Being an invited member of the NEOTHINK Society gave me my life back.

My story is interesting, but the real meat is: being an invited member of the Neothink Society gave me my life back.

In November of 1997 I survived a near fatal stroke, which left the left side of my body paralyzed and the entire right side of my brain, front to back, top to bottom, dead. This was confirmed by MRIs taken in 2004. I was a thirty year veteran live television producer/director, including twenty years of sports production for the Oakland Athletics, San Francisco 49ERS, San Jose Sabercats and CBS Sports. I was still under contract to the Sabercats when I had my stroke.

After leaving the hospital in February 1998, I was determined to fulfill my contract. In the hospital, all I wanted my physical therapist to do was teach me how to walk. Impossible, until awaking from a 21 day coma Christmas Eve 1997. My left leg suddenly moved in the middle of the night. I forced that movement to happen again and continued that the rest of the night. When the doctors came in for rounds Christmas morning 1997, I threw back the covers and said, "Watch this." I moved my leg. From then on I badgered my physical therapist to teach me to walk.

We started by breaking down the walk into its physical components: move this, shift that, rotate your hip, etc. This was not working, it's impossible to walk if you have to concentrate on all its subtle movements. Finally a new therapist came onboard. He got in my face and said, like a drill sergeant, "Wally, you've been doing this all your life. Now get up and walk through the parallel bars to the other end and come back." Those first few steps were the most exciting moments of my life. From then on, every therapy session was filled with walking through the parallel bars.

After a month I found out the door code for the physical therapy room. After dinner I would roll myself down to the room and walk back and forth until 10, when I went back to my room to sleep. After a month of this routine I was strong enough to learn how to use a hemi-walker. With that assistance I no longer needed the therapy room, and after dinner I would walk the hallways of the hospital until I couldn't go any more and went back to bed. You have to remember, for twenty years I was working closely with world class athletes. I saw their determination, and it always inspired me. I knew I had an arena football game to produce and direct in Albany, NY, April 29, 1998. I was determined to make that game.

My left arm was, and still is, paralyzed. I had my dad drive me from my ranch in Murphys, California to the San Jose Airport, where I met the team for our flight to Albany. It was difficult to keep up with the group, but I made it. After that game, which everyone agreed was not my best, even I had to admit it was impossible to do the five things at the same time to do the work properly. The Sabercats terminated my contract. For the first time since grammar school I was out of work. This was devastating. My work defined who I was.

Life at home on the ranch was difficult. I had to retrain myself how to accomplish the same tasks as I did when able-bodied. I continued to care for our four horses. They appreciated having me back and would allow me to move them from their large outside paddocks to the stable with just a lead rope looped loosely around their necks; they walked extra carefully, seeming to know I was injured.

In 2003 the expense of keeping up the ranch, and straining the relationship between me and my wife, became too much. We decided to split up and sell the ranch. Fortunately we found a buyer in a short amount of time. We both walked away with $1,000,000.00 each. My wife stayed in Murphys; all her business as an interior designer specializing in medical facilities was in northern California. My oldest sister invited me to live with her in Bullhead City, Arizona. Since I was out of work and living on Social Security disability, I took her up on her offer.

Being out of work, I could live anywhere I wanted. After a year of our Oscar and Felix lifestyle, my sister took a new position in Tucson. I bought a small attractive home in Bullhead City, where I live today.

In 2004 I was invited to join the Neo-Tech Society. That invitation changed my life. First, I was able to eliminate all mysticism from my life. I stopped praying and started acting. The Neo-Tech business plan allowed me to use my embarrassingly large free time more productively.

In 2005 I created a network television drama, wrote 12 episodes, then spent the next two years trying to get anyone to listen to my idea. It proved impossible; that industry is closed to outsiders. But I enjoyed the writing process. Then, on my exercise bike, I was power thinking, a skill taught to me in the Neothink manuscripts. I am an avid reader and was reading a novel by Steve Berry called The Alexandrian Link. It occurred to me that the amazing things that were happening in the novel happened because all Berry's characters were fictional. I have always had a great interest in the great monuments built during the Depression. Living just 90 minutes south of Hoover Dam increased my interest further, until I began power thinking about writing a novel.

Not wanting to go through the nightmare of the television drama again, I went about this from a different angle. I had made many publishing contacts while producing twenty years of television talk shows. I contacted each of them; they all gave me the same advice. If I was serious about getting my work into the marketplace, I should investigate self-publishing. They each gave me their favorite self-publishers, then I did my own research. This was 2007. I was determined to have my novel finished by November 30, 2007, to reward myself for living ten years post stroke.

My sister had purchased a one-handed disabled person's keyboard for me to make my writing easier. I set up my writing work using the Neothink business guidelines, which made the work much more productive. I approached learning the keyboard the same way I approached learning the guitar as a youngster. The problem was, the technique that worked so well in learning the instrument no longer functioned because of the stroke. To this day I have never mastered the keyboard as well as I would have liked, but I persisted.

I created a way to tell the stories of the great monuments through the adventures of two Polish accordion playing brothers, Stanley and Sigmund Sacovic from Chicago, who travel across the country working construction on those great monuments built during the Depression: Mount Rushmore, The Empire State Building, Hoover Dam and the Golden Gate Bridge. My years traveling in baseball gave me first hand knowledge of each monument. The story I constructed (historical fiction) allowed me to write about all the things I had experienced and loved all my life: the circus, playing in a band, baseball, horse racing, ranching and deli food.

I started writing in June 2007. I would write in my head while riding my exercise bike 90 minutes each morning. After the workout I would go to my office and jot down all the thoughts I'd had on the bike. At 1 o'clock I would put those thoughts into the novel. On December 1, 2007, I had the novel finished. I decided to self-publish through Authorhouse.com; they offered the best deal. Money was a great concern, since I was living on a very fixed Social Security disability income.

On December 21, 2007, I emailed my novel to the publisher for copy editing. On February 21, 2008, I received a CD with the copy editor's suggestions for my approval. I approved all their suggestions and emailed the novel with the corrections back to Authorhouse to begin the printing process. All along the way I was in contact with the cover and book design people, designing the front and back cover. I received my first complimentary copy April 25, 2008, a very exciting day. I approved the novel, and it was released on May 5, 2008. I alerted every media outlet in my town and put together three book signings that went very well. To date the novel has sold over 1,000.00 copies, not enough on which to retire, but respectable for a first-time self-published author. The novel is entered into the 2010 international self-published awards contest, and I expect to do well.

The long and short of it is, I could not have accomplished any of this without being a member of the Neothink Society. They gave me the tools to make it happen. For any would-be buyers, "High Work, Building America's Monuments" is available at all online book sites, as well as Authorhouse.com and my website, personalsafetyworld.com, in the WAM entertainment section.

Walter Miller, personalsafetyworld.com