Knitting Under the Influence

The Effortless Cardigan continued to grow and become more unwieldy, but I continued to knit because I was convinced that it would look like the picture in the end.

The last step was to pick up and knit stitches for the collar.  It didn't say how many stitches, just that they be divisible by 4 for a K2, P2 rib.  So I knitted forever on 200+ stitches until had 3" of ribbing.

Good grief!  I draped the front so it looked better but this is how it would wear.  I bought the pattern and ordered the yarn after the accident and I'm blaming Vicodin for this misadventure.

This is what it looks like now.  I've already cast on for the Neckdown V Neck Shaped Cardigan from Knitting Pure and Simple.  I've made it before and like to wear it.  I'll try something new another time.

I've finished a couple of other sweaters.  This is the boatneck pullover, also from Knitting Pure and Simple from Knit Picks CotLin.  It's pills a bit and is pretty messy for the first couple of  times of wash and wear, but after that it launders up nicely.  I'm thinking about ordering some of their superwash and make this just one more time.

I'm supposed to take the collar off at intervals to strengthen the muscles in my neck, but as you can see, they're pretty stiff.  I'm probably six weeks from a haircut still so we just won't talk about that.

We bought a cat tree at Costco on Friday but so far Madeline is intimidated by it.  I tied one of her toy mice to a string and attached it to the tower but she's managed to make it a game with the chair and thus avoid the tree. She's just four months old and I'm sure she's get more venturesome with experience.

Allison and Amy came out with their knitting and laughter this morning and spent a couple of hours with me.  Allison brought a bag of candy corn which tore into.  It doesn't make any sense, but that's my favorite candy.  The visit was sweet in more ways than one :)

Today is six weeks since the accident, so tomorrow we go back to town to see the neurosurgeon to find out what's what and what's going to be what.  I got my x-rays taken on Friday and we'll pick them up along with the radiologist's report on our way in.  I'm all anxious to do physical therapy, until I have to move my head.  All will be illuminated.

Three Weeks Post Trauma

I was delighted with the Knit Picks yarn I ordered.  I was chemically befogged when I ordered it and chose the only color they had on sale in City Tweed, a Merino and alpaca blend.  I expected it to be ugly since it was marked $2.99 when the rest were $4.99 a skein.  It's gorgeous - not ugly at all.  Nothing else is on sale right now so I may have to order full price in a couple months.

I had three visits in town last week - my GP, my neurosurgeon's office and my eye doctor.  My GP assumes the culprit behind the black-out was the blood pressure medicine.  I'm to manage my BP with diet and exercise, and with the little bit of weight I've lost since the accident, it's starting to come into line.  Time is passing slowly; the surgery will be three weeks ago on Wednesday night.

It was coincidentally my annual eye exam and I didn't want to put it off since my vision has changed since the fall.  I can't see out of the right eye using my eye glasses and I use them to drive at night.  For daytime I wear a distance contact lens in my right eye and he kept asking me if I were wearing one for the exam.  It appears that my fall knocked the conical shape out of my right eye and I can see distance without correction.  He doesn't want me to wear a close-up lens in the left eye while I'm healing so we stopped at Costco and I bought a three-pack of readers.  I have reading glasses everywhere!

After some of the comments I received about Madeline, I looked up tortoiseshell cats on the Internet.  I knew that Maddie is a calico but I didn't know that she's also a tortoiseshell.  Tortoiseshell cats are almost exclusively female.  Tortoiseshell and calico (more white) coats are the result of the interaction between genetic and developmental factors.  The occasional and very rare male tortoiseshell cat is the result of a genetic mutation.  Males are born about 1 in 3,000 and are usually sterile.

In addition to their distinctive coloring, torties also have a reputation for unique personalities, sometimes referred to as “tortitude.”  They tend to be strong-willed, a bit hot-tempered, and they can be very possessive of their human.  Other words used to describe torties are fiercely independent, feisty and unpredictable.  They’re usually very talkative and make their presence and needs known with anything from a hiss to a meow to a strong purr.

The dogs still don't know what to do with her, but I'm thrilled to have her presence.  She sleeps with me on the recliner every night.  All I have to do is put my hand on her and she resumes purring.

I didn't think about the studio right away, until I realized that she was making herself quite at home in there.  I'm going up and down the stairs comfortably these days but in the beginning I wasn't willing to try them without Ian on the downhill side.  She pulled the warp off Maudie Mae in no time at all.  It's going to be an easy repair, but for now I've closed the door.

