D. Lee Jackson

Words and Music

  • Home
  • My Music
  • Commissions
  • About
  • Contact
  • RSS Subscribe

Words and Music – Update 2019-08-02

Posted on 2019-08-02 Written by D. Lee Jackson Leave a Comment

Sheet Music 2Now that we’re in August, it’s time for a quick update on how things are going.

Words:

  • Sergeant Marcos’s Rescue has been through a couple of rounds of revisions, thanks to a critique on Scribophile. It’s a better short story now than before.
  • I’ve added an extra chapter to Tapper. That brings the chapter count to 35 and the total word count to just over 97,000. It’s a desperately needed chapter in a crucial spot, even if it is less than 100 words in length. Still, it was worth going to the trouble of renumbering all of the other chapters beyond it.

Music:

  • It’s been a bit more difficult to work on the Music section than it has been on the Words section. You see, I spent a good deal of time traveling from Dallas, Texas to Des Moines, Iowa with my wife in order to see an IndyCar race, and while I can bring my Words with me, I can’t very well bring my keyboards and my music composition computer. I’ve also had downtime due another lumbar rhizotomy procedure (a.k.a., radiofrequency ablation of the nerves of my lower back), but that only explains more recent absences from the workstation.
  • Still, I have managed to complete the first phrase of a new song for the second album. It’s in fact a tribute song—more I can’t go into yet—and it involves two pianos playing off against each other in an andante 3/4-3/4-4/4-4/4 pattern. I have yet to program the tempo changes to make it sound as human as possible (yes, I mouse everything into the computer), but once I do, I think I’ll have quite a nice piece.

Thank you for reading, and watch this space for further updates!

Filed Under: album, composing, health, music, novel, personal, racing, sports, words Tagged With: album, composing, health, IndyCar, music, novel, racing, Scribophile, short story, writing

This August Did Not Like Me, Part Four (Final)

Posted on 2018-09-20 Written by D. Lee Jackson Leave a Comment

Ambulance_usdrBefore I discuss the final part of my journey, I should note that the hospital wanted to send me back home after a week and put me on the same two antibiotics which weren’t working in the first place. The only way I could stay on the Vancomycin and the Zosyn antibiotics was to be transferred to a skilled nursing center, which my wife worked her derriere off to arrange. She has my gratitude for that.

Now, back to our story.

My first impressions of the skilled nursing center were … well, let’s just say they were less than favorable. My room was dominated by a giant analog clock, which was broken. There were two beds: my bed and another that was literally folded all the way down to the ground. Elsewhere in the room, a noisy hotel-style air-conditioner kept the room just above freezing. Old linoleum and an ancient paint job topped off numerous other deficiencies, the worst of which was the lack of NBCSN on the cable system (no IndyCar coverage for me).

It’s kind of hard to write about the skilled nursing center (henceforth known as “the center”), because I spent so much time asleep in it. A stimulation of the senses it was not. However, one could always count on the regular parades of nurses and technicians that seemed to appear all at once, three times a day. Pills (which they were much more on the ball with than the hospital, I’ll grant them that), IVs, vital sign readings, cleaning (occasionally), blood draws (every other day) and food.

Ohmydearlord, the food.

Someone had arbitrarily decided that I needed to be placed on a low sodium diet. I would like to find that person and slug them in the mouth. They are guilty of crimes against humanity. I mean–egg loaf? Who in the world dreamed up egg loaf? It might have been edible with a few grains of salt, but of course–no salt packets allowed. They even had the temerity one day to serve grits without butter and salt. Now, for those of you who grew up in my part of the country, that’s not a crime against humanity, it’s a crime against nature. I don’t know if I lost any weight while there, but I can guarantee that I didn’t gain any.

My life as a fall risk continued, but without the absolute strict limitations that were in place at the hospital. It started out that way, but the nurses seemed confused by what I was doing. The problem was compounded by the lack of a speaker on any of the call buttons, including the ones in the restroom. You should have seen the reaction when I pulled the cord in the restroom the first time. It was like I’d triggered a fire drill. I eventually gave up on the call buttons and used either my cane or my IV pole to help me get around inside my room. That was as far as I could go unaccompanied, though. I wasn’t allowed outside.

