My name is Bob Trapp. I am a writer, among other things, from the Cedar Rapids, Iowa area. The purpose of this web site is to discuss my writing and to encourage writing overall. I have no idea if any of this will prove useful to others, but I hope someone can find some inspiration or advice here.
… But More About Me
As mentioned, I am a writer. I also teach computer programming and database development full time. My life has seen many jobs. I started in residential construction and remodeling. There was a little fortune telling during leaner days. I've repaired all sorts of machinery, from photocopiers to life support equipment. For many years, I made eye glasses before moving into industrial optics. It was a struggle, but I was moving gradually up the ladder of respectability. At one point, I was even a candidate for the Iowa State House ("You gotta pick the right guy to do the job; go out now and vote for LibertyBob, liberty bobbity boo!")
The Lurker
Trouble coping with hot weather started in my teens. It was difficult for me to function during summer. I dropped a high school welding class because it was too warm.
At the same time, my stamina diminished. Where I had been able to run or ride bicycles with my friends, those abilities faded. That meant that my weight increased as well. People started to think of me as just another heavy kid who needed to get out more.
Later in high school, my family moved to the south. It is warmer there. Even in winter, they run their heaters a little higher than I like. In a few events, I collapsed, barely conscious.
The emergency room doctors found nothing. They performed EEG tests and a CAT scan, but the heart beat and there were no brain injuries. They decided it must be psychological. That's where things stayed for quite a while.
In my early twenties, I found myself in the emergency room on many occasions, always during warm weather or when I over exerted. First responders demanded, "what did you take?" and always rolled their eyes when I was finally able to mutter that I hadn't taken anything. They sat me in the air conditioned hospital until physicians could look me over, by which time I would have mostly recovered. Those doctors then sent me for psychiatric evaluation.
Almost Dead
In my early thirties, things had gotten really bad. The new doctors treated me for a respiratory infection and said I had a little fluid in my lungs. My weight sat at about 270 pounds (122 kg). I could barely breath or get up from a chair. It was necessary to sit in chairs instead of lie in bed to stop the constant coughing.
A friend, who was a former nurse, went over all my symptoms on the phone. She finally asked, "Can you get to the emergency room or do I need to take you?"
By this time in my life, I had my fill of dealing with emergency rooms, so I told her, "You seem to have an idea what you're talking about. Why don't you take me."
She drove me to the E. R. and bullied them into running the tests she thought were necessary. High on that list of tests was an echocardiogram. This is a sonogram check of the heart, using sound waves to see what the heart is doing in real time. It was the one that paid off.
The left ventricle of my heart was damaged and enlarged. At this point, they could not be sure what caused the damage, but in discussion we decided that it was probably a severe flu I had at the age of eleven. The ejection fraction (the percent of blood pumped out of the ventricle) was in the 15-20% range. (NOTE: the normal range for healthy humans is 50 - 70, with 60-65 being common. Athletes such as soccer players and marathon runners are the ones that get near 70.)
Treatment
In the first few weeks, I dropped thirty pounds just by losing stored liquids. My cardiologist put me on pills, dietary and liquid restrictions, and structured but reduced physical activity. I could only work a few hours a day, and I was likely to fall asleep during those hours. Fortunately, I was good at what I did and was still productive compared with my predecessors.
There was also talk about the future. The prognosis was not good. The cardiologist discussed the likelihood of heart transplant within a couple of years. I didn't know at the time, but the life expectancy was pretty low for someone in my condition. They didn't understand my will power and work ethic.
I followed the doctor's orders about the diet. I took my pills as instructed. I did my exercise and often pushed myself to do just a little bit more. Now that I knew what caused those years of trouble, I was determined to beat it.
One Year Later
On the annual recheck, they did another echocardiogram. It took a week for the results to come in. My cardiologist was ecstatic. He described running around the clinic to find his primary nurse to show her. My ejection fraction had climbed to about 35 percent.
It was at this time that I realized just how bad off I had been. They really had no hope for a recovery; they were just trying to delay my death by a small amount. The idea that I would start getting better had not entered their minds.
To School
Since the original diagnosis, my job had changed to the point where they could no longer accommodate my time and lifting restrictions. Being laid off meant filing lots of paperwork. The Social Security Administration considered me disabled. The doctors were surprised that I was working at all.
Not one for sitting around, I formed a plan. Being stuck in a chair meant I could probably sit at a computer. Even if I couldn't get a full-time job, I could at least do something. With the help of Iowa's Vocational Rehabilitation program, I found out what I could do to learn more about computing.
