Yesterday morning, I hit a new low on my weight. I was 187.4 pounds. That leaves me only 7.4 pounds to go to reach my goal, or, 12.4 pounds to reach my wife’s goal for me. That’s down from a peak weight of 304, reached in 2004 and 2006.
How did I lose over 100 pounds? Slowly, over 19 years. A little more exercise, a little more careful eating. Helped along the way by the health problems I went through last year.
The current question is, how do I keep it off? Check in again on this blog, where on occasion I talk about my health.
My plan for today had been to post a review of a book I recently finished reading. But last night, shortly after bedtime, I had a low blood sugar incident. My blood sugar went from 112 (a v. good bedtime number) to 33 in just 40 minutes—and that with having a small snack. I got up and barely managed to take a sugar reading, get a glucose pill, and go to the kitchen for food. In theory, the glucose pill should have been enough had I just waited for it to take effect. But, in that condition, which I’ve had before (but not for a couple of years), I feel like I’d better get some food in me.
But, because of that, I’m wiped out this morning. That kind of low blood sugar takes a physical toll. I’ll push my intended blog post out until Monday. Hopefully I’ll feel up to doing a few things today. I have a physical therapy evaluation appointment this morning that I will keep. But not sure I’ll do much more today.
Friday was to have been a celebration, of sorts. That was my last day of cardio rehab. 35 sessions from Nov 20th± to March 14, with interruptions for Thanksgiving, Christmas, my seizure, and two trips to Massachusetts. I did not see an improvement on my weight or waistline, which I attribute to two weeks of restaurant food in Massachusetts, but the muscle tone in my legs sure is better. Since Dec. 22, Lynda’s had to do all the driving (20 miles each way) for all these, since I’m not allowed to drive due to the seizure.
Friday was a windy day. We were southbound on Interstate 49, Lynda constantly fighting the wind. At one point, she was driving in the left lane on a 3-lane stretch when a box blew out of a flatbed truck just ahead of us and a lane over. The box bounced in our path, and it seemed we could not miss hitting it. But the wind blew the box across the lane in front of us, with debris spilling out on the pavement. We missed the box but ran over the debris, whatever it was.
By the time we got to the rehab place, the low-pressure light was on. By the time I got out of rehab an hour later, the tire was flat. I called AAA. They sent a truck, but I had trouble using their online locator guide and had him going to the wrong place. We were in a huge parking lot for the hospital/dr offices building. The guy found us, actually fairly quickly, aired up the tire, and it wouldn’t hold air. So AAA sent a tow truck, which also came fairly quickly. I had them tow us to the Dodge dealership we use, which was only 3 or 4 miles away. In the process, we learned that our minivan did not have a spare tire in the place allotted for it.
The dealership mounted a new tire and had us on our way in an hour and a half, me downing two cups of coffee and one package of peanut butter crackers during the wait. Just before we pulled out of the service garage, it started raining—pouring, actually. At times, Lynda couldn’t really see the road. Then came the hail, really hard and probably grape size. We passed several churches with drive-unders, but other cars had already parked under them before us, so we kept going. By the time we got to the main road through Bentonville, the hail had stopped, and the rain tapered off to a fine mist. By the time we got back onto the Interstate, all rain had stopped. Our neighborhood was dry, as it was west of the storm line. We drove right through that line.
By this time, neither of us felt like celebrating the end of rehab. But it was 5 p.m. and we also knew neither of us would feel like preparing supper. So, as planned, we stopped at our nearest Mexican restaurant and got take-out fajitas.
As a result, I lost the entire afternoon for work, and two items on my 4-item Friday to-do list didn’t get done—still aren’t done. And neither of us even want to look at what damage we might have to the car from the hail.
Last Saturday (3/1, that is), for only the second time since my seizure on Dec 22, I wrote. Wrote on one of my books, that is. I’ve been doing a little journaling in Jan and Feb, but no real writing. A Walk Through Holy Week, Volume 3, lacked only one chapter and the Introduction of being done. Even earlier parts of the book had been through one edit.
But I just wasn’t feeling up to writing. I would go downstairs to The Dungeon each morning, feel overwhelmed at decumulation and decluttering tasks, feel my slowness at the keyboard, and do other things than writing. Any other things. The last time I had written was around Jan 22, and I added very few words that day.
