By, say, wearing a cool Sock Summit t-shirt and a Sock Summit pin and wearing Sock Gate-colorway socks, dyed by Tina (you have to knit them first) when actually, no, you weren’t at Sock Summit.

This drive-by knitting gift landed in my mailbox today, from Nancy, crediting JoAnne, with a little tag in there from Ellen, and saying Stephanie approved.  A group hug, it sounds like.  Thank you doesn’t begin to express the sense of wonder at being included like this.  Wow.  Cool.  Thank you!

I confess to cowardice last month: I did tell my surgeon there was a knitting conference. I waited to see his reaction before I was going to specify that it was actually not just that, but a sock knitting conference–and then somehow as we talked about things related to the kinds of stitches he was going to be doing, it never quite came up.

Heh.  I know how I can make it obvious now. Now that I’ve broken him in on the general idea, with my husband enthusiastically nodding that oh yes, thousands of knitters come to these knitting conferences, I can show that indeed we do.

And now that I have been made well at his and the other surgeons’ hands, next time I won’t have to miss it. Or even worry about missing it.  I can’t tell you what a gift that is.

Meantime, this is what Sea Silk looks like in Glacier when it’s damp, which it won’t be for very long. One more finished!  Silly doctors probably don’t realize the post-op is supposed to be a grand reunion time: my head surgeon will just have to go play a knitterly Santa Claus afterwards, I imagine.  Think he’ll mind?

Thinking back to the first pre-op appointment: there was a parade of people, from a medical researcher hoping to sign up a new subject to a physician’s assistant to a younger woman who came in after the doctor with forms in hand, asking my permission to let her be a part of the surgical team as part of her training.

I liked her on the spot and told her yes.

When she greeted me just before the operation last Wednesday, I looked her in the eye, smiled, and told her in a tone that I think affirmed that I believed she would, “Do a good job.”

She stopped by often afterwards to check on me, and Sunday, from my hospital bed, I reminded her that I had said that. And then I told her: “When I was brought into the recovery room, I saw your face.  I knew that you knew you had.  And you were proud.”

I got to see her beaming proudly all over again.

I’ve been thinking for a few days, and it seems only one yarn will do.  There’s enough for a good scarf yet.  If you’ve read the story of the Bluejay shawl, shown above (with most of its fulness at the back of the chair), you understand why the leftover yarn I have from that project would be the perfect yarn for a young colorectal surgeon.  A beautiful outcome from a situation rather less so, and… Yeah. That one.  My way of saying thank you.

And, like every patient–and doctor or nurse for that matter–that skein of indigo baby alpaca, so unusually custom-dyed, is a one of a kind. As far as my dyepot adventures are concerned, having no desire to, say, scatter suet or peanuts or birdseed on my wet hanks and wait for the moment, there will never again be anything quite like it.

A stray thought: as I told Carol, I’m dilaudid to know how to spell that med finally.

I overdid it yesterday. I paid for it. Talked to the surgeon’s nurse. Don’t want to go back in this time around, so I’m trying to take it easier today, but it’s hard to stay down.

While I was knitting away in the hospital, I asked someone their favorite color.  They quite liked the one I was working with, but it was already earmarked and I didn’t have enough of it for two, so I was thinking, not a problem. I’ll just go dye this lovely white that’s in my stash when I get home.

Oh. Wait. Not supposed to lift anything over 10 pounds for six weeks, and how heavy is that dyepot?  Right.  Purlescence may just have to put up with me buying yarn.  I think they can manage that.

So I’ve been finishing up the pink alpaca project at hand, alternating with lying down reading a good book Robin sent me called “The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be.”  As in, he wouldn’t act like a normal dog: he could climb up and down ladders, trees (down: not so much), walk along six-foot-high fencelines. Marley Fowat is the author, it was originally published in 1957, and I wonder if that’s where the famous dog Marley got his name.

My favorite part is when someone from New York, whose train was just about to leave, got told by the local yokels there on the plains in Saskatoon that Mutt was a Prince Albert Retriever (there was no such thing) and the finest hunting dog on the planet.

