All posts by David Todd

family, home improvements, Writing

Help Is Coming

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On Wednesday, our son and his husband fly in from Worcester, MA to give us some help. One primary project is moving my workstation from The Dungeon to someplace upstairs. This involves moving two monitors, the docking station, the wireless printer, and various supplies. I know where I want it to go. In that scenario, they will also have to move the computer desk, both top and bottom portions. They’ll also have to move a small cabinet for the printed to rest on. And, of course, a chair.

That will be done either Wednesday night or Thursday morning. That will be the start of a new era. But it will be nice to have my remote keyboard again and a surface for it to rest on.

Will it work? Maybe. Our kids are worried about me going downstairs. Other tasks, such as filing business papers, and sorting through things in the storeroom, will for some time require me to go downstairs.

Other projects are on the agenda for while Charles and Mario are here. One is for Charles to look through my stamp collection. He said he wanted to look at it before I listed it for sale. Stamp collecting was extremely important to the Todd family over the years, but those years are over and it’s time to sell it. I don’t think there’s much market for stamp collections, so I don’t expect to get much for it.

Then there’s that spare bedroom set. It’s in the basement storeroom, tucked away to form a wall that divides the storeroom into different areas. We need to pull it out into the light, take some photos, and get it listed for sale.

Moving my workstation will result in freeing up a 6-foot worktable. Hopefully we will move that into the storeroom for staging stuff.

I’m sure we’ll have a load or two of miscellaneous things to take to donation. And boxes of books to move to the garage in hopes that they will sell. Some are already advertised on FB Marketplace, but they seem to be generating little interest.

So, will I get any writing done this week? Probably not, but we’ll see.

Health, Writing

Home Again, Home Again

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Dateline: Thursday, October 24, 2024

Opened up once, and healing from that. The Band-Aid covers where the needle and drain tube were inserted over 15 cm to drain my pericardium.

Last Saturday, I went to the ER due extreme difficulty breathing under even mild exertion. I had gone to the ER for the same thing on Thursday, but they sent me home. On Saturday, it was much worse. This time they re-did the test from Thursday (a chest x-ray), did a CT scan, and admitted me. In the middle of the night, they did an echo cardiogram and determined my pericardium, the sac around the heart, had filled with fluid, making it hard for the heart to beat, making it hard for me to breathe.

On Sunday, I underwent moderately invasive surgery to remove the fluid, also putting in a drain tube. They then watched me several days and measured the continued drainage. In all, they pulled 1070 cc of bloody fluid from my pericardium. That’s a fair amount.

An echo cardiogram yesterday morning showed the sac to be clear of fluid, so I was released in the afternoon after a long session with my cardiologist. I’ve been on blood thinners ever since my first stroke in January, and on stronger thinners since my stroke in September. He is concerned about the risk of continued bleeding. So I’m now off blood thinners until a repeat echo cardiogram next week shows no accumulation of new fluid. After that, I may go back on a mild blood thinner.

So what does this all mean going forward? Today I’ll spend some time looking at where my different writing projects stand, and make some plans for the next couple of weeks. One thing that will happen is I will (well, our son and his husband will) move my workstation upstairs, out of The Dungeon. Working in a new space will take some getting used to—although I’ve done that before

Health

Monday Greetings

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For the first time ever, I’m entering a blog post on my cellphone. I’m in ICU in Mwrcy Hospital in Rogers,AR. I came to the ER Saturday evening late, finding myself increasingly unable to catch my breath.

It turned out the sack around my heart, the pericardium, was filling with fluid, making it harder for the heart to pump, and thus harder for me to breathe. They admitted me, and on Sunday did minimally invasive surgery to remove the fluid.  900 cc of fluid.

I think I’m better. Pulse and blood pressure numbers are more normal. I won’t know for sure until I walk, hopefully later today.

I’ll be in for at least one more day, until they remove the drain tube. While I’m here, they’ll do a swallowing test on me to see if theast stroke impaired my swallowing.

Fun and games in NW Arkansas!

Health

A Setback?

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The last couple of days I’ve been extremely short of breath. Every time I get up from my recliner and take a few steps I need to find a seat, for the shortness of breath is so strong I have to rest.

