Posts filed under ‘Walt Trizna’
UPDATE MEDICAL
My consistent readers,
As I told you recently, I had bypass surgery in March, spent ten days in the hospital and went home feeling pretty good. But that didn’t last very long. I began going downhill fast.
There is a ‘rare’ side effect of surgery call Dressler’s Syndrome where your immune system goes wacky and decides to vent its rage on your body. The syndrome results in inflamed joints, fluid around the lungs or perhaps fluid around the heart. My immune system must have been really pissed and decided to give me all three. Back to the hospital for another ten day
I’m home now and hope to get my writing back in full gear.
I must say that this whole experience has been quite strange for me. I have never spent a night in the hospital before. All during my care I felt I was watching someone else deal with all the efforts to determine and cure all my maladies. But when they began the IVs or drew blood I was brought back to reality.
MEMOIR
It’s been some time since I wrote this piece.
I came across a contest for ‘late bloomers’ asking for an article to be published in an anthology.
As most of you writers well know, you submit and never hear from the publisher, even after repeated queries about the status of your piece.
I now share this unpublished work with you, my consistent readers.
NEVER TOO LATE
By
Walt Trizna
I have been a late-bloomer all my life. The following article will prove that to be true. If you also fall into this category, or have yet to bloom, read my story and know there is always hope as long as you persevere.
Spending thirty-four years as a scientist, I never felt totally comfortable. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy the work; I did. I found it difficult to share the enthusiasm of those working around me. However, I do feel a great sense of accomplishment for what those years produced. Now that segment of my early life is over.
I was a late-bloomer in marriage. At the age of thirty-six, when I married, most of my contemporaries were well into their first or perhaps second marriage. Now twenty-eight years later I find the wait was worth it for I found the perfect woman to share my life.
The primary focus of this article, however, is my current career as a writer. Looking back, I had the stirrings early in my life to follow that dream. But my environment and need for security won out and the yearning diminished but never died.
My first attempt at writing was in high school. A poem of mine was published in an anthology of high school writers and I knew I was on the road to becoming the next Robert Frost, whose poetry I adored. I continued writing poetry for approximately twenty-five years while in college, in the military and pursing my career in science. The result of my efforts was more than twenty-five poems published in anthologies and newspapers. During this phase of my writing addiction I made one dollar, a token of gratitude from a woman who enjoyed one of my poems. I am not known as a big spender, but even I would have a struggle living on four cents a year.
Toward the end of my twenty-five year poetry endeavor, I married and had two daughters. Actually, I continue writing poetry to this day. Each of my daughters gets a poem on her birthday recapping that year in their life. That tradition began when they were two and will continue until my writing career comes to a close.
Now as I approach my sixty-fourth year, I am a fulltime writer. Eleven years ago I began to write short stories of horror and science fiction. In this career I think of myself more as a bud than a bloom. I shall only bloom with the nourishment of the public.
I have published over twenty horror and science fiction short stories. When I write science fiction I try to use as much science fact as I can in order to make the story chilling with an air of possibility. I have also written three novels, one was published by Mélange Books when I was in my early sixties, one is now seeking a home and one still needs to grow some.
I have made little money, but at this stage of my career, that is of little importance. What warms my heart is when people read my words and find momentary escape from this confusion we call life.
Do I enjoy writing? That is a question I constantly ponder. I have a vivid imagination, ideas race through my mind. When it comes to sitting down before a blank tablet with pencil in hand, the enjoyment I experienced with imagery is tinged with a hint of anxiety in the effort of putting those images into words. Only when the piece is finished can I relax and savor a sense of accomplishment.
Now comes the effort to try and get the story published. Once again euphoria slams against the brick wall of reality. There are times when recognition comes quickly, but more often it takes years for a publisher to find value in my words. I have stories that have yet to see the light of publication, but I keep trying.
Have I reached to stage to refer to myself as a late-bloomer? I feel more like a ripening bud that will hopefully bloom before it shrinks and dies.
UPDATE NEW PUBLICATION
My consistent readers,
Two new stories can come your way for only 99 cents.
Cat’s Eyes and Second Chance were recently published by Books to Go Now.
So far the stories are only available on amazon.com, but that should change soon.
When the stories are available on the Books to Go Now website, if you don’t have a nook or kindle you can have them delivered to your computer in pdf format.
Let me know if you enjoy these stories.
SURGERY UPDATE
I want to thank all my friends and family for their cards, well-wishes, prayers and kind thoughts during my mending after surgery.
Since my six hour bypass surgery I have experienced ups and downs, currently I’m doing fine. I can see that the road ahead may still be a long one. Thanks for easing my journey.