He bet them $100 Mutt was not.

It was July, not hunting season at all, but local dignity must be maintained. So the men showed up hoping for a demonstration.

Mutt’s owner got out his rifle. In the middle of downtown.  Mutt was immediately interested but confused because… Summertime? Here? And the guy shot off his unloaded gun, declaring, “Bang Bang. Go get’em, Mutt!”

The dog took off like a shot, nearly mowing two women down. Came back very soon after with a perfect ruffed grouse in his mouth.

The men were going wh a a a …. Then one noticed it was stuffed. Moments later, the owner of a store down the street came running in, yelling about the dog stealing the stuffed grouse they kept on display in their shop’s window.

Hey. Owner uses gun, owner wants bird, owner gets bird, right?

The man’s son, writing this memoir years later, said that that story made national Canadian news.

And it’s helped me take it easy like I needed to.  I’m afraid of letting it end. So I’m up for just a few to go blog.

I was just coming out of my room on Richard’s arm for a walk when a young dad approached with a baby in a front pack, I’d guess about 14 months old,  wiggling her little legs in delight at life in general.

Turned out they belonged to my new roommate.  I got to hear happy baby babbling sounds at the same time I was reading an essay in Sharon Randall’s book about her son’s wedding, wherein she reminisces about what it was like to be a first-time mother to him and how wonderful it was to see her son a happy man with a wonderful wife, and yet, admitting how much she missed hearing the language that only the little ones can speak.

I wanted to hand my roommate the book on the spot.  But instead, when her baby started sounding fussy, I called out to them, (well yes of *course* I had one with me) and offered her husband a fingerpuppet for her, figuring he was the most mobile person in the room just then.

Then I got to listen to happy babbling sounds mixed with little-person giggles. If I hadn’t had a newly-stitched-up belly, I’d have asked for a chance to get to hold the baby, too.

The dad was in and out for a moment here and there, and after that fingerpuppet, as he was coming back in, his daughter in his arms, she eyeballed me with the very biggest grin on her face.  She knew a grandma type on the spot.  I was utterly charmed.

One last thing I had to go through before they could send me home: they had to remove a tube.  It didn’t look so big or bad, really, and a medical student was sent to go do the job.  I was on vicodin, but my stars. I couldn’t help but gasp and I was holding tight to the side of the bed and Richard’s hand.

The student said, It’s not supposed to be this bad, excuse me a moment, and she went running for a member of the surgery team.

They decided to give me a dose in my IV of dilaudad to make it easier on me. Almost immediately after it went in…

…Their voices got thin and tinny like a static-y radio, the highest frequencies (ie some of the consonants in the words) disappeared, and I was struggling to hear.

Oh! Was I on that coming out of surgery?

Yes, answered the resident.

Now we know.  Now we know.  Thank goodness for a tube that didn’t want to come out.  And then when it did come out, I could see why: the part inside was a whole lot wider. Think about a size 13 needle trying to squeeze through a size 5 opening, and they mentioned there were probably blood clots getting in the way as well.

Anyway, that’s done and I’m home.

And came home to what Michelle had described as looking like a pillow from Peru.  It was a thin muslin fabric, hand whip-stitched closed along one edge.  I carefully cut it open and she and I spread out and sorted 100 finger puppets.  Dolls, fish, birds, animals, alligators, bugs, even a few cartoon characters.  Cost with shipping was 36 cents each.

I felt like a little kid counting their Halloween loot. I said to Michelle, “Look at all this happiness waiting to happen!”

She got the first smile.

I love Romi’s *roving badge touring Sock Summit!  So much for Monty Python: “Badges? Badges! We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!” Yes, we do.  What a cool idea.

I tried to catch up on my email yesterday and found it too big a job, but I want you all to know how much I appreciate every note and every comment. I didn’t say things too well on the blog, though: they took me off the IV painkiller, but oh goodness, I am definitely still on vicodin.

