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.
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.
Folks, I was away from the blog due having another stroke on 9/3, being in the hospital for 14 days (including in-patient rehab). My left side was affected, the most lingering of which is loss of fine motor skills in my left hand. Consequently, I can barely type. I’ll see what I can do come Monday.
Ah, back in The Dungeon as of Tuesday. Productivities improved in my familiar realm. Maybe Virginia Woolf was on to something.
When I hurt my right leg in the freak home accident on July 15, I found immediate difficulties in maintaining my normal routine. Each step I took was extremely painful. The accident happened mid-morning, after I had finished about half my daily time in The Dungeon. That’s the computer room in the basement where I do almost all my writing, and other projects. But I could tell it would be too painful to go back downstairs. I finished the day away from The Dungeon and away from my laptop.
The next day, after sleeping (not very well) in an easy chair all night, I knew I needed to get to The Dungeon, at least for an hour or two, work there, then bring my laptop upstairs. I had begun using a walker upstairs, and could see it would be too difficult to carry downstairs. Walking downstairs was going to be impossible. I could ask my wife to go down to get my laptop, but I didn’t really want to ask that of her. What was I going to do? How could I get to The Dungeon?
I got there by walking backwards downstairs on all fours. That took some of the weight off my bad leg. It gave me stability going down the staircase. I actually went down fairly quickly. But then there were the fifteen steps to my computer desk, with a slight deviation to switch on the light. Once I was in my seat, I was okay. But the getting across the floor was very hard. When it was time to get breakfast, I went up the stairs on all fours, then once again went down and over—in much pain. I could tell it wasn’t working.
So after an hour, I took my laptop with me and said goodbye to The Dungeon, promising to be back as soon as my leg healed enough to walk on it and go up and down stairs as a normal person. My easy chair in the living room—the same chair I slept in—became my office. Needless to say, my productivity suffered. In the same time I could write 1,000 words in The Dungeon, I was lucky to get four or five hundred in my chair. I prayed for healing and productivity through unusual circumstances.
In my reading recently, I saw where Virginia Woolf, in a letter to a friend, sort of commented on this.
But to write a novel in the heart of London is next to an impossibility. I feel as if I were nailing a flag to the top of a mast in a raging gale.
I felt like that was me. To finish a Bible study book in an easy chair, with a laptop on my lap, not on a desk, forty-five feet and twelve stair steps away from my usual working space, would be difficult. But not impossible. I finished the round of edits to the Bible study, set it aside, and moved on to my next project. I slowly gained a measure of productivity and got things done.
But healing did come to my injured leg. I was finally able, last Sunday, to sleep on a bed. Monday too. So Tuesday morning, I grabbed my laptop and wireless mouse, leaving my coffee behind, and walked down to The Dungeon with no trouble and no pain. By Thursday, I was able to make the trip with computer and coffee.
So I’m back at my retirement work: writing books; trying to figure out how to sell them; trading stocks; and working on downsizing. My leg is not quite fully healed, but six weeks after the injury, it has healed enough for me to say, “Hello, Dungeon! It’s business almost as usual.”
Yes, the healing is coming. If you are a new reader and want to know something of the physical trials I’ve been going through, this post will tell you what I expected to happen, this post will tell you something about the curve ball that came, and this post will give you some idea of where I was a week or so ago. I won’t call it a thrilling path I’ve been walking on. Maybe interesting, or truly a trial is a better description.
Since my post last Friday, the healing in my right leg has accelerated. By yesterday morning, I felt no pain in my leg at all—except the ongoing pain in my right knee that was way before my July 15 freak home accident. I went to the orthopedic doctor yesterday. He was pleased with my healing, crediting it to a combo of the steroid shot, and staying off it as much as I could to allow natural healing to take place. I suspect he’s right.
