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.
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.
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
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.
Vol. 2 may be published this month—if I can make my goal.
Well, August was another strange month, as I continued to recover from the two freak household accidents I had in July. While my output was certainly affected, I wasn’t shut down from some progress. Here’s how I did relative to my goals.
Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays. Did this. I had lots to write about.
I’m not making a goal of attending any writers meetings, partly from not knowing how my surgery and illnesses will lay me up, and partly because one meeting may be cancelled due to lack of a venue. I went to one meeting.
Complete two editorial passes through A Walk Through Holy Week, Vol 2. I managed to do this. Actually, I made three editorial passes through and have declared it “Done”. Publishing tasks to follow.
Figure out any final changes to the latest Danny Tompkins story, then finish and publish it. Did this, and published the short story on Aug 5. Made changes to it over the next few days.
Complete the commentary between letters. If I can get that done, begin selection of photos and insert them in the book. Did this. Completed commentary, Introduction, proofreading the letters and commentary, and started selecting photos.
And, one more for good measure: Make a start at outlining Vol 3 of A Walk Through Holy Week.Nope, did not work on this at all.
Hopefully, I’ll come very close to finishing my next book of expatriate year letters this month.
September will be an odd month. My heart surgery will be on Sept 30, and I have lots of pre-op stuff before that. So I don’t plan on any writing this month. Publishing tasks will take precedence.
Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays.
Attend three writing group meetings. I present at the one on Sept 10.
Complete publishing tasks for A Walk Through Holy Week, Vol. 2 and publish it to Amazon. I may have to do so with a temporary cover.
Complete adding photos to the Saudi years letters book. A really stretching-it goal would be to do enough formatting to order a review copy.
Spend at least a little time organizing Vol. 3 of A Walk Through Holy Week.
That’s it, and it may be more than I can accomplish. But it’s better to have a goal that requires you to work hard and efficiently.
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.”
This is how I’m storing the letters—at least for now. Not sure if I should find a more permanent container.
A week ago I wrote a post about the two projects I was working on. I’m pleased to report that I finished one of those on Saturday.
But I need to qualify that. I finished the words part of the project. And I did a small amount of proofreading on Sunday, so I guess I should say Sunday was my completion day. I’d better explain.
The project was the book of letters during our years in Saudi Arabia, 1981-83. As I explained before, we didn’t have a phone in our apartment, had limited access to the office phone for personal calls (expensive and inconvenient), so we wrote letters home. Our parents, grandparents, and others kept most of them, and now we have them. In addition, we have some that were written to us from home. We must have brought those back with us when we were repatriated.
Here are the little darlings, collated in their box.
The collection, as it currently stands, is 191 items. I say “items” instead of letters, and “currently stands” because the collection includes a few things that aren’t letters, such as envelopes of receipts from some of our travels. Also, we have a number of empty envelopes in our files, addressed to a parent. The letters themselves were removed and are presumed lost. Or are they around the house somewhere?
This project actually began somewhere arounds 2008, I think it was. I gathered all the Saudi letters together, collated them, and began to transcribe them to a Word document. As I did, I left the letters out of the envelopes and put them opened flat in a folder, thinking that was a better way to preserve them. Later, as I studied how letter collections were gathered and preserved, I realized they should be left in the envelopes. So a few years later I returned them to the envelopes.
The Kuwait letters book served as the prototype for the other collections I’ve put together.
Or did I? Problem is, I remember finding the folder and seeing the letters laid flat and the envelopes on top, but I don’t actually remember ever putting them in the envelopes. Did I do it? I don’t have a list of which letters I transcribed, and the computer file is long gone from various computer upgrades. It makes me wonder if that folder is still there, buried beneath a pile of other things, waiting for me to do my work.
No matter right now. Today I have set aside some time to look for that folder and see if there are other letters to collate and transcribe. I don’t think there are, but we’ll see.
This was a fun, if often tedious project. The document I’ve created is over 109,000 words and spans 190 8.5×11 pages. It includes a four page Introduction, a list of the letters, and a list of correspondents. The only words that are missing are those that will go on the Copyright page. Well, that, and whatever captions I add to pictures once I get them added to the book.
Yes, I intend to publish it. It’s just for family, a way to preserve some of our history. But I’ll publish it as a paperback to Amazon, print off a few copies for family, then un-publish it. It will remain on my Amazon author’s bookshelf, ready to be re-published should some family want more copies (such as my grandchildren when they are older).
So the next step is to generously illustrate the book with photos. I plan on using some time in the afternoons over the next couple of weeks to go through the mountain of photos we have, select 50 or so good ones (maybe more), scan them, load them into the book. Then all that’s left is converting the Word file into the correct size pages for publishing, moving the photos to the right place, adding captions, make a suitable cover, and publish it.
And I did it with this collection as well, though it had only a handful of illustrations.
No, that’s not a quick and easy task. But I’ve already done that once with the letters from our years in Kuwait, so I sort of know the drill. Moving photos into place is actually kind of easy. The final sizing and positioning takes some care, but it’s quite doable.
That’s my afternoon job over the next couple of weeks.
My morning job? The will be picking up again A Walk Through Holy Week, Volume 2, and doing the next round of edits. I’m not really sure how long that will take me. Could be a week, could be two. I’ll also have to decide if I need another round of edits before moving on to publishing tasks.
I felt a great weight fall from my shoulders on Saturday when I typed the last words in the Saudi letters book. It’s good to see it reach this milestone.
While I’m laid up with accidents, I’m doing my best to get some writing work done. But when I say, “laid up,” I don’t mean lying flat on a bed doing nothing. I’m able to get around with a walker, to drive, attend church, pick up meds at the pharmacy. A couple of weeks ago I did a little yard work, and learned I wasn’t really ready for that. It probably set back my healing for a week.
