I have many thanks I owe to so many; I am grateful for your caring.

I was resting tonight, re-reading one of my favorite books, Rachel Remen’s “My Grandfather’s Blessings,” when the visual image came to me of sitting in my usual perch in the other room, knitting a large, soft afghan spread across my lap and way across the couch. Instantly I wanted to be doing that.  Later, I will.  For who, I have no idea yet, but there is an afghan somehow needing to be made: skeins to go through, design ideas to toss around, yarnovers to be wrapped.

But just the mental image comforted me greatly. I had knit just such an afghan; it was for my doctor who had willed me to live last time, when things were so much worse than they are now, who had pulled me through when things were so bad.  As soon as I was able to after I got out of the hospital, I put heart and soul with the encouragement of my family and put in stitch after stitch, hour after hour to share with him some of the time on this planet he had made it so I would have.  To thank his family as well for loaning so much of him to ours in our time of need.

The joy and stunned disbelief and humility with which he accepted it from my hands meant the world to me.

And that experience I can never duplicate; every moment belongs to itself.  But there is a soft afghan waiting to be made and discoveries to commence happening whose beginnings spread out before my eyes as I was reading, and I cannot wait to bring them to pass.

I wonder if anybody but me noticed: yesterday’s post kept changing. The farther away from the worst of the day that it got, the more positive the post became as my head cleared up post-anesthesia.

My Crohn’s blew right past my chemo and progressed.  End of chemo.  More tests must be done.

I said to Richard this morning, “I’m not as bad as I was five years ago!”

“You’re not far from it.”

I wanted to argue with him, but he was right.

I need to cast on for someone.  Create love where there is pain.  To selfishly help heal me as much as anything.

(Edited to add: looking at this is a good reminder to myself that I really am a whole lot better than I was then.)

The first two paragraphs below are for the googling masses:

Do not ever schedule anything for the day before a colonoscopy.  Ever.  I didn’t yesterday, but I have a friend who once had a business meeting scheduled she didn’t get to.

Two: they give you this gallon of thickened saltwater and tell you to drink 8 oz of it every 10-15 minutes.  What they don’t say, but I’ll tell you, is this: fill two glasses, one with the prep stuff and one with a plain glass of water.  Drink the prep stuff with the other hovering near your face, finish swallowing and IMMEDIATELY swish and spit with the plain water to get that taste out of your mouth.  Trust me.  It makes a huge difference.

Tomorrow I’ll start a new lace shawl project. And hey, Kristine? I went all out. I wore your beaded socks today to represent all my friends standing by me.

Being a good little blogger, I brought my camera so I could take pictures of the operating room before they knocked me senseless, but when I told Richard on the drive there, he was shaking his head going, “Oh, no you don’t.”

“But I won’t take pictures of the people!”

“Oh no you don’t, I seriously don’t think they’ll let you.”

So I left my camera with him.

I’m suddenly picturing the doctors scrubbed up and me trying to hand them my camera to put away since I wouldn’t have been able to reach well with that IV in my hand and all, and… Yeah.  I can just picture my doctor thinking suddenly of one more reason to tell my husband thank you.  Although, Richard offered to scan in the Crohn’s-in-real-life! photos we got sent home with and to put them on my blog, and I exclaimed, “No way, no you don’t!”

But what’s a good husband for but to be a good tease when you need one.  Made me laugh.

Out with the old.

In with the new.

Happy New Year’s!

And whatever you do, try not to rig the overstuffed fridge so that the person who’s allergic to dairy will get smacked with the falling milk jug,  ‘mkay?

You know your daughter loves you when she looks at her new pants and laughs and says, “Mom, you HAVE to take a picture of this!”