What I didn’t mention yesterday was, Sam offered to take me to Coupa Cafe to celebrate my being able to eat chocolate right after my Dr. R. appointment on Wednesday, and I just wasn’t up to it; I went home and crashed.  So when she went out with an old high school girlfriend in the evening, she came home with a cup of it for me anyway because she wanted me not to miss out.

Good stuff!  And then I really wanted to go there.  Friday, going off to see the surgeon, I was able to swing my right leg into the car without having to pick it up and toss it over for the first time in forever.  I can’t tell you how good that felt.  Then my surgeon was exclaiming at how well I looked as I thanked her for making that possible.

That did it. I was taking Sam to Coupa Cafe on the way home to gift her back and to celebrate.

She found a parking space in the next block and across the busiest street in downtown.  Now, just a few days earlier I could never have done this, but I made it across that street in the time of the walk signal.  (Defensively, with a smile, eyeballing the impatient driver halfway in the crosswalk who’d nearly run the light and who looked ready to gun it when it changed, ready or not.)  When I told my legs to move they actually did, even if the steps weren’t as big as I told them to do.

We walked up the block, got ourselves a table, and had a grand old time.  A little mango mousse cake may have been involved too.  (I just now finished it off.)

My knitting still feels slow and awkward, but I’m up to being able to do 40 minutes’ worth at a stretch now.  And I am slowly, gradually turning back into being human.  Stitches West next Friday afternoon, and hopefully Saturday too, here I come!

p.s. Just for fun: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1151ap_obama_basketball_parents.html The Obamas went to go watch their daughter play basketball at the elementary school my husband went to.  I like that!

That’s been my phrase for it.  It was the yahoo KnitTalk group that started using my name as a verb, but drive-by knitting was always my phrase for it.

I like the responses in the comments to Dad’s suggestions, and thank you. The easiest thing to do would be to set up a Ravelry place for people to share stories, there already being a place for pictures of projects and yarns there, although that excludes the non-Ravelry subscribers.  The stories are what inspire, they’re what help get people going, and I’d go for any way to make that happen, Ravelry or however.

Meantime, I got driven past, myself: a turtle showed up in the mail today, a water turtle to match my shawl pattern, one could say, because Diana felted it.  I love the cheerful colors.  Thank you!

I saw my surgeon this morning, and she was highly pleased at my progress and at the condition of my stoma and incision.  But just seeing me looking my normal self, cheerful and no longer a lump in a bed–it made her day. This is why she does what she does. To make people healthy again.

I thanked her for saving my life, and she was a bit abashed for a moment–but she had, and she knew it and I knew it.  She had admired my book in the hospital, so next I gave her a copy with that thank you for my saving my life there in the inscription.  Put it in writing.  Keep it for always. Know that the work you do and the way you go about it, visiting your patients every day before and after, is important, dear woman.  I asked her to thank her husband for loaning her to me for all that time she spent on me, which was considerable.

I did feel I had to explain to her as I stumbled trying to get up on the exam table that in real life, I use a cane for my balance.  (I don’t think she’d noticed it against the wall)  because of that car accident way back when.

Anyway. Jennie and I celebrated afterwards by going to Coupa Cafe downtown.  (I wish their site included the gorgeous long photo on the wall of the farm.)  This is a well-loved local hole-in-the-wall bringing Venezualan coffee and cacao beans directly from farm to here.  Theirs is seriously good stuff (I’m told the coffee is too) and the fact that we actually got a table almost right away was highly unusual.  If you ever want to celebrate being able to eat chocolate, this is definitely the place to do it.

And celebrate we did.  To life!

I talked to my Dad on the phone today. Remember when he said he had an idea for knitters?  He’d written it up and he wanted to know if I would let it be a blog post here.  I said sure, Dad–and then he made me absolutely promise not to touch it, not to edit a single word.

Ooookayyyy…  You know you’re in trouble when…  I promised.

Oh, and Dad? The last time I saw Grandmother Jeppson before she passed, I was admiring the afghans she’d made and wishing I had the patience someday to knit a project that big.

I think she’d be pleased.