So yesterday I stopped by our Wal-Mart pharmacy on the way home to pick up a couple of prescriptions. I was feeling so good I decided I would go in without my walker. I had just told the doctor I was still using the walker when out and about, and he said that was a good idea until I could sense complete healing had arrived. But I wanted to give it a try. I made it in fine, had almost no wait, and so was back to where I parked in a handicapped area with the minimum possible steps in the minimum possible time. But, in fact my leg hurt a little by the time I got to the car. So, I guess I do need the walker a while longer.
But the healing in my right leg is on the right trajectory. I suspect that in a week I’ll be ready to tell the heart surgeon that I’m ready for the valve replacement.
Alas, for my left shoulder, hurt in a different freak home accident around July 18 or 19, there is less healing. I have no improvement in strength, no lessening of pain when moving it, no increase in the activities I can do. While we are waiting on the results of the MRI on Monday, he’s pretty sure surgery will be required. But that injury is not holding up my heart surgery. I’ll get through the heart hospitalization and recuperation, including whatever rehab I’ll have, then see about my shoulder probably sometime in 2025.
That’s the health news. Hopefully I’ll have writing news in the next couple of posts.
The first hematoma, before gravity pulled the blood down all the way down my forearm.
I wrote a post on July 8 about my upcoming heart surgery. At that time I thought it would probably be on July 22. Alas, as I posted on July 18, I injured my leg while lifting a heavy object at home. My surgeon didn’t want me dealing with two traumas at once. At first he put the surgery off to July 29, then, when I had little if any healing happening, but it off indefinitely, with us to touch base every two or three weeks. We did that early this week, and agreed I’m still not healed enough to set a surgery date.
The second hematoma, before gravity had its say on were the blood would go.
But actually, I have another trauma from another freak home accident. I reinjured my left shoulder on (I think) July 18. I reached my arms up to make a big stretch, and something big popped in my upper arm or shoulder. I both felt and heard the pop. This was the same shoulder that I injured when walking Nuisance, my son-in-law’s big dog. It never quite healed, even going through physical therapy. But, anyway, this pop happened. That day, while having blood drawn to recheck some enzymes that were high after my first accident, the guy that drew my blood put a tourniquet right over the place where the pop was. Iin a few days, my whole upper arm was one big subdural hematoma the kept growing for days.
For that second injury, and for the first, I went to an orthopedic doctor. He took some more x-rays, gave me a steroid shot in the groin, told me to take it easy, and not start the exercises the people at the orthopedic ER gave me. And come back in 2 to 3 weeks. His thoughts are that I have a badly torn rotator cuff, whereas the urgent care doc thought it was a torn deltoid muscle. Whatever it is, a second subdural hematoma had appeared (still growing), and I have almost no use of my left arm. Provided I can get it on a keyboard I can type, but have almost no range of motion, no strength. When my arm is still there’s no pain, but try to move it more than a couple of inches….
We are now in that period. I go to see him on 8/22. Meanwhile my regular doctor ordered an MRI of my left shoulder, currently scheduled for 8/26. Hopefully that will give some answers. I suspect an MRI of my right hip/leg/groin is also in my future.
As is my heart valve replacement surgery. Sometime. I suspect the earliest it can be is Sept 30. I say that because I am experiencing a little healing in my leg. The pain is not so intense. And I can now get my leg in positions where there’s no pain while at rest. I can cross my legs, with either one on top, and not have pain in my groin or thigh. The day is coming, I believe, when the healing will be enough for me to lie flat on a bed or stand fully upright without the pain coming. I’m not quite there yet, but that day is coming.
If there’s any good news through all of this, I’ve lost 12 pounds in just 24 days. I attribute it to being unable to easily access snacks in the house, or buy some at the grocery store. That puts me within 13 pounds of my target weight. Also, that puts my total loss from my peak weight (in 2006) of 102 pounds.
Dateline: 8 July 2024, 06:10 a.m., for posting on 29 July 2024
Saw eight deer the morning of this post. They are regular visitors this time of year.
This morning the temperature was lower, in the upper 60s instead of the upper 70s. The remnants of Hurricane Beryl will hit us later today and tomorrow. The relative coolness is nice.