The roommate I’ve had all along got discharged this morning and came over to say goodbye before she left. She couldn’t quite stand up straight yet, she said.  She was wearing bluejeans and I winced for her and silently wished she had a jumper to go home in too.  But I realized afterwards that I’d let that distract me and I’d missed my chance to tell her something far more important: that when her husband and family had come in every evening, the joy and the love that radiated through the curtain was just wonderful to hear and a real blessing to me that I’d needed.  I’m too deaf to have overheard any conversations, but the part that mattered, that came through loud and clear.  The caring. The joy.

My abysmally low blood pressure was getting in the way of my healing–there’s a risk of pneumonia if you don’t get moving post-op, and I did just enough coughing to realize I surely didn’t want to go there.  But at the same time, they didn’t want me walking if I couldn’t get that top number to 80.  One of the surgeons on duty decided last night to try infusing me with albumen to see if that would help.

Boy did it.  I was walking for ten minutes soon after, with the very last of the IV bottle bubbling up–Richard said it looked like angel food cake batter being worked up. So now I can say I’ve mainlined angel food cake (still waiting to be able to claim that on chocolate.)  Pass the whipped cream.

I asked the nurse where the albumen comes from; she didn’t know. Richard promptly googled from the laptop and answered, Cows.

Cows?

Cows.

So does this mean someone who’s allergic to eggs could still have angel food cake? (Notice the one-track mind.) Freeze some crushed Heath bars to sprinkle in that whipped cream, okay?

Meantime, nobody’s been able to find that ziploc stuffed with scarves since I arrived. I’m sure I’ll find them immediately once I’m the one looking. But I managed to sit up long enough to finish a nearly-done one this morning, and the nurse I’ve had for the last few days was not comprehending as I explained how to rinse and lay it out to dry for the lacework to stand out and the thing to lengthen. It matched her shirt pretty well.  It was fun watching her face light up when she realized I really meant this thing she’d seen me working on was for her. Elann Baby Silk yarn, baby alpaca/silk.

Seeing someone’s face light up at being knit for.  Reclaiming Real Life in that moment.  Getting better is a cakewalk now.

*Roving is the word for fiber that has been washed, carded, and is ready to spin. I just needed to let Don in on the pun here.

During my pre-op appointment, I ratted myself out to the surgical team and told them about my oxygen levels setting off the alarm at 78 and 80% post-op last time, warning them that whatever amount of morphine the self-administering pump had been set for, it was too high, even though I knew how much I was going to want that med.

That was one of my biggest issues going in.  Untreatable pain. What I didn’t expect was, they took that into account, took me seriously, and put me on a slightly different painkiller, and, they put me on oxygen so it wouldn’t be an issue. I don’t love plastic up my nose, but for that, it’s definitely okay with me.

I’m off both now. I’m far from fine but still, I keep telling myself this is easier than last time.

The surgeon’s first words out of his mouth on Wednesday when he saw me were, So. You decided not to go to your knitting conference?

As if!  I wish. I’d have been there! But it showed he cared what was important to me.

You up in Portland, is it wonderful there or what?

They tried to get me to walk today. but at 78/35 bp when I stood up… A little later we got it to 83/39 and I did actually make it across the room and back.

That phlebotomist hasn’t come back in here. They did hear me on that one.

I wanted to knit today, always a good sign. One problem: the resident who put in my IV (always have a nurse do the needles…) put it in the crook of my arm. Every time I bend my arm I set off the alarm, but hey, I can hear it now.

Somehow my bag of scarves didn’t make it in here as far as Michelle could tell. I haven’t made it to that side of the room yet to see for myself, but she looked pretty carefully.

Coming into recovery was scary–I couldnt hear. With my hearing aids. Nobody knows why.  It’s gradually coming back and is better mostly.

the phlebotomist filled a glove with warm water to raise a vein–and dropped it casually on my belly. The small scream she got still didnt clue her in much–she then leaned it against my belly.

ive made a point of saying shes not to work on me again. she wasnt mean, just in way too much of a hurry.