Now, being the daughter, I think I’m nowhere quite near as famous as Dad thinks I am, nor that I deserve to be.  I also squirm when people describe my name as a verb the way he’s referring to.  There are many knitters more generous than I.  I don’t give things away to be on record; I do it for the selfish reason that it makes me feel wonderful, not to mention the person I’ve knit for.  I also tend to knit scarves or the like when I don’t know the person well: it’s a small enough project that if they’re not thrilled to the bone, it’s okay, it didn’t take me six months to do.  But the goodwill in the knitting is just the same, large project or small, and I certainly do a fair number of large projects to give as well.

All that said, I’ll sit down, be quiet, and let Dad have his say:

Knitters’ Idea

Five or six years ago while watching Alison knit something she intended to give away I suggested that she make a log of what she had knitted and to whom she had given it.  I thought it would make an interesting record. She moaned, saying she could not remember many of them. We finally concluded she probably had given away 200 of her wares. I would not be surprised if the total now came closer to 500. She may wish to correct these figures.
Whatever the number, Alison has become so internationally known for knitting things which she could give to special, and usually unsuspecting, people that her name has become a verb describing the act. “To Alison someone.” The harrowing attack of Crohn’s from which she is recovering has demonstrated how much she is admired and loved.
Knitting something and giving it to an unsuspecting person is an act of kindness that can have wonderful, extensive, and long-lasting repercussions. The practice deserves encouragement. I would like to suggest to followers of spindyeknit, and to others as the word is spread, a means of fostering this goodness.
I suggest the creating–either as merely an informal grouping, or later as a legal entity–of The Alison Hyde Knitters Gifts Foundation. It could work along three different lines or levels.
1. It would simply be a database. Knitters would be encouraged to Alison someone–and whenever possible send to the database a photo of the object, the story behind the gift, the name of knitter/giver, and something about the recipient (just described, not necessarily named). As this information accumulates in a fashion that anyone can access, the practice will spread. This will likely generate additional comradery among knitters.
2. Knitters (or others) who have surplus yarn can list it on the database as something they will give to any recipient who will promise to knit the yarn into something she/he will give away. Recipients might be expected to pay incoming postage and sign some sort of pledge form.
3.  In its ultimate possible development, yarn producers or importers who have a surplus product might donate it to the Foundation for distribution as in No. 2 above. At this level the Foundation probably would need to be legally established as a charitable entity so that major donors would be motivated by some tax benefit. Perhaps there is a knitter or a spouse who could handle this. Also, if the Foundation develops to this stage it probably will need to do a little fund raising to cover expenses.
I am not a knitter, although I have been the nation’s foremost expert on modern, handwoven French tapestries for many years. But my mother was a knitter, and maybe that gene passed to Alison. During World War II, the entire country was mobilized..  Every community had volunteer projects to help the war effort in some fashion. We lived in Carson City, Nevada, which, though the state capital, had only about 3,000 people. My parents had three sons, no daughters. My oldest brother, Robert, was the supply officer on the Petroff Bay, a pocket aircraft carrier which fought in every major pacific battle of the last two years of the war, including the brutal Battle of Leyte Gulf. My next brother, Richard, although he is in the history books as Morris, was in the Air Corps and used to write our parents not to worry about him because a few weeks after he got overseas the war would be over. No one believed that. Turned out Richard was the weapons officer
on the Enola Gay who armed the atom bomb and was the last person to touch it. I quit high school to volunteer in the Army Specialized Training Program and was training to become a combat engineer.
One of the volunteer projects in Carson City was a band of knitters under the Red Cross. I’ll let my mother tell of it, as she wrote afterwards in her life story.
“….the war years brought so much worry and heart aches to parents of sons. I was really resentful when (Lawrence’s) call came–he was 17. We already had sent our other two sons and he seemed too young to leave home. When we put him on the bus for Pasadena and it pulled away it was almost more than I could bear.
“Just before and during the war I was in turn knitting chairman and County Production Chairman of the Red Cross. We produced an unbelievable amount of hospital garments, sweaters, kits, etc., during this period. I spent an average of five hours a day, six days a week for over two years in this particular service–feeling that if I worked hard enough maybe the war would end sooner and my sons would come home.”
So I am very sympathetic to knitters and aware of the substantial good they can do.
—Lawrence Jeppson, Alison’s Dad.

So I went in for a post-hospital visit to my Dr. R.  Many things to go over. An MRI to order just to make sure that that liver is recovered and fine now that the inflamed colon is no longer bothering it.

Before we ended I told him I had to ask him one perhaps silly question.

Okay.

