I'm Still Here! (dagnabit!)

I have been away from this blog for some time because of personal health problems.  In late April of this year my left hand began to go numb to the point that I was no longer able to knit or crochet.  I'd been down this road before, having had two spinal surgeries eight and ten years ago, so I knew what the cause was.  I did not want to admit to myself what was going on because this year was the first time since February 2002's surgery that I was able to go outside for something other than going to and from Dr appointments.

This summer, we had some people coming by, building a fencing project that we'd planned over a decade ago.  I provided lively banter to the workers.  I had to use a cane to walk and couldn't walk very far, but I was "out there".  In late May, a friend and I were walking together the first time a more scary situation developed- I fell.  I was just walking along and on the next step it was as if my right leg wasn't even there.  No pain or anything, it just failed to work.  It happened twice more in the ensuing week and I had to admit to myself that it was no fluke.  This is when I told Liz I was having a problem.

A couple weeks later I had an appointment with the Dr who had been supervising my medications since just before my 2004 surgery.  The only way to describe his reaction is that he freaked.  I had tests on my upper limbs that day, lower limbs the following day, full spine MRIs the following Tuesday and a meeting with my spine surgeon on Thursday evening.  It was not good news.  My spinal chord was so inflamed and swollen that it was trying to squeeze through any opening in could along my damaged spine.  The surgeon said that it was quite likely that I was looking at permanent, irreparable damage.  It was so bad that I had surgery the following Monday.

Since my surgery in late June, I've felt so much better.  Maybe it's the passing of ten years of this lifestyle, but I finally seem to have settled into acceptance that this is the way things are and I have to adapt.  I move more slowly and deliberately.  But I was still afraid of something.

When I first became disabled in January 2002, I was very angry.  After twenty years in the Information Technology field, in 1999 I'd changed my life to a new passion, furniture building.  After my disability it quickly became obvious that this short lived career was over.  A poor initial surgery that corrected nothing led to two years of anguish and permanent nerve damage on the right side of my body.  A second, more extensive surgery solved a lot of problems, but the recovery was lengthy and filled with high doses of nasty, narcotic medications.  I decided being knocked out on drugs 20+ hours a day was no way to live so in February 2007 I quit cold turkey.

It was a very rough 4 months of withdrawal, but in May I began sitting up in the bed for a few minutes at a time.  I wanted "to do something".  Liz usually listened to the local news on the bedroom TV while she got ready for work.  One morning, after the news, I pressed the "Up channel" button and saw a few minutes of a show with someone named Vickie Howell before I fell over and back asleep.  The next day, I looked for the show and thought, "I could knit!"  At least it'd be something to try.

Liz brought home a book, a set of knitting needles, and some yarn a couple days later.  I learned a couple stitches and watched Vickie devoutly.  I would knit for 5 minutes or so, then fall asleep.  I would wake up and pick up where I left off.  For the first time in years I was "doing something"!

If you've been a reader of this blog or have looked through my Ravelry projects page, then you know where the past four years have taken me.  When I met with my surgeon that Thursday evening I showed him some of my work and told him that I'd lost one career to my spine's decay and that I was not prepared to lose another.  He said he couldn't promise anything.

Surgery at end of June.  Near the end of July Liz asked if I'd tried to knit or crochet anything.  I hadn't.  I told her I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to, but I was working towards trying.  A couple days later I began the Shining Star mittens.  As you can see, things went well.

When I first began knitting in 2007, I had almost no muscle tone in my arms from the years of bedrest.  I was surprised by how the micro-muscular movements of knitting were toning my arms.  I told my Dr about it and he took me seriously.  He is a good pain management Dr who speaks all over the US.  On my next monthly visit he told me that he'd been at a seminar where someone had presented a talk about the benefits of micro-muscular movement in recovering pain patients!  He said that he contributed to the discussion by mentioning my experience with knitting.

A couple years later I began crochet and discovered that a completely different set of arm muscles were used than in knitting.  And it took a lot more strength to crochet than to knit.  The next meeting with my Dr I told him about this.  He was glad to hear I was getting a more complete workout on my arms.

After the Shining Star mittens in July, I decided to try some crochet.  I had planned to spend most of this year crocheting in a serious effort to improve my crochet consistency in stitch size and tension.  I had began a Patricia Kristoffersen pattern, Mayrose, in 2010, but had ran into an issue with the written instructions on the final section of the pattern.  I decided to test my crochet comeback and hone my PK chops by tackling several projects in her book, 99 Little Doilies.  The projects were small enough that I could work them up quickly while improving my technique as well as discovering if my surgeon was successful in fixing my left hand finger numbness when using those crochet muscles.  As you can see by my subsequent completion of Mayrose, things worked out right.  (Even though I ended up charting the last section to see what was going on.)

I am so happy to be back in the fold of some of the kindest, supportive people I've met over the past few years- you folks. ☺

(Some of you have messaged me on Ravelry that you've missed me on Facebook.  I have never had much patience for fluff and the endless ads and notices about gaming finally took their toll and I moved to Google+ (link to my profile) as soon as I got an invite in the beta.  It is now open to everyone and there is a thriving knit/crochet community over there.  I have over 1100 knitter/crocheters from all over the world in my String circle and, while it sounds like a lot, the traffic flow hasn't surged... yet. ☺)