Im trying to be a nice patient but Im not doing a great job yet.

Alison is too out of it to post tonight. As one of the children said, “Another part bit the dust” I just left her side and she is pretty beat up. Believe it or not but she is frowning while she drifting in and out of it. The anesthesia knocked out her already bad hearing, but that seems to be improving slowly. They are trying to get her pain under control. She does not remember much of the day. They were happy with how it went. Maybe in a few days she will be, but not right now. Don’t expect much for a few days as she needs to recover. I will show her comments tomorrow if she is up to it.

(Elann.com Baby Silk, two skeins to finish, 5mm needles, Michelle shawl lace pattern, four repeats plus edging, not yet finished/not blocked. Another nurse scarf-to-be.)

Saturday, it did not look good, I admitted during my appointment today, giving the dermatologist details.

That concerned him.

But then, as he got a look at the site of the staph infection, it turned out it had gotten much better under there in the interim and I exclaimed my relief as he peeled back part of the bag. He looked in my eyes, knowing what I needed to know, and told me, his voice sharing his own relief, “I see nothing now that would give a surgeon pause before going ahead.”

Thank goodness.

A very small part of my brain that I’ve been squelching hard wants to pipe up with, No? Are you sure?  Could you, like, maybe, look harder?

A quick knitting note: I worked out a pattern and started a shawl a few days ago in a 65/35 cashmere/superfine merino blend…and then had the same hesitation I’ve always had in the half dozen years I’ve owned that yarn.

It is lovely, lovely, soft stuff. But…  I finally handed Michelle two strands of it and asked her to pull them apart.  Zero effort–foof, done.

I asked her advice, and her reaction was she would never wear something where she would be afraid a wedding ring would catch on it the first time she wore it and then that would be the end of all that work.

I took the needles out, sealed it back in its bag, and put it back in its corner. Maybe someday I’ll ply it with something stronger.  To be sure, then, I tug-tested my Fino baby alpaca/silk I’d bought at Purlescence.  No breaking. Guess which one I’m knitting?

A bit of medical stuff:

After all the grief in January, I must give them credit.

Caremark sent me a letter recently, as I’ve mentioned, and then a second to reiterate the point, denying me not only my anti-nausea med because I didn’t have one of two specific types of cancer, but denying my doctor the right to prescribe an IV dose of it above a certain level.

This is stupid. This is a med that can help keep me out of the hospital, given my low blood pressure’s inability to tolerate barfing.

They told me I could appeal.

It took me awhile to do. A friend showed me a sample letter for a formal, matter-of-fact medical appeal to follow.

I couldn’t write it. I tried. I just couldn’t.

I finally sat down about a week ago and wrote the letter *I* needed to write, spelling out exactly what they had done in January and why their stance was again medically unreasonable.  That I might have been able to keep my colon had they responded in a timely manner earlier.  Telling them in no uncertain terms what I expected them to do and to do it right.  NOW. I snailmailed it to them and a copy to Blue Cross. A lawyer was mentioned as a possibility.

I got a call today from a nurse working for Blue Cross. She made no direct mention of that letter.  But she was appalled when she heard the details from back then and told me exactly what she was going to do to follow up on that. Meantime, she gave me her name, her phone number, her fax number, her colleague’s name as a backup, and told me if I had any problem authorizing anything, contact her immediately, and if I had a problem at an after-hours time, call this other number.  She told me Caremark had no business whatsoever with in-hospital dosages, not even at Urgent Care, they only had any possible say in home health care after the hospitalization.  Any problem, call her. And fax this form from their site so that Richard could call on my behalf if need be.

I was gobsmacked. They actually did the right thing. Someone at my insurance is actually on my side now.  Wow. Cool.

Ah, my, trying to figure out a way to write about this one in a way my mother won’t object to…

Okay, first: in answer to the question about whether I named the toy white cell Sam sent me? Leuk, of course, short for leukocyte.  Leuk! Leuk! Use the Farce!