Who me?

One Week Post-Op

Dr Demers, my neurologist, took pictures of the ct scan of my cervical spine before and after the surgery.  The piece you see dangling near the top and just to the left of center is my broken c1 vertebra.

And here's the surgical result - a giant screw goes up through the fractured c2 into the broken c1, fastening them securely together.  The surgery was done through the roof of my mouth which is on the left, with access through an incision in my throat.  And now that it's healing, it doth itch!

I have to wear the cervical collar for three months and other than this literally being a pain in the neck, I just need to hunker down and wait it out.  I was happy to see just now that my Knit Picks yarn has shipped.  This would not be a good time to run out of knitting.

On the upside, I'm going to be getting a kitten on Saturday.  Somehow that came out of some comments on Facebook.  While we were waiting for my pre-surgical cat scan on Tuesday, I asked Ian if this might be a good time to think about a kitty.  He asked me after surgery if I remembered my question from the day before.  Of course I did!  Annabelle's granddaughter Serenity has been socializing her kittens for adoption.  She picked this one for me because she loves to be held and purrs in appreciation.

Alexia is very excited.  She originally wanted to go with me to pick out a kitten, whenever that ended up happening.  Annabelle and Serenity are driving up from Stagecoach, Nevada to deliver the kitten on Saturday.  Chrissie and Alexia are coming up to be part of the adoption.  Alexia came up with 120 names and typed them up for me, and they're really good names.  I think there are probably a lot of calicoes named Callie, and even though I like it, I'm leaning towards Madeline - Sweet Madeline.

I didn't do much reading last two months because I was so focused on getting ready for craft fairs, and we all know where that got me.

The Magician's Apprentice by Ann Patchet.  This was being informally passed around The Tuesday Book Club - very fun.

Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon And this is what we read for August.  We discovered that this is one of those books that you need to map out of the characters right up front.  He keeps  it to the same group and the initial confusion goes away.  I didn't realize for probably 30 pages that the characters were Black so had to retool my mental images - somehow I thought they were Jewish.  More than half our group are nurses so the topic of midwives drew a lot of interest.  Great book.

Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan I read this on the recommendation of the high school librarian I subbed for last month.  It was totally entertaining and I'm getting ready to read this author again.

Gulp: adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach Sue Flynn recommended this and said she could hardly put it down.  This is my third time for this author and while she was just as engaging as always, I'll never forgot Hirschsprung's Disease and Elvis Presley!

I read a couple of other books but these are the ones that I would recommend, if you're looking for something else to read.

The Best Laid Plans or Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition

I never got to the farmers market and Sarah's rugs are still here.  I was moving along at an impressive clip, getting warps onto both looms by the end of last Saturday.  About midnight I got up to go to the bathroom and that's when all my plans changed.  I experienced loss of consciousness and when I came to, my face was pressed to the tile floor.  Ian called 911 and our local VFD EMTs came promptly and stabelized my neck.  Both Careflight and the ambulance arrived at the same time but the helicopter wasn't able to land so I endured a jouncy ride to the hospital.

I've never ridden in am ambulance, been admitted to a hospital or had a catheter.  I've never received flowers and cards so had no idea how powerful they are in communicating the nearness of caring family and friends.  Everything went right after the fall went wrong.  I had an amazing neurosurgeon who fused my broken C1 vertebra with a screw through the fractured C2 vertebra.  The surgery took nearly two hours and was done through an incision in my neck and the roof of my mouth.  Dr Demers said it's a routine half hour surgery but it took 45 minutes just to align the two vertebrae because of the angle he had to work at.

I was released home on Friday just after lunch and now this is where I spend my days and nights.  I have three months of the cervical collar and then can expect full healing to take during the rest of the year.  Thanks to the first responders and immediate intervention, I have experienced no neurological compromise, no tingling in my limbs or weakness.  Sleep is the hardest because my head is so sore from bouncing around on the floor.  A friend loaned me a shower chair and I've used it twice now - aahhhhh.  It's the little things that are starting to matter big.

So I have move from craft fair readiness to no craft fairs.  My marker is officially in the Out-of-Office spot.  I'll be able to return to weaving but there's going to be some physical therapy before then.  I have knitting and reading and lots of both.  I'm hopeful and I promise you that I will be the most compliant patient my doctor has ever had.  The most likely culprit of the syncope is the blood pressure medication.  It's possible that we'll never know.