But that Saturday, it felt good. I wrote the first section of the last chapter. It took less than an hour, and it felt good. That day I had already spent an hour transcribing entries from an old field book into my e-journal. That felt good, and so did the writing. I took Sunday off, but then wrote each weekday last week. That brought me to Saturday with one section and the Introduction to do. I got the one section, for which I had not done any planning, done in 45 minutes or so, and decided to shift over to the Introduction. In another 45 minutes, I had that done as well. An hour and a half was probably the most writing I had done in one session since my stroke on Sept 3.
So, AWTHW V3 is now ready for finishing round 1 of edits and moving quickly into rounds 2 and 3. AWTHW V2 is ready for typing of final edits, and the input of beta readers, if I can find any. The later volumes scream at me, asking me to please get to editing them and move on to publishing. I have to keep shushing them, saying, “All in good time, all in good time.”
Meanwhile, brainstorming is in progress about what comes next. I know what the next three, or possibly four, books will be, but not after that. I just can’t help thinking and planning ahead.
What about it, friends? Anyone want to be a beta reader for Volumes 2 and/or 3? Just let me know with a comment and I’ll be in touch. Or reach me through Facebook.
As I write this on Wednesday, March 5 evening, a feeling of normalcy has descended on the Todd household. Not completely, for we still have health issues we’re dealing with. Lynda has headaches almost daily; our son is, tonight, dealing with a possible break-through seizure; and I’m getting ready to start physical therapy for my right knee. But yesterday I saw my hematologist. My iron deficiency is corrected, and I don’t have to go back to him unless my regular blood work shows my iron dropping. And my cardio rehab will end next week. That is going well, and I’ve increased my workload most days as I’ve been through it. My weight is either steady or inching downward, and my blood sugars are mostly within goal.
But normalcy is close. Saturday, I returned to writing. As of today, I’ve written on four days, with the ideas and words coming easily. I have only three days of writing left on this volume—well, four including the introduction. Then, of course, the editing starts. Meanwhile, I continue to edit Volume 2 of the series. I should finish that on Friday, the day this post goes live. Typing will take less than a day, then publication tasks start.
I’m finding time to do some typing of things that go into my journal—loose papers that will later be discarded. Meanwhile the storeroom is better arranged so that I know where things are and will be able to find them again for decumulation consideration. My work table is marginally cleaner after I went through a desk-top box of hanging files and got rid of a bunch. Some were left for scanning or transcribing, work that is in progress. And speaking of decumulation, every couple of days something sells based on Facebook Marketplace ads.
But the thing that makes me feel most normal is beginning the process of closing out finances for 2024 and beginning to track them for 2025. Today, Wednesday, I did this for book sales, which is a business for me. I was up-to-date with my sales and finances spreadsheet when I had my seizure on Dec 22, so I didn’t lack much to catch up. I finally did that today, reconciled everything, created the new spreadsheet for 2025, and recorded my sales to date. I’m running a little ahead of 2024, which was a record year for me. On Thursday I plan to do this for our stock trading business, allowing me to start on our partnership taxes, which are due to be filed by March 15.
This all feels good, working on familiar things and seeing things getting done. I’m not ready to resume regular yardwork, but will slip some in once in a while. Going up and downstairs to The Dungeon is still painful, but I am able to do it several time a day.
Oh, and Tuesday I took down the string of Christmas card we received this year. A little late, but another part of the house is back to normal.
Hi folks. The last two week my wife and I were in Massachusetts (Worcester and Boston) for our son’s surgery. I only planned for a week, but the surgery was delayed, then a snowstorm at our home airport delayed us further. Thus, I didn’t plan ahead for blog posts for that long of a trip.
I’m also having difficulty getting back to normal. Hopefully, by Friday I’ll be back with a meaningful post.
A strange thing going on in the brain is the best way I can describe a seizure.
My normal posting schedule is Monday and Friday. For a number of years I’ve stuck to that schedule, missing once in a while, throwing in an extra post here and there. Sometimes I’ve had to schedule a post when I knew I would be gone. When I had my heart surgery Monday Sept 30, I wrote a number of posts ahead of time and scheduled them to go live at the right time.
I had a health issue that interrupted that. Dec 22, Sunday before Christmas, Lynda woke at 5 a.m. to find me in the midst of a seizure. I was thrashing around in bed, unaware of what I was doing. Then I would go still, my eyes open but I wasn’t awake. She could tell something was seriously wrong with me and called 9-1-1. The paramedics came fairly quickly, I’m told, took my blood sugar and saw that wasn’t the problem, loaded me in the rescue squad and transported me.
I started to in the vehicle. I realized I was in a moving vehicle and asked what was going on. The man said I had a seizure and they were taking me to the hospital. I then went back to “sleep”, coming to one or twice more during the trip, and going fully awake as they transferred me to a hospital bed at Mercy Hospital in Rogers, Arkansas. I was able to answer all their questions as to who I was, what day it was, etc.