IVs were the main reason I was in the center, and I was on them practically all day and all night via my PICC line. Four bags a day for the Zosyn, and two a day for the Vancomycin. It didn’t matter if I was asleep or awake. The nurses would come in and either plug in a new bag or remove an empty one.

One aspect of life there that I did look forward to, aside from my wife’s nightly visits (with edible food!) and my routine losses to her at Scrabble (I did tie her once), was physical therapy. PT time meant I could leave my room for a change. They took me through the complex using a walker and taught me how to use it to climb and descend stairs. They did balance therapy, something I desperately needed. They did hand/eye coordination exercises and strengthening exercises–stuff I wasn’t getting while sitting on the edge of a bed or lying down and sleeping. My wife said she could tell a difference when I got out.

The last thing that I’d like to touch upon is something I mentioned in part three of this story. If you’ll remember, I was given two doses of something called Lactulose for my opioid induced constipation (OIC) while in the hospital. It started to kick in around the second day of my stay at the center, and it didn’t stop kicking in until after I got home. The stuff is a well-kept secret for anyone suffering from OIC. Before you try any other medicine, get your doctor to try this on you first. Just make sure you’re aware of the locations of all the bathrooms in any area you’re in while it’s working.

My exit–after a week, just like my hospital stay–was a “Thank God and Good Riddance” moment. It showed how poorly their intra-staff communications worked, because they still had me on the schedule for physical therapy. No thank you, I’m going home. All of my IVs were finished, and I had nothing else holding me back. All I wanted to do was go home with my wife and finish healing.

I went home. I’m still working on the healing part. It’ll happen eventually.

Filed Under: health, personal, racing Tagged With: health, IndyCar, personal

Medical Progress? I Hope So

Posted on 2017-06-08 Written by D. Lee Jackson Leave a Comment

I think I may have something to look forward to, health-wise, at long last. I received a phone call yesterday (June 7th, 2017) telling me that the paperwork to refer me to a neurosurgeon and to the pain clinic at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas has finally been faxed. It’ll be a few days before I hear anything back from them—I’m guessing Monday—but I’ve got phone numbers in the event that something goes FUBAR. After all of the long, drawn-out assembly-line medicine that I feel like I had to deal with at my last place, I’ll gladly wait a few days to get into a place with a good reputation.

(EDIT: I already have an appointment with the neurosurgery department! They called on Thursday (June 8th) and wanted me to come in the following morning! Of course, that did mean I had to fill out a metric crapload of paperwork in a very short time. I hope it was worth it!)

The only thing I’m not looking forward to is the commute, even if my wife is going to have to drive it for me. It’s near Downtown Dallas, on the other side of one horrendous mess of a construction zone that won’t be completed any time in the near future. The old place was just a 20 minute drive at most. This could be an hour at best.

On the opposite end of things (pun intended, sort of), I’m finally done with the Lasix! No more running to the restroom at inopportune times, and hopefully no more feeling like crap from the electrolyte swings, despite my best attempts to keep hydrated with a caffeine-free tea and Gatorade mix. My edema is pretty much gone, although the bruising on my right shin is acting strange. It started itching like crazy yesterday, and when I looked at it, that part of the bruise was replaced by a raised, red area. It’s still that way, but it doesn’t itch so much. My doctors are going to have fun with it today (yes, doctors—I see my primary care doctor late this morning, followed by my podiatrist early this afternoon).

Now, while I’m on an upswing of sorts, I want to take time to thank my friends in a certain webcomic discussion forum that I’ve frequented for almost a decade now. They have been extremely kind to my wife and myself, purchasing items from our Amazon Wishlists to help bring up our spirits in some very trying times. My wife has been having fun with a trail camera, which she uses to track feral cats for the local Trap-Neuter-Return program. My items have been restricted to a few CDs, until yesterday. I received a box of SAAG’S® Bistro Bockwurst—four packs of four sausages each—from my list, purchased for me by a very good friend from Denmark.

