for several weeks), I burst into tears – only now am I able to start rubbing in the obligatory Bio Oil without having an immediate reaction, and even then, I have to really concentrate not to cry. 

I quite enjoyed my early recovery in hospital because for once I had something physical and concrete to recover *from*, unlike my experiences of IVF and fertility explorations, where I had small scars but nothing tangible to show for my grief and wild, wild lack of knowing what to do or how to respond. In hospital, it was easier: I responded by sleeping, going on occasional physio trips to the stairs in a wheelchair, and had people looking after me and waking me up every four hours to give me hardcore painkillers and other delicious things. I couldn't concentrate, but what had happened to me was being validated in a way it couldn't be during my previous experiences in hospital. (I have never taken so many pregnancy tests as when in hospital, and cheerfully barking, "I'M ACTUALLY INFERTILE" doesn't make a difference.)

In good news, the book's manuscript will definitely be handed in over the next few weeks, and I will update you then to let you know for sure! For now, I'm on some different antibiotics thanks to the sterling efforts of the infections team at Guy's Hospital who managed to swing me some extremely spendy drugs that could be delivered in two bags and last for six weeks rather than my having to come back every week, or every day. At the end of November, I'll have some more bloods taken and find out whether the infections have left (fingers crossed eh!) and will hopefully carry on getting my brain back. 

These essays are such a privilege to edit (for me, at least: I'll ask the writers at the launch party – my impending 40th has also been culled by the antibiotics, so may as well roll it into a big party for the book – if they had as much of a good time when they've had them edited by me, and three further editors!) so I obviously want to get them all right. It is going very slowly now, but at least now it's going at all. Also, in great news Taylor Swift's new album Midnights has been released – it is GREAT, and will be soundtracking the last lot of editing. Her previous album, folklore, soundtracked the rest, and I couldn't imagine a better one.

Wishing you all a lovely autumn and lots of love, and please yell if you have any brilliant ideas for my essay! I have a couple of ideas, but I think my brain needs to warm up again before I can actually concentrate on getting them right. That's my excuse anyway #myart