Lynda got there shortly before 8 a.m., having prepared for me having an extended stay, but by then the seizure was over and they released me. I was home by 9 a.m. and attended Sunday School class and church on-line. It was as if nothing had happened, except my speech, which had been improving since being adversely affected in my Sept 3 stroke was a little worse. All that day, I sat quietly, reading or watching TV.
On Monday Dec 23 we were supposed to fly to Boston and be with our son in Worcester, MA over Christmas. That obviously couldn’t happen. I delayed the flights a week, failed to properly delay our hotel reservations. My doctor wanted to see me on Monday the 23rd. She said the seizure was likely caused by weakness in that part of the brain affected by the stroke. She said I wasn’t allowed to drive in Arkansas for one year after the seizure.
So now it’s Jan 7. I haven’t resumed writing yet. Maybe in my next post, on Friday, I’ll tell you what’s keeping me busy and when I’ll resume writing. Meanwhile, I’m okay. No repetition of seizure symptoms, feeling good, alert, chafing at not being allowed to drive. I’ll keep everyone posted about how I’m doing.
I’ve had trouble sleeping the last two nights. It’s now Thursday evening. Today I drove to Fayetteville AR for a CT scan of my head. This was to follow up on my Sept 3 stroke. I wasn’t expecting good news from this, as I’ve struggled against continuing impairments to speech and left hand fine movement (giving me problems with handwriting and typing,
From the 1;30 p.m. CT scan, which ended early since I got there early, I rushed back to Bella Vista to attend the bi-monthly meeting of the Scribblers & Scribes writers critique group. As I was walking out of the Bella Vista Library at the end of our meeting, I was a little dizzy; nothing major, but a little more sustained than, say, from standing after a long time sitting. I got to the car and sat a while until the dizziness passed, which it did after a minute or two.
From there I went to a nearby grocery store for a couple of things. Pulling into the parking space, I tapped the cart corral with my right front of the car—no damage that I could see. I got through the store okay, bought the couple of items on my list, and drove home. The dizziness did not return.
As I drove into our garage, my cellphone rang. It was the nurse practitioner from the neurology clinic with the results of the scan. The blood clot from September has “resolved” itself—meaning it has disappeared! So that was good news.
Here at home, I’m barely functioning due to tiredness. I had plans to read and write this evening, but there’s no way I can accomplish that. One thing I was going to write was a follow up post for the blog. But that’s not possible tonight.
Maybe tonight will be better for sleep and I’ll be able to finish a chapter in my book tomorrow. Hope so.
I’m now just past six weeks since my heart surgery. That was the time at which all official restrictions ended. But I’m still going to take it a little easy. I don’t think I’ll be lifting anything over 20 pounds. I still won’t be running, not even for 10 paces. In short, I hopefully know my limitations.
But Lynda and I have been walking, on sunny afternoons, finally working up to a mile on Friday and 1.2 miles yesterday. And I’ve been working out in the yard. On two days I worked on thinning my blackberry bushes, which I’m afraid I allowed to grow from rows to one big mass of bushes. I’ve finished the main thinning, though I may thin a little more. Saturday I worked on raking up the cuttings, and cutting them into smaller pieces so they will fit in the wheelbarrow. I figure two more days at least, more likely three.
My handwriting is barely any better. I did some writing on Saturday and Sunday. I was sure better than right after my last stroke, but it’s a long way from where it was. My speech is doing better. I still struggle with certain sound combinations. Don’t ask me to say “Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear,” for I can’t do it. But I’ve been able to sing the hymns at church the last few weeks. It probably helps that I can hardly hear myself over the music. Then again, I taught adult Sunday School class yesterday, and people seemed to understand me.
I’m still gimpy legged going up and down stairs, or even walking on level ground. I make it down to The Dungeon every day of late. But the ability to concentrate on new writing came slowly. Part of that is loss of keyboard control on my laptop, making it necessary to use the wireless keyboard and mouse for everything. Part of it is difficulty typing due to loss of fine motor skills in my left hand, but that might be aggravated by my torn left rotator cuff. Is it the stroke hindering my typing or the fact that it’s difficult to extend my arm to reach the keyboard?
Whichever, I had trouble typing, which resulted in my not wanting to write. I also lost three days of time due to a computer problem. But, by Friday I was ready to put my mind and hands to it and made my daily word goal—Saturday too.
So the healing is coming. Slowly, but it’s happening.
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