Why am I so stoked about this? Well, it has to do with IndyCar racing. Hold on, I’ll explain. My wife, my son, and I are huge fans of IndyCar racing. I’ve been a fan since the heyday of A.J. Foyt, when he finally won his fourth Indy 500 title. I lived in Houston at the time, and the city went wild. Anyway, I passed along my addiction to my wife and my son. We all know what a weight jacker is, more or less, and can even tell you what the acronym in SAFER barrier stands for (Steel And Foam Energy Reduction). As such huge fans, we make a point of going out to the Texas Motor Speedway and watching the IndyCar race held there every year.

That’s not going to be possible this year. I can barely walk across my house, much less across the concourse of a mile-and-a-half speedway.

So, what we’re going to do is have a bit of fun at home. We’re having a sausage party. (No, not THAT kind of sausage party.) I should probably rephrase that. We’re having a Wurstfest of sorts while we watch the race on TV. I ordered some bratwurst and weisswurst from GermanDeli.com and called my son to ask if he’d cook them up for us before the race. He’s a budding cook, so he gladly agreed. He’s even got some ideas for a German side dish to go with the traditional potatoes and sauerkraut.

Now that we have a bockwurst bonanza, we can experiment with it and see how best it should be cooked. I doubt we can go wrong. I mean, we’ve even got the fixings for authentic currywurst.

It’s going to be fun, I hope—one night to take my mind off of the medical nightmares that I’ve been going through lately. I can damned sure use it.

Filed Under: health, personal, racing, sports Tagged With: cats, food, health, IndyCar, personal

Wow, What a Race!

Posted on 2016-08-28 Written by D. Lee Jackson

Last night’s finally-completed Firestone 600 IndyCar race at the Texas Motor Speedway was an event for the ages. Graham Rahal beat James Hinchcliffe by 0.008 seconds. To add to the fun, Hinchcliffe lead almost every lap—except for the one that counted. Rahal passed Hinchcliffe about halfway through the very last lap. It was the fifth-closest race in IndyCar history and the closest race of any kind ever held at the Texas Motor Speedway. It was good, old-fashioned TMS pack racing for the last eight laps after a late yellow flag.

My wife, my son, and I enjoyed the hell out of the race, for lack of a better phrase. The only disappointment was that we were unable to get any autographs during the way-too-brief signing session. The track made all of the drivers available and allocated 45 minutes for the session. I think they underestimated the number of spectators who wound up attending. The line for autographs stretched from Gate 3 all the way back to Gate 4 (a significant distance, for those of you reading this who are unfamiliar with the sheer size of the facility). Nonetheless, the track took further steps to make up for the delay and red flagging of the race on June 12th by selling $1.00 hot dogs and soft drinks.

The folks at TMS also made the race a “Back the Blue” event. Law enforcement and other first responder personnel were given free admission for themselves and their guests. Quite the gesture for an area that was hit hard when the Dallas sniper attack of June 7th, 2016 claimed the lives of five officers.

In any case, if you were in the area and you didn’t attend the race, you missed a fantastic event. Come out to next year’s race and see what IndyCar racing is all about!

Questions? Comments? Please feel free to use the Contact page. Thank you for reading!

Filed Under: personal, racing, sports Tagged With: IndyCar, racing

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • Next Page »

Hello, and welcome! My name is Lee Jackson, and I'm the composer of "Grabbag," the theme to the video game Duke Nukem 3D, plus music for Rise of the Triad and Shadow Warrior (the original). I've got four albums out, with tracks on Spotify, Apple Music, Bandcamp, and SoundCloud! Read More…

Tip Jar

All donations go toward the creation of more music. Thank you very much!

Find My Music Via …

  • Lady Tygress' Suite and Other Commissions

  • Duke Nukem Tank Tracks

  • Derivations

  • Calibrations

Follow me on Bandcamp

Follow Me on Twitter

Follow @leejacksonaudio

Recent Posts

  • New Music Collaboration In The Works 2023-03-23
  • An Audio Silver Lining 2023-03-07
  • New – “Song of the Weekend” Archive Online 2023-02-10
  • Heart Issues Under Investigation 2022-12-29
  • “Lady Tygress’ Suite and Other Commissions” Album Released! 2022-11-04

Archives

Categories

My Universal Life Church Ordination
Click here to get ordained.

CounterSocial
Mastodon

Copyright © 2023 · Focus Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in