The first thing I see when I reach the street from the driveway are,,,two deer, one a buck that looks full grown, not forty feet from me. They came out from behind my first row of my blackberries bushes, making me wonder if they’ve been eating them. We stared at each other as I kept walking to them, then they quickly dashed off.
Up the hill I went, to the next road and then the next, where I saw a group of four deer dash across the road and into the woods. I turned right and went up the next hill, a gentle one, from which I could see the dam and the large lake it impounds. Over the hill just a little way to the loop at the first side road. Off to my right was yet one more deer. Around the loop, a short turnout on another side road, and then retrace my steps. This leg is mostly downhill, but gradual.
I continued on, in the other direction from out street, up another fairly gentle slope. A third of a mile in this other direction is another loop, downhill then uphill. Once again retrace my steps, turn at the right place and I’m home.
A week ago, in preparation for my surgery, I resumed walking. I’ve never totally quit walking, but last year, when I experienced angina every time I walked uphill (and it’s impossible to walk near our house without going uphill), I had to cut back on frequency, distance, and exertion. Then, during our two trips, regular walking was difficult to achieve due to the fullness of activities and responsibilities.
But I figured I’d better do something to improve my muscle tone and stamina pre-surgery. I began with one mile on Monday and increased the distance a tenth of two every day until I went 1.8 miles on Saturday. The goal today was 2 miles, which would then be the distance for the rest of my prep period. And I made the 2 miles, pushing myself to do so with a good time.
By the time you read this, I will have had my surgery. Hopefully I’ll still be alive and kicking, with a new, properly configured valve in place and working well. With a new physical life ahead of me, and a heart that is still strong.
As I’ve mentioned before, it won’t be long until I have heart valve replacement surgery. I’ve been expecting it to happen the week of July 22nd.
But I got a twist suddenly. While lifting a heavy box I threw out my back. Except it wasn’t my back. It’s the muscles in my right leg, especially the groin. It’s at the point where I can’t stand fully upright, for pain in the groin prevents it. I’m walking hunched over, using a walker.
I saw the surgeon on Tuesday. He put the heart operation off until July 29 to give my leg time to heal, saying he doesn’t want me fighting two traumas at once. Then later that day I saw my PCP. She ordered x-rays, CT scan, and ultra sound to rule out a skeletal cause of my pain. All is done except the ultra sound.
Meanwhile, I’m in bad pain that is getting worse, with back pain added due to being hunched over. Right now, with no improvement in my leg muscles or relief of pain, I’m wondering if the heart surgery will be put off longer than that. I’ll keep people posted from a combination of this blog and Facebook.
I found lots of illustrations on-line for the type of valve I have.
A little late getting today’s post up, but here it is. In several recent posts I’ve alluded to surgery that I’m going to have soon, but haven’t given specific info. It will be open-heart surgery.
Now, before everyone freaks out, they surgeon and others tell me this is the least risky, least invasive type of open-heart surgery you could have. That sounds strange, I know. but here are the details.
I was born with an abnormal aortic valve. A normal heart valve has three leaves that move together, opening to allow flow and closing to block flow. My aortic valve, however, has only two leaves (cusps is the medics call them). I normally say genetically defective valve, but that’s probably unfair to the valve. It has served me well for 72+ years, but my cardiologist thinks it’s time to replace the two-cusp wonder, and the surgeons who normally do this kind of surgery agree.
The valve has a condition that’s called stenosis, a build-up of calcium (and maybe other stuff) on it. It’s opening and closing fine, and not leaking, but with the degree of buildup on it, it’s only a matter of time until it won’t work properly, or some of the calcium will slough off and cause a problem in my lungs or elsewhere. So the doc says it’s time to replace it, while I’m still “young” and not a very big risk for surgery. Based on tests, they say I’m low risk.
They aren’t saying the valve was the cause of my mini-stroke in January—it most likely wasn’t. But with that health scare, and with their knowledge of how these things go as a man ages, they strongly recommended I have the procedure done now. That was back in mid-February. The surgery will be, most likely, the week of July 22.
