Not the Pandemic Expected

Three years ago I started thinking that a pandemic was just around the corner. I was expecting a childhood disease, such as diphtheria, to return. As I talked to some nurses and doctors about the idea, they assured me that such a thing was impossible because everyone gets a tetanus vaccine, which also includes protection against diphtheria.
The subject occupied my thoughts as it challenged me to research the disease. I came to realize that a few scattered cases were showing up in different parts of the world. Because members of my family had suffered from the disease, I had a personal reason to be interested.

Courage Is a Redhead, a combination of two stories—one set in future times with a dystopian flair and an epidemic of diphtheria and the other in the early twentieth century when the epidemic of diphtheria that had been around for years continued to plague the South, even though a cure had been developed years earlier—is a book I released last year.
Since some of my readers expressed an interest in reading the historical part of the book without the futuristic section, I pulled out the history and submitted it to my publisher in a short book called Lena’s Hope.

Who could have imagined we’d be confined to our houses now to avoid the Covid-19 pandemic? I’m still not convinced that we are safe from diphtheria, and this year I plan to get my flu shot.

Both books are available on Amazon.com.

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