UPDATE STAYING ALIVE
It’s been a couple of interesting months for me. Let me give you the details and you’ll see why my productivity was down.
While on a cruise toward the end of January with my wife, Joni, I began experiencing increased shortness of breath while going up stairs. The day after coming home, Joni took my vitals which she had been monitoring before the trip and said that I was in atrial fibrillation. A call to my internist resulted in a visit hours later and from his office to that of a cardiologist. I was scheduled for a cardio version a few days later. It worked, but after a few weeks I was back in a fib.
After a failed stress test, I was scheduled for a cardiac catherization on March 26. A blockage, 75%, was found in the main artery feeding the front of the heart and is known as the ‘widow maker’. If this stops functioning, so does Walt. This artery gets its disturbing name because it provides flow to just about everything downstream. It could not be stented, only bypassed. But I had a great deal of luck on my side. The bypass could be done using robot technology and three small incisions.
After surgery I had a slightly rocky recovery, kidneys got a little balky. I left the hospital on April 5 with an eight to twelve week recovery ahead of me.
During the course of my hospital stay our daughters, Annie and Lynn along with Lynn’s boyfriend John, were a constant help to Joni around the house and raised my spirits with their hospital visits.
What am I going to do about this experience? Write about it, of course. I approach this experience for a unique prospective. I have a science background and my wife is a nurse. Also, at the age of 64, this was my first hospitalization.
WALT’S OPINION
WALT’S OPINION
ON
THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS
BY
REBECCA SKLOOT
The cover of this book displays the picture of an attractive young black woman, full of life and will soon die.
In 1951, Henrietta Lacks would lose her battle with cancer. During that battle, cells were taken from her body that would change science forever.
Let me interject that I was a scientist for 34 years, the last nearly ten years using tissue culture in the projects I was assigned. Today I’m sure many young scientist use tissue culture to answer life’s mysteries, a powerful tool for studying disease. To this day, Henrietta Lacks’ contributes to this work. For the cells taken from her body had a unique property sought but not yet discovered. They had the ability to grow and continue to grow to this day, somehow gaining the property of ‘immortality’.
Let me take a moment to explain the importance of this property. Today scientists take the use of immortal cells for granted in their work. What constitutes an immortal cell line? Immortal cells are cells that can be passaged forever. Passaging involves taking containers of cells, harvesting them by releasing them from the container and transferring those cells to multiple containers where they will multiply and fill the container. The process can be repeated over and over again with the same results.
The reason I write this piece is that any scientist who works with tissue culture owes a debt of gratitude to Henrietta Lacks for making the initiation of this branch of science possible. I have worked with her cells, and before I read this book, had no idea of their source other than cells taken from a tumor. I feel that any scientist involved in cell culture, and especially if they use a certain cell type, have an obligation to read this book. Those cells taken from Henrietta were named using the first two letters of her first and last name. They were called HeLa cells. Now you scientists know the importance of this book. I’m sure her cells are the most studied cells used in tissue culture in the world. Her cells are responsible for major scientific advances. Please read this book and learn the life of the woman that made those achievements possible.
There is a dark side to this story. Some members of Henrietta’s are unable to get health insurance. Unfortunately, this is all too important in this country. Also, until the author of this book began looking into her life, the family had no idea that her cells were harvested and the importance of her contribution to science.
I hope both scientist and nonscientist read this book. It was on the N.Y. Times nonfiction bestsellers list for some time. It’s an awesome read.
WALT’S OPINIONS
WALT’S OPINION
ON
REALITY STARS VS REALITY
Consider this the rant of someone not attuned to today’s values i.e. an old fart.
I have never watched a reality show. I choose to live my reality. But I have seen advertisements of reality shows, and from this short glimpse of that world, I do not understand the interest. I have also learned of the life of the ‘stars’ from the news which is something I do not understand. I will devote a future article about what the ‘news’ has become.
From this input, I see shallow individuals playing the clowns that I hope is not their authentic reality. I assume viewers watch these show for entertainment. I also recall that a few years ago writers for reality show went on strike, causing some shows to be postponed. What does that tell you?
Do not get me wrong, there are reality stars. If we choose to look closely, we will see that they live among us.
Reality stars are the people that live in this damaged economy and do not give up. They are the ones that provide for their families. They take multiple jobs to make end meet. Reality stars are those bravely facing disease, the diagnosis of a terminal illness that will not take away the individual that they are. The list is endless of those that deal with life as bravely as they can. These are the reality stars, not the freaks we watch for entertainment.
REPRISE OF ST. PATRICK’S DAY
I thought I’d revisit this memoir entry.