Today, about all I’ve done is sit in the recliner and try to read or write something. But the S.O.B. (good acronym) comes on and I can’t do anything but lay my head back and close my eyes. Then the alternating SOB and regular breathing comes on. The pulse ox meter shows me with 98%+ oxygen but pulse of 99+. The ekg I can take with my smart watch shows me in a-fib.

Not sure what I’m going to do.

Bible study, Health, letters

Where Do I Go From Here?

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Our son snapped this picture just as they called me to begin prep for surgery.

As the title of this post says, I’m somewhat uncertain about what my life if going to be like in the future.

As to the heart surgery, I’m healing well. I’m being careful to follow the discharge instructions the hospital gave me. I’ve been seen three times by home health, once in clinic for blood draw, and once in clinic for the post-op appointment. Almost every day I sense healing happening in my body. Yesterday, after working with our daughter putting one bedroom back together following down-sizing activities, I had my first real time of pain at the incision point. A Tylenol was sufficient to help control it.

As to my stroke of 3 Sept, progress on the lingering impairments is slow. Typing has started to improve, but remains both slow and painful. Handwriting is also slow to return to normal. It takes me a long time just to sign my name to anything, and the result is barely legible. Writing anything takes much more time it ought to.

But, I’ve been able to do some light writing tasks. I began work on the next volume of my Bible study series. Not actual writing yet, but creating the book files, loading the scripture in and dividing it by chapter, and planning the subsections. I think I’m perhaps a day away from completing the preliminaries and beginning the writing.

The other writing project is the book of family letters from our years in Saudia Arabia. All that’s left is adding photographs. That involves scanning to digital, resizing, loadings into the books, then formatting the pages. As I’ve said before, the words are written. I scanned some photos previously. But the scanner is in the basement and I’m still not allowed to do stairs. Our daughter did a lot of scanning. I have at least 40 scanned photos to go through and load into the book. I will work on that some this week. About the time I finish that, I’ll be at the point using stairs again, and can complete the scanning.

So healing is happening, and writing tasks are getting done. Hopefully on Friday, I’ll be able to report increasing progress.

Health

Back, but not yet on the saddle

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I had my open-heart surgery on 9/30, came home from the hospital on 10/4, and have been a good boy at following the rules since then. I’m healing well since the surgery.

But now the negative effects of my 9/3 stroke. Typing is still very hard, and a little painful. So this will be a short post. Hopefully I’ll soon be able to type more, and to report more specifically on my health and activities.

book reviews, expatriate life

Book Review: from a land Far, Far Away

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A cheap cover, basic layout, but good editing. But hey, for 91¢ and Tate Publishing, what can you expect?

Sometimes you pick up a book and don’t remember where you got it. This one we seem to have picked up in a thrift store named “Heart & Hand” for the inflated price of 91¢! It’s from a land Far, Far Away: Letters From the Front Line of the War On Terror by Wes Trueblood. He served as an English teacher, a civilian employee for the US Military. Earlier in his life, Trueblood had been in the military. In one letter he mentioned he was “no longer an ordained minister”, so that’s also an item on his resume.

The book is a series of letters Trueblood wrote to a mailing list back home—family, friends, and friends of friends. The letters told his impressions of the countries he went to: first Iraq in 2007, then after a year in the USA, to Afghanistan in 2009. The book looked interesting especially due to our time in Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

In terms of information, the book did not disappoint. Trueblood’s impressions and conclusions about the two countries pretty much match my own. He was hampered in learning about the countries because he was essentially in a war zone and could not get out among the local population.

Thus he gave a lot of information about the bases he was at. Who lived with him, as roommate and as other base residents? What were the site rules? What type of recreation did they have? Were they in danger? After a while, it got tiring. Trueblood kept trying to distinguish between miliary people and civilians (such as him) who worked for the military. Those parts became kind of boring after a while. I read them all, but not closely enough to really understand the differences.

One other problem was that the “letters” were really a newsletter sent by e-mail. It reads differently than letters do. That was a little off-putting for me.

