HOME WORK

Episode
01

Back to work, 5 years after a Heart Attack and Stroke, followed by open
heart surgery

 

This room was where I was working in 2016 when I had the
first heart attack: The new living room, about 14 x 18 feet. Raised ceiling,
boxed beams and built-in sound and a 52-inch ceiling fan.

 

I wound up out of this rural area and transported to a major
city 70 miles away. They intended to insert a camera to see what was going on,
but I suffered another heart attack as that Angioplasty was beginning then a
second stroke, I had one when I had the first heart attack. I was transferred
to another operating room where they removed my heart, worked on it for six
hours, performed a quadruple by-pass, got it restarted after which I spent 9
days in the Heart ICU.

 

The ICU was a mixed experience. I didn’t recover as expected,
had another heart incident, finally went home, and was assigned a Cardiologist,
who began a multi-year treatment to regulate blood pressure, medications,
therapy, to eventually allow me to recover partially. It took over 5 years. A
few weeks back, I finally began making progress with physical therapy after
months of work and a multitude of med changes I began once again to work on
this house.

 

These rooms were simply closed off, doors shut, and left for
the last several years. During that time I concentrated on writing, when I could
get full use of my faculties (I had lost a lot of cognitive ability because of
the stroke). So, this will chronicle both my progress in recovering and the
work to provide space for my mother who recently had a heart attack and stroke.

 

The Office area I have been using for the past 5 years: An
area of the house that used to be a living room, before I rebuilt the front of
the house, the last thing I did before the heart attack and stroke.

 

A great area I used to do the Nation Chronicles Podcast,
write novels, edit.

 

So, I opened the door to the first room the other day, what a
mess. I got everything ready for garbage day and recycling day. This was my
first day of serious work, very minimal, and it would never had been done  if family had been there to help me and had
not got it all bagged and boxed for me.

 

I carried it out to the curb and it wiped me out, even though
family had done all the real work. Thanks!

 

A huge free
pile of scrap metal, a truck stopped and two older ladies, my age, picked it
all up, at least a few hundred pounds, all sorted and ready for scrap turn-in.

 

I had three HD TVs,
you know, upgrade and park the old one, and since I had these rooms, for 5
years everything went in there.  I placed
a Free Facebook ad and some soldiers from the base stopped by and took all
three.

 

So, I was
left with the first room, utterly destroyed form time, full of junk that kept
be stuffed in it. Somewhat ravaged because we had a raccoon family break in
through the unfinished soffit on the house and it was very hard to close it all
up well enough to finally keep them out.

 

Left over
building materials from five years back when I was gutting the other side of
the house and making it habitable.

 

There was a
second room on the other side of the wall. This space had been a garage and I
had made it into living space while I rehabbed the entire rest of the house. I
cut a 4-foot section out: Joining the two rooms.

 

That gives
me about 20 feet by 12 feet. I will leave the other 8 feet of wall in between
the two rooms intact. That will allow me to turn this into a bedroom for me
(The right side) and an office to write, podcast, etc. (The left side).
Thankfully, my prebuilt desk is 8 feet long and the wall is 8 feet long. The
middle is 2 feet deep, the end is 4 feet deep, and I’m going to add another 4-foot-deep end on the opposite end, to create a sort of U shape. In the left picture,
I need to remove the built-in shelving you can see to the right of the picture
(off-white).

 

Behind it is
2 feet of depth I used to run heat ducting, cold air returns, new electric,
thermostat wiring and more. It is in the way of where my desk must sit, and it
is also where we heard the Raccoons the year before, so either way it has to be
opened to allow me to create support for the desk and to make sure there is no
damage.

 

So, a lot of
moving stuff stored in here out (I have made an actual storage room already)
and gutting both rooms to bring them in line to my needs. All making sure I
don’t overdo it and wind up back in the hospital, or have another stroke or
heart attack, or both.

 

Removal of
the 4 feet of wall; I did this myself: The first physical labor for me in over
5 years. No chest pain. I had some breathing trouble, but I stayed hydrated and
got it done, and then rested for a few minutes.

 

The space
where my new desk will go: More the next time, Dell.

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