Why so long a wait? Well, it isn’t an emergency. My heart is strong. Tests show my arteries are not blocked (“widely patent” is medical speak for a clear artery, and tests show almost all mine are “widely patent”). I have a good ejection fraction, a measure of the squeezing function of the heart. I have no symptoms of heart disease—no angina (thought I did have some last year) and no shortness of breath. Everything is fine except for my genetically defective valve, which is stenotic, calcifies, and perhaps ossified, petrified, and mummified.
With the wonders of modern medicine, most of these valve replacements, maybe 80 percent of them, are done through the groin. That requires one or two days in the hospital and a seven-to-ten-day recovery period. Back in February they thought mine would be done through-the-groin, and they began running the tests needed to know for sure. Well, it turns out that my two-cusp wonder is quite elongated rather than circular. The two manufacturers of the through-the-groin valves cannot guarantee that their valves will fit and lodge properly, with no leakage or looseness.
Hence, they gotta do mine the old-fashioned way. Put me to sleep; switch my breathing to a heart-lung machine; stop my heart; open my chest to expose the heart; detach the aorta; cut out the bad valve; possibly reshape the valve opening; insert and stabilize the new valve; sew me back up; restart the heart; and wake me up. I’ll then have a week or maybe ten days in the hospital, followed by two months of at home recovery. Easy-peasy. Seems almost ridiculous seeing as I have no symptoms. But the tests don’t lie.
One good thing about doing this via open heart is that in ten years, when my replacement valve wears out and I need another valve, presumably I’ll be less strong to withstand another surgery but they will be able to do it through the groin. To every cloud there is a silver lining, even if you have to wait ten years to see it.
But, with every surgery there are risks. What is my heart doesn’t want to re-start when it’s over? What if some calcium decides to slough off during the surgery? What if the anesthesia is at the wrong level? What if my otherwise strong heart is damaged during the surgery?
I’ll have some posts written ahead of time for when I’m in the hospital. Meanwhile, if you’re interested in this kind of condition, you can find quite a few reputable websites that discuss it.
I’m late with my Friday morning post. Chalk it up to busyness.
I won’t say all that’s going on that made the days busy, but here’s a little of it.
Monday I went to the hospital for a test, only to find out the test was no longer needed because a test they did back on April 15 covered the same area. $20 miles of expense just getting there, and about two hours I would never get back.
Wednesday I went back to the same hospital for a different test, an MRI to take a closer look at a small mass of “neoplasm” found in the April 15 test. While the final report isn’t complete, it appears to be just a cyst on my kidney. Nothing to worry about.
We had painters at the house Monday-Wednesday, finishing the work needed after repairs from water damage to the house. I think I’ve blogged about that before.
Yardwork continues, though I’m pretty much on top of it and need to do only a little every day. I hope to get in an hour today.
We are slowly putting everything back in place from the house repairs. Got some done last night.
We continue to sell a few things in our dis-accumulation efforts. Sold two items this week, and brought a bookshelf to the garage for work to strengthen and repurpose it.
I’ve been writing this week. Today I wrote the last two sections of Chapter 2 of Volume 2 of A Walk Through Holy Week. I feel good about the progress.
I’ve had several items of correspondence this week with other writers—some for our critique group and some just for pleasure.
Yesterday I finished transcribing letters from or years in Saudi Arabia. I still have a travel journal to transcribe, then I’ll start putting them in a book for family. No hurry on this project.
I have made great progress with scanning/formatting/e-filing the poetry critiques I did from 2001-2010, which I had printed and saved. I’m down to less than thirty still to do. No hurry on this project either.
I’m working on plans for three special events over the next two weeks. Not going to say much about them now, but will likely blog about it later.
So with all this to do, I sort of forgot about my regular Friday post. Still, I’m not terribly late with it. And I won’t be late with my Monday post, for it’s already written and scheduled.