But there are two things I enjoy doing that are easily done without putting weight on my feet: reading and writing.
I’ve done a fair amount of reading. For my morning devotional time, I read two prayers in Prayer That Avail Much. I’m a third of the way through this book, and mostly enjoying it. For enjoyment, I’m reading two books that are writing related. One is The Grasmere and Alfoxden Journals by Dorothy Wordsworth, sister of the famous British poet. I’m not sure I’m really enjoying this one. I’ll write more about this in a future book review. The third book I’m reading is Vol. 3 of The Letters of Virginia Woolf. I’m enjoying this one a little more, and will surely write a review of it.
As to writing, I’m working on two projects. One is A Walk Through Holy Week, Vol. 2. I finished this one about two weeks ago. I let it sit a while, then came back and did one editorial review of it. My plans are to let it sit for a week, then do one more editorial pass. I’m hoping at that time to call it “Done” and start publishing tasks. However, it’s possible I’ll still have areas in the book that will need more attention.
The other writing project is the book of letters from our years in Saudi Arabia. This book consists of handwritten letters transcribed into print. To those I added an Introduction and a little commentary along the way. That makes the words part of the book done and ready for proofreading. On Saturday and Sunday just passed, I proofread 57 of the book’s 186 pages. I’ll finish it this week. Then I have to find photos to illustrate it. After that will come publishing tasks and having a few copies made for family members. I hope to have that done when the family gathers for Thanksgiving.
So this is keeping me busy. I have other books lined up when these are done. And I have other writing projects waiting when these two are finished.
I might learn to like this life as a semi-invalid.
For several years I’ve been keeping a journal. I’m not very regular with it. My typical time to write is in the evenings, after everything else is done and we are watching TV.
Up at 5:50 a.m. Weight 202.0; blood sugar 117.
Walked 2 miles, my fourth straight day to walk that distance, and my tenth day of morning walking in an effort to improve strength and stamina ahead of my surgery.
To The Dungeon, without coffee. Devotional reading (currently in a book on prayer) and prayer.
Begin work on the Bible study I’m writing. My goal was to write one section, about 600 words. I was able to do that. Had time left, so began work on the next section. It was a good time of writing.
No book sales when I checked early.
Reviewed the stock market and made one trade.
Upstairs for breakfast of sausage-onions-peppers-eggs-cheese on pita bread, then outside to do some light yardwork.
Checked on two home improvement items. Our propane company did change out the hardware on the propane takes as I asked. Someone called me about it a couple of weeks ago but the reception was so bad that I couldn’t understand him. And, I called the plumbing supply store about the replacement toilet seats I wanted to buy. They had never called me. I learned they couldn’t find one of the right size, material, and color that I need. So I researched and found one on Amazon and ordered it. Let’s hope the color matches.
Worked on scanning documents to save electronically and then discard the papers. I got rid of three stray genealogy papers and a number of writing site papers. I only need two more days at that pace to get rid of one more notebook.
Read in the sunroom. Cloud cover made it easy to do today. May have napped a little out there.
Lunch of leftover pizza, crackers, and blackberries.
Made a blackberry cobbler to give away.
Back to The Dungeon for a few more computer tasks, including managing correspondence.
Looked through some books to choose a couple to take to the hospital with me.
Rested upstairs in my reading/TV watching chair. Worked on crossword puzzles but fell asleep.
Read three letters in the Carlyle Letters Online.
Had supper of leftover taco salad, still quite good on the fourth day. Dessert for me was, you guessed it, blackberries with a little sugar sprinkled on them.
Wrote a letter to my second grandson, which I’ll mail tomorrow.
Remembered I needed to write a blog post for tomorrow, and so started writing this.
Well, that seems to describe a full day. Maybe I’ll actually find time to write this in my journal.
The child-watching and pet sitting gig is on-going. I don’t know that I can say that I’m having fun, however. These are not the same as the previous child-watching gigs. I suppose they will never be the same again. The world moves on in not always pleasant directions.
On Friday we took our youngest grandson to the nearby planetarium. It turns out it’s a mere three or four miles away from our daughter’s house. I have good memories of school trips to the planetarium in Rhode Island. I think it was in Roger Williams Park, though that memory is sketchy. I loved how they slowly brought the lights down and stars emerged, how the stars rotated in the night sky and at dawn were in a different place than where they started. Those are good memories.
Elijah, spaceman in training.
So when I discovered that we had a planetarium so close to us, I knew that would be our “field trip” for the week, even if we didn’t have to go far. We entered the room, which was more or less how I remembered it. Around 18 people filled only a fraction of the 72 seats. A speaker up in front told a little about the planetarium and had the technician darken the room to the night sky. She told about a few constellations and told about some stars. They then shifted into a movie projected onto the domed ceiling. The moved was the basics of our solar system.
Elijah liked it enough that we went back on Saturday. First was a story time in the lobby, with Elijah being the only child to show up. Then into the star room for the opening (which was identical to Friday) followed by a cartoon movie, Accidental Astronauts. It was good, though sometimes hard to understand what was said. Elijah seemed to like it.
The facility included a lot of display cases of space things. This included scaled models of the different rockets that have gone into space, including the Artemis craft that will take humans back to the moon. That was well put together. Of course, there were computer stations in the lobby where people could see various educational videos or games.
Lauri Cruver Cherian, author
On Saturday, the woman who did the story time in the lobby, just before we went into the star room, handed me a bookmark. It turns out she’s an author. I said we would have to talk after the show. We had a good conversation after, told of our books, and determined to keep in touch. Her name is Lauri Cruver Cherian. Here’s a link to her website. I’m looking forward to exploring her items. Check out her website and books.
