D. Lee Jackson

Words and Music

Heart Issues Under Investigation

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Human HeartAmidst all of the health issues I’ve had to deal with in my life, I never thought I’d have to deal with one this potentially serious.

I’ve been diagnosed with something called “Heart Failure with preserved Ejection Fraction,” or HFpEF for short. I learned of this at a consultation with a cardiologist today, in which we followed up on an echocardiogram I’d had run earlier this month. That test showed I had the signs of HFpEF, one of which was an enlarged left atrium. The cardiologist said HFpEF is a form of heart failure where the heart “stiffens” while building up fluid, if my memory is correct.

Have I had a heart attack? Not that I know of. Most likely not. I have had chest discomfort and shortness of breath lasting several hours. Recently, I had some stinging sensations coming from the left side of my chest. I’m confused as to how to interpret them.

What lies ahead? Well, first up is a nuclear chemical stress test to see more clearly what’s going on. I’ll get that in a week or so, then I’ll have another follow-up with the cardiologist. I’m also going to have some more blood tests to check on my kidney functions and other things.

Some of this is, incidentally, leading up to another medical situation: the long-awaited repair surgery of the tear of my right shoulder’s rotator cuff. I’ve got to have cardiac and medical clearance in order to have the surgery done. Said surgery, tentatively scheduled for January 19th, is going to be tough, and is going to be hell from which to recover. Estimated physical therapy/recovery time is around a year, at least. Still, anything’s got to be better than sleeping upright in a chair and taking massive doses of painkillers every 4 hours. I really hope this surgery works. I really do.

Commissions, Hospitalizations, and a New Single Upcoming

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Geisterwolken Head SoloThis has been a month of mixed news so far. As the post title would indicate, I’ve completed a couple of commissions, been in the hospital a couple of times, and I’ve got a new single due to be released soon. First things first, though, we’ll cover the completed commissions.

To be precise, I’ve completed two commissions since my last blog update. The first was for Mr. Corey Burton of Australia, who commissioned a piece that I’ve named DeadBeard Fantasia. The other was commissioned by Mr. Dan Douglas in the U.K., who is working on the “Duke Smoochem” mod project. His work is titled Double Decker Chase, and can be heard right now on Mr. Douglas’s YouTube work-in-progress post. Both pieces will eventually appear on my Commissions page in full, hopefully sometime in May. I want to heartily thank Mr. Burton and Mr. Douglas both for commissioning me to write their songs!

Onto the health matters. I’ve spent more than my fair share of time in the hospital this month. On April 15th, I was admitted to a local hospital for extreme swelling in my legs, as well as for severe pain in my right arm related to my neck surgery (radiculopathy). I was given intravenous diuretics, and over the course of the next few days wound up losing 17 pounds of water weight from my legs. That’s over two gallons of water! I was also given strong painkillers for my arm, which is still bugging me after my release from the hospital.

A few days later, I underwent outpatient surgery to remove a screw from a toe on my left foot. It had been implanted to correct a “hammertoe” condition in my big toe last year, and was in the process of trying to work its way out through the tip of my toe. The doctor removed it without problems, but my arm began acting up on me again in the recovery room. Time for more painkillers. Sigh. I’m told that physical therapy will help my arm, so I’m going to start it as soon as I can.

My final note concerns a new single I’ve got coming out on Friday, May 6th. It’s called Geisterwolken, which translates to “Ghost Clouds,” and it’ll be released on Bandcamp, Amazon, Spotify, and all other major streaming platforms. I’ll announce it here when it’s out. In the meantime, allow me to leave you with a preview of the cover art for the song. I hope you will enjoy it!

Geisterwolken Preview

Two Commissions and a Surgery

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The time for my cervical spine (a.k.a. neck) surgery rapidly approached, so I took advantage of it and made swift progress on two commissions, finishing both. That said, I would like to thank the two commissioners, Nick Robalik (“b-minor Breakdown”) and Steven Trinkl, Jr. (“Mike Alfa Charlie”) for engaging my services. I appreciate both of them very much!

Nick Robalik (Twitter: @PixelMetal) has given me permission to post a short excerpt of his commissioned work on this blog entry, so without further ado, here is a 34 second excerpt of his commissioned work, the “b-minor Breakdown”:

 

Now, not all of you may have been aware that I was going to undergo cervical spine surgery at the end of February. I did, for some very painful reasons, down my arms and into my hands. The surgery went off without any problems, but I’ve had a slew of post-op issues. The worst, which may have been hospital-inflicted (not sure), is a set of sores around both ankles. I’m having home health come in and do wound care on me three times a week to deal with them. They’re that bad.

Fortunately, none of my post-op issues are interfering with me working on commissions. I am being slowed a bit by my neck brace, though. It’s a bit difficult to compose when you’re being slowed down by a horse collar (my name for it) and you’d normally need to flick your head around to see the screen. Still, I’m getting used to it, so progress will continue. If you’re interested in commissioning me, please visit my commissions page and read over what I offer. Thank you!

Commissions, and a Fall in Winter

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Montrose.is/gamesTime to report on another completed commission! While nowhere near as complex as the Ereis Overture commission, this one was difficult on a completely different level. It involved rock & roll that mixed a 70s sound with modern electronic drumming at breakneck speed. Not an easy pair of sonic textures to blend, but in the end the client was happy with the result. (I can’t share the result, unfortunately, because it is for a game that is still under development. Sorry.)

Speaking of the client, I would like to extend my gratitude to the husband and wife team behind Montrose.is for commissioning me to write this piece! They have been the best pair of folks that I’ve worked with in a long, long time. I wish to thank them for putting up with my hit-or-miss compositional process in the start: I take a while to get rolling, but once I do, watch out! 🙂  Please pay their website a visit, and if you have some free time on Saturday nights at 9pm Eastern Time, please head on over to Montrose.is/chatting for some good talk and some livestreamed art! (warning: can occasionally be NSFW).

Now for some other news. You may have noticed me missing from a lot of the usual places on the internet lately (Facebook, Twitter, Scribophile, etc.). That’s because I had a rather nasty fall on February 5th, the Saturday after the big ice storm hit the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. This was during the melting phase. I thought I’d heard rushing water outside our house, so I put on my shoes and jacket and went outside to investigate. I didn’t make it one step out before I slipped on black ice on our concrete patio. I fell forward and landed face first, hard. I had no phone with me, and I was in one of those, “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up” scenarios (I’m old, plus my knees hurt), so I crawled from the patio into the house and then onward to the living room to get my cell phone. I had to have Google call 911 for me because my glasses were so badly bent and scraped/gouged that I couldn’t see to dial the number (I’ve got a Google Pixel 6, so thank the maker for “Hey, Google!” built-in). To make a long story short, I wasn’t badly injured aside from some soft tissue damage, but my glasses were almost totaled. I’m lucky they didn’t shatter, but I can barely see through what’s left of them.

I managed to pull everything together and do work on my commission for Montrose.is, but that’s about all I was able to handle without getting a major headache. I’m still on hiatus from everything else, save for this blog entry (and for the next commission, on which I’ve already started work). Once my $400 lenses (you read that right – $400) come in, I’ll be fully back online. Until then, I’d appreciate it if you’d spread the word about this blog post for me across the social networks. Thanks in advance for your help!