In middle school, a group of us had been encouraged to learn programming with the little computers available. Throughout all of my jobs, people always came to me with computer tasks or questions. Throughout all of that, I had never made a really serious study of the material, but it was time. I enrolled in the local college.
Within four years, I was graduating Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. My ejection fraction had also increased to about 45 per cent. It was time to go back to work.
Eventually, I earned a Master of Science in Computer Science as well, and have the debt to prove it. It was this last degree that got me my teaching gig.
State of the Heart
Today, my heart is at the low end of the normal range. Summers still limit me and I won't be running any marathons in the near future. These improvements happen as a combination of competent medical care, following doctor's orders (but not their prognosis), and obnoxious determination.
Even as the heart improved in the fifteen years since the original diagnosis, it has had a serious impact on my life. The biggest impact probably comes from being told that I had an unidentified mental illness for so many years, even though it was just heart damage.
Many of my decisions and behaviors in my teens and twenties were based on the belief that there was something unreliable about my mind. I avoided many long-term romantic relationships because, if I couldn't rely on me, how could I ask someone else to do so? I didn't pursue many business endeavors for the same reason. Though I was a hard worker, I avoided interacting with the public if I could.
Check the Ankles
Today, things are much improved and I'm fully involved with attempting to accomplish more than just recovering from heart damage. I can do this because one former nurse took the time to ask the right questions. One of the big questions was: do you have swelling in your ankles?
The enlarged left ventricle is the source of the problem, but the trouble it causes is a form of Congestive Heart Failure (CHF). In this condition, the heart cannot move the blood around the body properly. There are many possible causes for CHF, but the results are about the same.
It is difficult to see CHF in the emergency room for a couple of reasons. First, emergency rooms mostly have three states for heart issues: it's not beating, it is sort of beating but you are having a heart attack, or it is beating. If it is just beating fast and you have blood pressure, then they look for non-heart issues. Their job is to deal with the immediate issue and then move you on for long-term treatment by someone else.
Unfortunately, the symptoms of CHF are similar to the symptoms of many psychiatric issues, particularly anxiety attacks. Because some part of you is not getting blood, that part is not getting oxygen. You brain signals the body to breath heavy and to increase the pulse. If the heart is inefficient at what it does, making it go faster does no good.
With an enlarged heart, the pulse can be strong and the blood pressure fine, but the blood doesn't really move very far with each beat. It's like heavy traffic; the road is good and all the cars are there, but nobody gets anywhere. As a result, the body stores liquid instead of moving it out of the tissues where the blood flows. This just adds to the issue.
This is what tipped off my friend. When she asked about my ankles, she wanted to know if my body was storing excess fluid. This is one of the big differences between CHF and an anxiety attack. This is what told her that the echocardiogram was the tool to use. Thank's to her knowing that, I'm, alive today.
Now, whenever I encounter new medical people, I relate that part of my story to them in the hopes that they will learn to look for the little signs that can push the diagnosis a different direction. Maybe it will save someone else's life someday.
As for the Writing…
I've been a storyteller since childhood. When the cousins gathered around, I was the one to keep them entertained with tales invented on the spot. The cousins liked monster stories, mostly inspired by old movies.
In my teens, my friends liked to play role playing games. It got to the point where I never got to be a player, but had to manage the games because they liked the worlds I built, even if they didn't always like my bad jokes. Into my late twenties, people invited me to their games just to breathe new life into stale scenarios.
A high school friend and I started writing a story long ago. Since we lived in different states, we exchanged through mail. Eventually, it died out. I still enjoyed the activity. It's just something I like.
In computing, my strongest skills are modeling data and processes. These are the same skills used when building a world or story in fiction. I've actually used that as an assignment, making the students design a database to store parts of a story or historical event (same structure).
Unfortunately, I let the concept of "real work" get in the way of writing throughout my life. I always wondered if I could afford to direct my resources to the creativity rather than the sure thing that is a solid job. Now that I'm older, I can do both, and I have been.
I still need to put more into the writing side of my life. I need to associate with more other writers. I need to submit more materials for publication. I need to read more literature that has nothing to do with my day job. Getting at least one novel published is on my bucket list, and I have every intention of doing so.
In Conclusion…
That's about all there is to know about me and this site. As I said, I don't know if it will be useful to anyone. If nothing else, it may survive the next thousand years and be all that the historians and archeologists find of our civilization. If that's the case, just remember this one thing about me: he was a good king.