MEMOIR
As a kid growing up in Newark, the only significant occurrence associated with that holiday was the local parade.
Here is my remembrance.
DOWNNECK ST. PATRICK’S DAY PARADE
The section of Newark, New Jersey I called home was referred to as the ‘Downneck Section’, why, no one could ever explain. And on the Sunday afternoon, on or before St. Patrick’s Day, the residents of my street were treated to what had to have been the shortest St. Patrick’s Day parade in the country.
Our local Catholic Church sponsored the parade. I could see the church’s steeple from my parlor window. It was that close. The parade had to be held on Sunday for between my house and the church stood Balentine Brewery. Weekdays were filled with the rumble of trucks quenching the thirst of a parched city. Sunday was a day of rest for the trucks, making the parade possible.
Magically, sometime before the parade, a green line appeared down the center of our street, the first harbinger of a gala event. I never witnessed this lines creation, but every year it materialized. Around one-thirty the residents began to gather on the sidewalk. We all walked out our front doors with anxious anticipation. The brewery and Catholic school took up one side of the street, multiple family houses stood opposite. Of course, there were always the annoying boys riding their bikes down the center of the blocked-off street before the parade began. I was proud to add to their number.
I assumed the parade began at the church. I never did discover where it finished.
There was always a band, not a school band, but one made up of adult men most of whom had almost mastered the instruments they were assigned. Before the band came a few ruddy-faced Irish men, decked out in their top hats, waving to the minuscule crowd. At the front of this procession were the parish priests. The parade took thirty seconds to pass. The procession turned the corner on to Ferry Street and marched on, melting into the Downneck neighborhood.
WALT’S OPINIONS
WALT’S OPINION
ON
MICHAEL DIRDA
If you love to read as much as I do, and have missed books that ‘you should have read’ there is still hope. By any means possible, purchase the book, Bound to Please, by a phenomenal author and critic, Michael Dirda.
Dirda reviews books for the Washington Post, and every review not only profiles the book, but borrows from his extensive readings. When it comes to literature, he is more like a machine remembering apparently everything he has read. Just as an aside, his other books are most enjoyable giving a glimpse of the life of a true reader.
Bound to Please begins with is a review of books written about great books, beginning with Herodotus: The Histories, on to Writers of the Times. I cannot begin to mention all the information contained in this work. The book also delves into science fiction and horror, my favorite genres.
The book, at first, can appear to be an intimidating read, but if you enjoy literature and want it fill in the holes in your reading, once started, you will be unable to put it aside. At first, I intended to read a page or two but found myself devouring the work, taking notes and marking pages.
If you want to read a comprehensive survey of world literature, please treat yourself to this book. It is a work you will keep for the rest of your life and reference often.
WALT’S OBSERVATIONS
WALT’S OBSERVATIONS
ON
RETIREMENT
This piece is meant for those poor souls that are compelled to write.
As reported recently on my blog, my wife, Joni, and I went on a cruise last January. The experience, much to my surprise, was most enjoyable. At my age, it is wonderful to have all your needs met, even some you didn’t know existed (all legal of course). However, this reflection is more about the people I encountered and my thoughts, contrasting my mindset and that of those wonderful people at a similar stage in our lives.
Joni and I joined a large group while taking the cruise, including my sister, Shirley and her husband Matt. They now live in South Carolina in an over 55 retirement community and were joined by about eight or nine other couples from the same community. I had the opportunity to talk to most of them and those feelings generated are the source of this article.
All retired, the exuded the joy of life. They had all worked hard and now it was time to enjoy the fruits of their labor. In the many conversations I shared with them, I came to appreciate the image of retirement, having time to relish the simple things that life now offered whether it be gardening, walking or spending time with grandchildren.
As I listened to them I reflected on my life. I have always been one to pursue a goal and that drive offers no peace. I envy those who, in retirement, can put aside their past efforts and enjoy their twilight years.
I am reminded of the legend of Sisyphus, doomed to role a stone up a hill only to have it fall down the opposite side where he must again begin his effort. There is no end to his toil.
Those retirees I encountered have defied Sisyphus, for the most part. Some still work part-time, victims of the current economy. But for the most part, they have rolled the stone of their careers to the summit and now enjoy the gentle coast downward in retirement. They have reached the point where the repetition of failure no longer exists. They are at peace with their life and the world.
But for us writers, the scenario is different. I am one of your legions and share the Sisyphus of the written word with you. You and I will never retire. For to retire to us would mean we have ceased to think, to imagine. We roll the rock of our creation up a slippery slope only to have, for many of us, have it roll down in rejection and lack of appreciation. We are compelled to continue this effort to the end.
Fellow writers, these are my observations. God help us all.
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