The hospital had told me that I was not allowed to eat chocolate; could I finally have my morning mug of hot cocoa now?

He got indignant and sputtered, “Where do they come UP with these…! YES have your mug, go have some chocolate!” Go enjoy!

My kind of doctoring.  You know what I did first thing to celebrate when I got home from the appointment.  And it surprised me: I’d forgotten what it tasted like, I honestly did.

I’ll have fun getting re-acquainted.

I need to work on those leg muscles a little more. I got down to snap these photos and couldn’t get back up off the floor by myself, which surprised me.  I keep thinking I’m more recovered than that.  I finally scooted over to a chair and table in the kitchen and pulled myself up–while reminding myself I couldn’t have done that at all before.  One week ago was the day I came home, and I had to have help even getting up out of a chair most of the time, much less climbing up into one.  Where my rear landed on the bed was where it was going to be for the night, with me having to lift my legs over and up with my arms.  I don’t have to do that now.  Every day there’s a little more progress made, and the “hey I can DO that now!” realizations that keep coming are very cheering.

I needed to take these photos. The soft appleblossom is a gift from Rena, my knitswap pal; the deep red, a gift from my father.  Thank you, Dad! Thank you, Rena!

My daughter Sam has been doing the most wonderful job of helping out.  She is right there for me, anticipating when I need to be drinking a little more to keep hydrated, something I need to watch, helping me decipher what the ostomy supplier on the phone is saying, straightening out my kitchen shelves and working hard.  And how many moms get one-on-one time like this with their married child?

My daughter-in-law’s mom Ann stopped by today with some elegant soaps, a bouquet of white tulips, and a hug to make my day.  Her dad had surgery today so she was in town, and I wish him a speedy recovery.

As always, she was thinking of others.  And I am the lucky recipient of that.  Wow.

Sheila Ernst has been ill herself and yet thought outside herself as well and surprised me with a beautiful pair of her handmade glass circulars, in colors I love (“Blue Moon”), blue running to gold and green and in the size, 9, she knew I use more than any other in my shawl knitting.  Some handblown glass stitch markers were in the package too.

And then there’s all the support from all of you.  I feel well loved.  How could I not heal quickly?

This is the beautiful shawl Mary surprised me with Thursday night.  I did finally find a camera, and of course it was right in plain sight. It had just enough battery power to shoot the one thing I most needed photographed, and then, to keep me humble, that was all it was going to do for the day.

My house is chilly and I find myself folding this in half and putting it over my shoulders constantly while at my favorite knitting and reading perch here.

Meantime, I finally picked up the needles last night and gave it a try. I cast on 27 for that green scarf–the scarf idea won out–and had to rest after two rows.  Then again after a few more. But I found myself picking up steam, going from wow size 9 needles feel big in my hands, to having it begin to feel natural and normal again. It felt so good to actually start to create what I’d been envisioning so long and to anticipate being well enough to walk clear across the hospital to where its recipient works.

Sam and my husband came home from shopping and found me sitting there with a growing piece of knitting in my hands.  It was fun to see their faces light up in delight.  They were thrilled.  Me too.  Me too.

While snug and warm in my shawl and under my Medicine Blanket (skip down to the third paragraph, and Robert, I hope to see you at Stitches) and another afghan made by my South Bay Knitters friends that they surprised me with as a congratulations when my book got published.

And life is good.  Cold around here–I badly need to gain some weight back and stop losing it–but my friends are taking good care of keeping me warmed.

When I was at Purlescence Thursday night, I showed them some of the yarns and the hat and Jasmin’s cashmere mitts that they’d all gifted me with in a big basket left on my doorstep right before I went into the hospital.  Jasmin’s homegrown oranges were at the bottom.

I told them that with those yarns, they’d given me hope and a sense of looking to the future while things were at their worst: because with each new nurse that came into my hospital room, I would think, ooh, (formerly) No-Blog-Rachel’s Dream Baby would look so good on her!  The Moobui would look so good on that one! Ooh, Mari’s Lisa Souza yarn would be perfect for me to knit for her!

I had over 40 nurses, and most of them I would knit for in a heartbeat and I dearly wanted to.  More than I could ever do what I wish I could do for them.

But that sense of anticipation, that desire to knit for them to tell them thank you, having yarn that was shared with me to make me feel better with and wanting to use it to pass the goodwill along–it did make me feel better. It helped get me through it all.