Ahem. Next: I have a few skirts made from a microfiber polyester suede-look fabric. I love natural fibers, but these have earned their keep. They’re pretty imperturbable, indestructible, and in my experience, given that they don’t absorb stuff, they are definitely un-stainable. (They also seem much more a California fabric to me than something I’d wear back home in 100% humidity and heat in the summer.)

On to our story.

Ways to be of service do not always come in pretty packages, and when they don’t, the chance of the moment is completely in how you unwrap them.

I had a pre-op appointment at the hospital early this afternoon. They were very thorough. They wanted to know absolutely everything.

And I drove that poor nurse nuts.  She was clearly not having a good day before she ever laid eyes on me, and in comes this fuzzy-memoried woman who can’t remember what year she had which complication of lupus or Crohn’s. How long have you had…  How long has this…  Sixteen years or eighteen?  One month of really being an issue, or…?  (How do I know how much is an issue to you when it’s not to me and it hasn’t been to my doctors?)   Blood pressure 86/45 ON the med to raise it?! Do you feel dizzy?  You *don’t*?

Nah, this is normal to me.

She got on the phone to my cardiologist’s office asking for further details to be faxed in, and in came another nurse with an EKG machine. The first one asked me a few questions, rolled her eyes at me, and let the EKG begin.

At the end, (it was normal), the EKG nurse drew the curtain for me to get dressed again and left, and the irritable nurse suddenly heard a sharp exclamation of OHMYGOODNESS! And then, since there was a sink and soap on my side of the curtain, a, “How do you turn on the water!?”

“Foot pedals.” And then she called to me, in rising concern, “Is everything all right?”

Oh my goodness. In the grand scheme of things, well, yeah. In the moment, no.  Going to tuck in my shirt, I had somehow hit the little loop at the top of the two-piece ileostomy bag and–it had never even occurred to me that such a thing could happen–the thing had burst apart across the inside of my lower clothes. I shut it back up and washed my hands, but my stars. It was bad.

I thought back to one doctor who’d told me confidently, “And now that you’ve gotten comfortable with the bag…” where I almost interrupted him to ask sweetly and innocently, Oh–did I say that?

Here’s one saving grace: hot cocoa for breakfast does not stink in such circumstances. (An aside to Dad: I am SO justified! Neener neener. Heh.)

I apologized to the nurse for stinking anyway, feeling that it’s always good to care about one’s impact on others.  She assured me she smelled not a thing.

Thinking back, I was a tad rueful, surely, but I did not get upset. Sometimes things just happen.

And from that point on, she thawed.  She knew and I knew there was nothing I could do till I got home and showered, and I think whatever was wrong with her day, she was probably thinking it wasn’t as bad as walking down the hallway hoping that… my problem didn’t get…worse… (Where’s that guy with that mopping machine?) I wasn’t entirely sure that thing was entirely secure now.

But you know, when that nurse comes back to where she can laugh again in her life, whether that’s tomorrow after a good night’s sleep or whether it’ll take a little longer than that, she’ll be swapping this story with other nurses for a very long time to come. The ileostomy patient who flipped herself off.  Ohmygoodness.

That blessedly indestructible skirt kept my not-tucked-in silk blouse completely clean all the way home.  Nobody walking down the busy main hallway at Stanford Hospital could tell anything was wrong as I went back to my car.

And there was a jumper, for wearing post-op, made out of that same fabric, waiting in a box for me outside my door when I got home.

The staph infection came roaring back on cue.

The antibiotics have begun.

The show shall go on. No delay.

The pharmacist said how to take the stuff four times a day while out cold was the surgeon’s problem.

But–no sitting up for two weeks post-op!?  How am I supposed to do thank-you knitting afterwards?  Plan ahead, I guess, and work hard.

The ruby yarn got swatched today–I was determined to play with it at least some to get it out of my system for now, and now I know better what I’ll be doing with it, what changes to make to adjust to gauge.   To be knitted up the rest of the way in its own good time.

A small thud.  A bird hit the window behind me but kept right on flying as I turned to see, veering away from the glass and out of danger, not feeling so great for the moment but thankfully okay.

