I was sure I already had. But using every search phrase I could think of on the blog, I’m not finding it. So here goes.

They were about to move away, and I know how the impending sense of loss at such times brings friends closer together and the emotions high.

I was talking a moment to Curtis, the husband, at church on I think their last Sunday before they left California, and in that conversation, he started to say something about an afghan his grandma had knit him.

Only, with such a sudden halting sense to his voice that I immediately picked up on it and went, “Does it need to be repaired? I’d be glad to,” before he said another word, hoping I wasn’t getting myself into too much.

The relief and joy and sudden hope in his face!

When he’d been in high school, his grandma had offered to knit him an afghan. Anything he liked; his choice. Years later telling me this, he said, And I asked for black. I had no idea what I was asking of her.

I smiled and nodded that yes, black stitches are hard to see to work with and really hard as you get older. I sympathized with Grandma with him.

But she had knit it because she loved him and he had been thrilled. He held it all the more closely when she died, love meeting loss and finding warmth in the dark places.

And then his cat had gotten to it. It was torn in four spots. He was heartbroken and had no idea what to do with it except to put it in the closet and hope that at some point in the future something somehow could be done.

I would be honored to give it my best, I told him.

And so later he swung by the house with it, knocking on my door to hand it over. One look and I told him, Oh, good. This won’t take very long at all, if you don’t mind waiting.

His wife was in the car with their two little kids, who were sick, and they hadn’t wanted to expose me so they’d stayed in there and he didn’t want to leave them waiting alone and not knowing how long I’d be.

Well then. I picked up my yarn needle and, afghan in hand, walked out to the sidewalk next to their car and plunked myself down. Let the kids wave hi and watch if they want, and besides, I wanted to see them and his wife every moment I could.

The afghan had been fairly loosely knit out of a nice, soft wool. That looseness made it vulnerable to a good cat-claw snag and there were long pulls in it–all I had to do was work the yarn back into the sides to where it belonged, here, here, here, and a little bit over down here. Not a single break.

I told him he had done the right thing: he hadn’t lopped off the loops and that had saved it.

The whole thing took maybe five minutes. There was such an intense joy the whole time. Curtis, Jenna, the kids, getting a little extra time with them before they left–but it was also as if his grandma herself were standing chuckling over my shoulder, glad to see her work restored to go hug the great-grands with.

She loved it; then she showed me her niece and nephews on her own Iphone.

Oh cool!

She flipped through a few and then stopped at one of her eight-year-old niece, the oldest, running happily in front of the incoming tide. She told me why she loved this photo so much.

Her brother and his family had been visiting recently and it was the first time his kids had seen the ocean. His little girl kept running after the receding water, then running back in to the beach just in front of its return, over and over and over and over, till finally my friend asked her what she was doing? (Clearly there was a perspective here that the adults weren’t quite in on, and she wanted to know.)

“I’m playing tag with the ocean!”

I’ve had nearly nine years since then. I’ve spent the last three days considering how good a tradeoff that risk was and how glad I am that that drug gave me that time.  While expecting more: remembering the time we passed a flock of newly-sheared sheep along Highway 5 on our way to southern Cal, when our youngest whined unexpectedly into the quiet of the car, “We’re not STOPPING, M o o o o o mmmmm!”

Hang onto that thought.

Tuesday, in OB-GYN, I guess the doctor felt I was being a little too blithe about the whole thing and had to make sure I understood that this…was what was normal and this…was what the ultrasound had showed. She did a biopsy, and wanting to be sure she had enough cells, did it again. She remarked that I had a high pain threshold.

Breathe deep.

I went home and read up on endometrial cancer and the studies on the survival-rate effectiveness (not!) of lymphadenectomy with clinically-observed and the most-common stage 1. Etc.

They told me I would get the results in a week and I was thinking better to wait less than you thought you’d have to than longer, right? And so I hoped it would turn out to be sooner than that ohpleaseohplease.

I got an email this morning asking me to sign into the clinic’s online site. Already? Oh good. I think. Took a deep breath, knowing it would either say what I hoped or else it would ask me to come in to be told the news in person.

Signed in. Went to my inbox there. Slow, slow motion, as if the whole thing were echoing the endless, dragging last three days.

Not even the doctor, just a note from her nurse. No cancer cells. No precancerous cells. No sign.

NO CANCER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It’s a good thing Richard was still home so I had someone to dance with.

Michelle flies home from school tonight for her friend’s wedding. There is serious celebration to be had.

(Ed. to add: that drug was Remicade, and I was put back on it 8 months later for awhile, then three years ago Humira, an improved variant.)

A million miles from Rick’s, our child with ITP ended up in emergency a few days ago.

And a friend there, having no idea we used to do that…showed up later in the day with ice cream to try to make things a little better.

(Ed. to add: my forever thanks to all those who can donate blood and do. You’re a life saver.)

And then she looked and went, “Oh–but even the birthdate is very similar!” I was watching the clerk’s face yesterday and I didn’t hear or see it and I don’t think they did ask, but if they did, Richard pointed out, my hearing was an issue.