And I told each nurse thank you every chance I got. That much, at least, I could reliably do.

(Yeah, the cameras are still hiding out under the medical supplies or some such. Organizing is for a little later in the process.)

Mom called; I hadn’t posted yet today and she was concerned that I was doing okay.  (Yeah, Mom, I’m outing you, sorry.)  Message heard! Alive and posting!  Heh.

I wanted to go to Purlescence’s Knit Night last night, to the point that I deliberately kind of backed myself into it by calling them and saying I hoped to, and that if anyone happened to show up sick could they let me know so I could stay away?

When they heard my voice on the phone–actually, I had to identify myself, my voice is still raspy from that NG tube–the whole yarn store sent up a cheer.

That did it. I was going.

But by 7:30 I was also popping a hydrocodone to get me through it, and I avoid those and almost never take them till bedtime.  Oh well. I needed it.  My daughter, who I’ll call here by her nickname of Sam even though I obnoxiously still call her by her real name in person, did the driving.

We were about two blocks from home when she offered to turn around. I considered, and then said, no, let’s just go.  And go we did.

I stumbled in that yarn store door and into the arms and tears of my friends.  There were quite a few tears of mine going, too.  And then–

You remember Mary?  The one who made it so I could take back the shawl in the window and ship it to the woman whose husband had a brain tumor?

She handed me a circular lace shawl, warm enough for a lap robe as needed, absolutely exquisite.  I was blown away.  Later, home again, I laid it out across the top of the couch so it would again make my day this morning when I came out and saw it, and it did.  It’s gorgeous.  It’s Mary. It’s love made tangible.

Mary had lately had a project with a deadline, and she told me this other project–my shawl–nevertheless kept insisting it must go first. She couldn’t make herself get going on the deadline one till this other demanding one was satisfied and done; it just insisted it of her. And I was stunned.  And stunned that she must have gotten it done so fast. Stunned that I’d felt I needed to go that night, whether I was up to it or not, and here the shawl was and here she was and here I was and wow.

Now, Mary, I want to tell you the outcome of that and of seeing and hugging all of you. I went home with a sense of lightness that had been too long missing.  That was the first time in two months I had been in any building or room that was not my home, Stanford Hospital, or my medical clinic (and almost exclusively Urgent Care there).  Now I had been among friends.  I had taken a risk, I had stepped out to see if my body could handle an outing, and I had been treasured and loved and wrapped in comfort.

Last night, for the first time in two months, I was able to roll over in bed. By myself.  All the way from one side to the other.  This sounds silly, but I can’t tell you how huge it was.  I felt like I had crossed some invisible line: invalid, that side.  Starting to not be an invalid, that side.  And I was there.

The silly thing is I can’t find my camera nor can I find the one Kelli gifted me with a few days before I went into the hospital–I feel like Rip Van Winkle here.  They’re there somewhere, right in plain sight somewhere.

But Mom, that’s why I hadn’t posted yet. I have this exquisite shawl I want to show off and no pictures!

Yet.

I can never know who they might be out there. The people who took the time out of their lives to drive to the Red Cross station, perhaps the one down the street from Stanford Hospital, or who maybe gave at a blood drive at the office.  Or wherever.  But there are seven people out there who gave of themselves and their time and let someone stick a needle in them simply to help out some stranger in the world whom they could never know just because it felt like the right thing to do and, while not all are eligible, they were and this was something they could do.

And I am alive writing these words because they donated their blood.  I not only had that surgery, I’d lost half my blood volume to my bleeding colon beforehand.

One relative of mine told me she’d been interested in donating but had always figured that as an AB+, the universal recipient, hers wasn’t really of much value.

While I was in pre-op, part of the preparation for surgery was my being infused with a large bag of plasma.  I rather freaked when I saw the bag typed as AB+; I’m A+, and promptly informed the nurse of that, quite worried.  She reassured me that with plasma products anything I might react to had been removed and that that bag was perfectly fine for me to use.

I know there is controversy over some of the Red Cross rules.  I know not all can donate. But to those who can, and who do, please know I can never tell you how grateful I am except by trying to put more good out into the world the ways that I can, too, as a thank you. I will try my best.

Knitpicks.com is having a 40% off sale on books, and a certain title I might be fond of, “Wrapped in Comfort,” is $14.97 there through Feb. 13th.

