She who lives by the needles, dives by the needles?
Friday November 03rd 2006, 11:40 pm
Filed under: Knit

One of the things the Stanford doctors asked me, during my four-day EEG, was, did I have an aura to go with my seizure symptoms?

All this was new to me: I had pneumonia in July, my suppressed immune system soared right past my chemo drug, and with it my autoimmune symptoms; next thing you know, I started having these seizures. Escalating to, after about a week, sometimes being grand mal–except I never lost consciousness. What on earth an aura felt or looked like or whatever sense was involved in having one, I had not the slightest clue. I was reading Winterdance, about Alaska; how about an Aura Borealis?

Rather like the time, 15 years ago with an acute pericarditis attack, another doctor asked me if I were short of breath. I told him, reasonably to me at the time, no; because I could draw as long a breath as I wanted to. I just didn’t feel I got any air in whatsoever when I did.

Doctors. Define your terms when it’s all new to us. To be fair, I asked them to this time, and they tried, but it didn’t seem to match me at all; maybe another patient could have described it better than they could have. Dunno.

So maybe tonight I finally could begin to answer their question. I keep my knitting needles in a handthrown pottery jar on top of my piano. Beautiful handiwork, by the way, of my friend Kris Kunihiro; go to mkwares.net if you want to see Kris and Mel’s ceramics. The navy and rose/burgundy/teal mix. Anyway. I have a shawl I’ve been working on that I wanted to check how the length was coming out; with lace, you never know unless you stretch it out. I wanted to find the rubber needle tips at the bottom of that jar, so that I wouldn’t drop a ton of stitches while stretching the thing.

So. Rather than picking up the jar like a sensible person whose balance is impaired, and bringing it down to me, I stood on my tiptoes, leaned over it, grabbed the nest of circulars and lifted them up out of the way; just as I reached in with the other hand, leaning way over, to get at those tips down in there, I had just the briefest instant to react.

I was about to have a seizure. With, still sitting in the jar, all my short, sharp double-pointed needles right there in my face, and I mean right there.

Now, I’ve been the mother to four two-year-olds, one right after the other. I’ve raised four teenagers. I even taught three of them to drive after that speeder totalled my car and my balance six years ago. I’m the mom. I’m in charge here. Just try me, I’ve had lots of practice. And I instantly proclaimed decisively at it, NO!!!, just as loud, inwardly, as I ever yelled at any child of mine about to run in front of a car.

No needles in my eyes. But it was a very near thing.

Now. Almost all set. I just need to knit six more rows, bind off, and put it in the mail Monday. I really like this project. More on it later.


4 Comments so far
Leave a comment

Yeesh, you had me scared there.

Even though I knew you had to be okay, or there would be no typing.

Yeesh!

Comment by Kristine 11.04.06 @ 12:46 pm

I had me scared right afterwards. At the time, it was, don’t you think you can pull this on me now, buster. But it all happened so fast that I’m still not sure I could describe how I knew one was coming.

I think I’ve got that shawl finished now except for the bindoff. If only I had the recipient a thousand miles closer so I could hold it up against her. (Psst, hey, Terry…)

Comment by AlisonH 11.04.06 @ 1:26 pm

Alison,
what a close call and I’m glad to know you are ok.

Comment by Mary Anne 11.04.06 @ 4:38 pm

Thank God you are all right! Don’t DO that to us! Please?

Mary

Comment by fiberfanatic 11.05.06 @ 11:45 am



Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

(required)

(required)