She very carefully marked both patient files so that staff would know next time. She thanked us for coming back and was about to send us on our way when I stopped her with, “Wait a minute–when they rang me up yesterday, I asked them, ‘Are you sure?’ I was thinking, that’s not enough, is it?”

And then I looked at the new bottle in my hand and told her how much we still owed her.

She thanked me yet again and told us again, as that got rung up, how glad she was that we’d come in. I imagine so.

But she really wanted to ask questions the moment Richard mentioned my hearing, and that delay seemed to have broken the ice for her: did I have any experience with Meniere’s? Yes I did. With rotational vertigo?  Yes, years ago.  Any other cause…? Yes.  Clearly she wanted to talk to someone else who knew what it was like to go through those kinds of symptoms; Richard gave her a twirling-room description with arms flailing that had her laughing.

And clearly she wanted to meet someone else about her own age who already wore hearing aids to reassure herself it would be okay to start considering them.

You know that I feel that if you need help hearing, get tested and get the help; it’s easier to start younger than older to retrain the brain to pick out voices from a crowd and sounds out of noise again. And it’s so much better just to be able to understand why things sound the way they do–you lose your high frequencies first so you lose the consonants but not the vowels.  Making no sense of speech makes sense once you know. So fix it.

I wonder if the other person mixing those bottles up was all part of a Plan unseen to help get her where she needs to be. Curious.

Written in the very tiniest letters used only for that, there it was: wrong home address. Right name, wrong person, wrong med. And of course the place was closed by now. Who knows if the other guy came in too? If he did, he didn’t notice in time for the pharmacy to call us; I really hope he reads his prescription bottle and doesn’t just take something that may be very wrong for him. Egads.

Puts a new twist on the old Sandra Boynton birthday card: HIIPA birdies, two you’s.

Meantime, I finally got that hat mailed today and took pictures of it with my new Iphone. I love that the phone offers instructions as you go when it’s new, and I wonder if it keeps doing that after you’ve gone through those steps a few times?

I’ve been hoping I can get over my cold fast enough to get to Jasmin’s baby shower this Saturday; her baby, long nicknamed Sharkbean in utero, was expected Jan. 25th.

I saw a FB note from my friend Becca, (side note to some friends: she used to live in our ward, yes, that Becca), that her doctor had told her this morning she was in early labor and to get to the hospital. Becca made a side trip to make sure her kids would be picked up from school, was coming down the freeway in the fast lane, and…

…blew a tire. Called AAA. Yeah, we’ll have someone out there in about an hour. Wait: you’re what?! “They called everybody,” and so Becca posted a picture of a handsome young fireman peering in her car window, who, she said, was very happy not to be delivering her baby.

She posted updates all day, laughing over outrageous name ideas, and while she was…

…Jasmin posted. Totally scooped her. At 4:07, her baby girl had arrived, safe and sound and beautiful!

Wait, what? That one’s not due yet!

Becca posted how labor isn’t boring anymore, she and her husband were watching a movie, waiting for the kid to get on with it. And then finally, at 9:32, another beautiful baby girl arrived into the world.

Back when I was at that stage, I had an obstetrician with a poster of a newborn with the caption, “A baby is God’s opinion that the world shall go on.”

The whole world is reborn in the face of a child. But don’t be surprised if she likes to play with toy firetrucks next Christmas. Or thinks she can grow little toothy fishes from the proverbial bean sprouting out of a filled dixie cup.

Welcome to the world, little sisters.

And so John and I went to the local Verizon store. The manager set up an Iphone 4S at full volume and I called home.

Standing in a noisy room full of people, I heard every word. It helped that I was talking to my husband and knew his voice well, but still–had it been my current phone, I would not have been able to make out a thing, even in speakerphone mode. Wow. Sold.

The manager came back over and chatted us up a bit. Can you turn Siri up louder too? No, he was sorry, you could not. John mentioned that we were going to buy online and the guy said that unless something said internet exclusive, he could match anything there. Double data on the droids? Sure.

Hey. We went home and grabbed Richard.

The process took hours, it was crazy, but it’s done. (Well, almost, the Iphones were on backorder and will be mailed.)

Annnnnd… There being rung up too and waiting for the system to do its belabored thing was a dad with a toddler being very well behaved but very bored at the very long process.

Lo and behold: a hand sanitizer dispenser to my left–thank you Verizon!–before I reached into my purse and found, you guessed it, a little banana-chomping monkey handknit finger puppet to entertain the little boy with and his older sister who suddenly appeared next to her daddy when there was something interesting to investigate. Sharing commenced and they were actually happy about it.

The dad went from tired to glowing. It was worth going in just to see that.

No UPS truck, rather, the Christmastime UPS bicycle brigade, a great few-days’ job for kids on winter break, and the young man already back to his bike called out to me from the dark, Season’s Greetings! Have a happy one!

Thank you! You too!

And another project got finished today too and is blocking. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good knit. (Um, all? I’d better, like, *really* hurry up…)

I’m picturing those bicycles rigged up as knitting machines cranking out as you pedal, creating tall socks ballooning behind them to alert drivers like the flags on those baby carriers. I gotta get me one of those. Hey, Santa? I want one. In Rube red and Gold-berg.