To those who cautioned over spending too much energy searching for the cashmere: you were exactly right.  I tried and gave out fast. But what leaped out at me was the exact shade of green baby alpaca that I’d known was in there somewhere that would look perfect on the Thai nurse I had two weeks ago, the very skilled and gentle woman who had a dream of writing a book about her experiences as an oncology nurse.

As I looked at that green in delight, green being her favorite color–Kristine, this is the same vivid shade you ordered from Aurora, and this was even already rolled up into a ball, ready to go–I knew the doctor’s shawl could wait but that if I didn’t get to making something for that nurse quickly, it wouldn’t happen. The chance could too easily fade into oblivion.

I barely had the oomph to walk the ball into the next room, so it’s going to take long enough to do.  But for a whole lot of reasons, I’d really like to give her a lasting reminder of goodwill and encouragement along her way.  I’d told her that if it took twenty years before she got her book written, that was okay; I was looking forward to reading what she had to say.

I don’t know if she’ll get a shawl like I aspire to do or if it’ll be a (more realistically speaking for now) a scarf. But something. Anything.

We’ll see how I do.

Clicked those ruby slippers again; dropping the other shoe and going back a third time is simply not an option.  I’m finally home again.  Thank goodness!

Last night was rough and wiped me out, so I didn’t have the cheery energy today of yesterday, just a strong gratitude at being further along in the healing process and able to safely leave.  In yet another moment of hey, look how that worked out!, my surgeon happened to stop by my room when I was supposed to have gone home–but things never happen on time in a hospital.  So.  I was still there.  Long as she was there, she said forget tomorrow’s appointment; she took out the staples on the spot.  Done.  Yay!

Now my big goal is to actually find my unfindable black cashmere yarn that I got at Purlescence and knit it up into a shawl to thank her with.  It’s a color I know by now she’ll love.  I have looked for that yarn time and again for various intentions, thinking this is ridiculous, I thought I knew right where I put it…

…and now that there’s utterly no question in my mind exactly whom I bought it for, it should show right up. Right?  (I hope she hasn’t found my blog yet.  I’m sure she has no time to read it if she did.)

So that’s my next big project.

Mom  brought more of the same yarn and Richard used the circ needle sizer, remembering what size I needed with it.  Saved by the knitter’s family!

The surgeon came by this morning and made me a deal: she’d turn off the stomach vacuum for four hours.  The obstruction having been cleared yesterday by the surgical resident who’d been there during my surgery, I was doing so much better; so, if after that four hours the stuff coming out of my stomach was clear now, I’d get the NG tube out.  I had to promise to tell if there were any more nausea.

There has been, for the first time in months, none.  None!

Today was a long-awaited day.  And you’re right, that tube was just one more medical experience to be able to relate to someone else in the future by.

Then they had me brought lunch and dinner, real meals. I was starving.  For the first time in two months, I was just starving. Granted, I got halfway through that chicken sandwich at lunch and was suddenly and absolutely done, but the surgical team showed up just then and I can’t tell you how pleased they were to see that tray like that.  Things are working again.

I may go home tomorrow. They may decide this time to make it one more day just in case. Either way, I’ve got yarn, I’m feeling better, and life can soon become very normal again. Very soon.  To life!

I now appreciate IVs; NG tubes are something I aspire never to do again.

The ER doctor, asked how long it would be in, gave me an answer for me to approve of rather than a reality check; he said it could all be over in thirty seconds. Pull the gas out of the stomach and be done fast, I guess.

Four hours later, when they moved me out of there into a room, I’d noticed that he never could quite make eye contact with me again all the times he went past, going from patient to patient.  I hope he noticed that himself: dude. Tell it like it is.  It does help us both when you do.

The stoma nurses only work Mon-Fri and I needed to replace my seal. I was telling my nurse tonight that I’d only had it demonstrated, that I hadn’t ever done it, and it turned out an older nurse was listening outside the door (your prayers at work again) who was not a stoma nurse but whose husband wore a bag.  She asked if she could come in and help, and help she very much did.

So I’m about to spend the second night with that tube going through my nose to my stomach to vacuum out blood and liquid, but the obstruction finally suddenly started to clear about an hour ago.   I don’t know if that means they’ll let me go home again tomorrow; I can only hope.  The surgeon earlier said it would be a few days, though.

And me with no yarn.  Mom offered to fix that for tomorrow.  Go Mom!  I can try knitting a little again.