To answer the question–yes, the surgeon encouraged me to go ahead to Sock Summit if I wanted to first: go live your life! The answer was I would dearly love to, but with Richard shaking his head reminding me of the reality of what the Crohn’s is doing right now, there was no way.

Thus I got a phone call this morning from the hospital. Wednesday the 5th it is. (Ed. to add: you know you’re a knitter when you interpret that as one Knit Night away.)

————-

I’d be curious to know if other city dwellers have noticed these patterns.

I finally figured out what was missing when I finally saw one doing it. I don’t know if it’s an urban squirrel thing, ie behaviors stemming from the lack of predators, or a young squirrel thing.  But based on what I’ve seen, it’s definitely the former.

I knew it was important to train our local population from the moment they discovered our birdfeeder, and, playing the wild woman at them, I did–none of the squirrels tries to climb to or leap on it anymore, and if they see me coming, even from inside, they don’t amble away from the birdseed on the ground, they flat-out RUN. Especially ever since the day one fell off the awning onto the concrete in its mad scramble.  Ouch.  (It recovered quickly.)  I guess word got out.

The thing that has changed is this: I’ve always thought squirrels were cute. And part of why I thought they were cute was the way they eat: picking up the bit of food and then sitting up alert, nibbling away with it held to their mouths while their tails are curled tightly up against them shaped like an effort at a treble clef.  Constantly looking around, constantly being alert to their environment. Tuned in. Twitching the end of their tails at the slightest sign of danger to warn others, first just a bit while it’s curled up against them, then, as the sense of danger intensifies, in bigger twitches with their tails spread out like a flag in the wind behind them just before they break out into a run for the trees.

Our squirrels didn’t do that.  No sitting up. No curled tails at all.  No twitching. They just moseyed along, noses to the ground, tails listless and flat, chewing as they went, and that was that. Never sitting up at the table using proper manners. Never holding the food up to their mouths in their paws.  Never warning other squirrels, whether from the trees or on the ground or anywhere ever.

Now that ours have learned to be afraid of me, they’ve started to take note of their surroundings, to sit up a bit, to even curl their tails. (And it looks like a bad comb-over on one that has a particularly thin tail.) Only sometimes and usually only halfway up, but they’re getting the idea. One actually twitched his–it was so strikingly unusual, and shouldn’t have been, that it grabbed my attention immediately.

Sitting up and eating with paws to mouth rather than skulking like a rat–now you’re getting there! Warning others of dangers rather than only thinking about yourself.  Acting more like a member of a community.

I feel like I’ve sent my squirrels to finishing school or something.

Re the palm trees in yesterday’s post: Richard’s reaction was, Oh, they trim those all the time.  Then we drove past them this morning, and he went, Wow. They really did!

Re the acorns in Tuesday’s post: I’ll admit it now, one of my reactions was, oh my goodness, look at all those, that’s almost as big as *my* stash!

Re the surgeon: kudos to him for his reaction to my saying, in response to his asking if there were anything I was putting off doing before the surgery, that I’d wanted to go to a knitting conference in Portland.  (Saying “Sock Summit” to a man I’d just met, much less one about to cut into me, was just pushing too far–I wanted this guy on my side without starting out by weirding him out.)

He got this wistful-looking smile on his face, eyes off in the distance, mouth absent-mindedly halfway open, and then repeated the words,  approvingly but a little wide-eyed, “A knitting conference.”

Yes, I told him, with Richard nodding his head, and explained that I’d written a knitting book (still on sale at Knitpicks) that was selling very well.  He loved it; he told me his daughter was a knitter and that he was going to have to go buy a copy.

Okay, I already liked the guy on the spot and now I’m totally a fan. And in case his daughter doesn’t know about it (note that I have no idea how old she is) I am so going to pass along the word about Stitches West next February right in our own backyard for her.  Heh.

Yeah, (checking the Ravelry membership stats, 398, 424 registered users as of this writing) there are a few of us other knitters out there to help keep her company there.