So, should you read this book? is it a keeper? How do I rate it? I think you would have to ha e a special interest in these countries or in this part of the world to make this book worth your while. It is now a keeper for me, and will go straight out to the donation pile. And I rate only 3-stars. It is really 3.5 stars for me. It’s well put together, and I’m glad I read it, but the stars rating is for others, not for me.

book reviews, poetry

Book Review: Dorothy Wordsworth – The Grasmere and Alfoxden Journals

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Well worth reading for any Wordsworth fans.

A couple of month ago, I posted that I was reading The Grasmere and Alfoxden Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth, sister of poet William Wordsworth. These are famous journals in the world of poetry, specifically in the British romantic movement era. I read this slowly, about five or six pages a day at my noon reading time, either in the sunroom or at my reading spot in the woods.

I must admit to having a difficult time concentrating on this book. Dorothy’s main entries had to do with the weather, where they walked and who they saw, what letters they received and who she wrote to. Sometimes she wrote about household items, such as making pies and bread, doing laundry. Many entries had to do with health issues. Both Dorothy and William were frequently ill and spent much of their days in bed, to rise at supper time then be up most of the night.

William’s poetry does figures in the journal, which is what most interested me. Dorothy sometimes wrote, “W is working on an ode” or “W is working on a sonnet.” Sometimes she would give the name of a poem. “Peter Bell” is mentioned quite often at one stretch. It makes me want to pull out my Wordsworth poems books (I think I have two) and read them.

Place names feature in terms of where they walked or rode to. The book included two maps, but so many of the places mentioned weren’t shown on the maps that I gave up referring to them. Coleridge also features in the journal. He came and went frequently, went away from his wife right when she was about to give birth. The impression Dorothy gives of Coleridge is not flattering.

The book included 140 pages of notes, printed as end notes tied to a page and a journal date. I started out reading the journal entry then flipping back to the notes. I gave up on that when I came to realize the notes more often than not compared this edition of the journal (2002, edited by Pamela Wolf) to earlier editions (stretching back over 130 years). That kind of information would be of great interest to a researcher, but not so much to a casual reader such as me.

So, on to my usual questions. How do rate this? Will I read it again? What will I do with the book? The extensive notes and lack of an adequate map cause me to rate this 3-stars. No, I don’t think I will ever read it again; thus I don’t plan on keeping it. It is already put in the donation pile.

Health

Today’s The Big Day

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Writing this post ahead of time. It ought to be and end-of-month progress, beginning-of-month goals post. But due to my stroke on September 3, I had almost no progress. And due to my heart surgery today, I’m not making any goals for October.

I’m writing this post early, to go live on September 30, at the exact time my surgery is supposed to start. I have a few more posts scheduled to go lived on my normal blogging schedule. I suspect my first post-surgery live post will be somewhere around the middle of October.

Health, Writing

Remaining Impairmentss

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The hematomas from the hospital blood draws have mostly healed. But next Monday I get to do it all over again.

The impacts of my stroke:

  • Left side weakness: mostly gone. But this has exposed the fact that my right leg is still weak from my July 15 accident. I’m still working on that.
  • Left side loss of balance: seems to be gone.
  • Double vision: affected the middle distances, seems to be gone.
  • Loss of left side fine motor skills: still greatly impaired. Can’t write. If I tried to write a check the bank would reject it based on unreadable handwriting. Practiced writing some yesterday, and it had improved a little since my last practice on 9/16. Touch-typing is slowly coming back. I’m no where up to the speed I used to be at, but I’m better than at OT on 9/11.  Of course, with my bad rotator cuff from my other July accident, who can for sure tell what is an impact of that and what is from the stroke.
  • Speech: slow to come back. Still hard to say certain sounds. I have not worked on this enough, but it’s painful and tiring to talk out loud. I sang at church yesterday. Fortunately, the noise level in the sanctuary was such that no one could hear me, and I couldn’t hear myself. The words seemed to come easy to the two familiar songs, much harder on the new song.

Hopefully I will be more diligent at working on the remaining impairments. Possibly I’ll give a follow-up report on Friday. Meanwhile, I have no thoughts of resuming writing. It’s a good thing my only current writing work is scanning photos and loading them into a book of family letters.