Infertility Sucks!!

Bad news from the baby doc yesterday.  One more round of Clomid and then he’s pretty much done.  Referral to RE is a hopeful thing but an expensive one.  Our insurance doesn’t cover even one small little penny of infertility treatment so it’s all out of pocket.  The cost of even doing a medicated cycle with an RE seems staggering right now.  Just U/S costs and medication is probably way out of our price range.  I want to curl up in a ball and cry and sleep and rage and hit things and break things…you get the point.  I can’t remember a time where I felt this bad without being in the depths of deep clinical depression.

Things have been so good since starting the medicated cycles in all other respects.  I’m sleeping better, I have more energy, more patience (just ask my mom about me being able to help her with her computer over the phone without freaking out), I just have more everything…more everything that is but eggs, apparently.  No ovulation with the 100mg of Clomid and I’m really not very hopeful that doing another round at the same dose will help either.  I asked the OB to switch me over to Glucophage for the last cycle to see if that would work…nope….then I asked about a higher dose of Clomid…nope.  So he’s basically dooming me to failure from the get go.  At least that’s how it feels.

Happily the Infertility Specialists that they want to refer me to are “one step under God” according to the nurse at OB’s office.  She says if there is any small chance that they can get you pregnant they will and that they are also moral men who will not keep doing unnecessary procedures if they think there is no hope for you.  They will tell you up front if they don’t think there is any way for you to conceive.  This is just so hard.  Getting pregnant with Jacob was so easy.  2 cycles of trying was all it took.  I don’t know what the hell has happened to me in the intervening five years that has made my body hate me so much.  Yes, I’ve put on weight – who hasn’t? – but that only produces excess estrogen (in terms of conception problems) and my estrogen is low, hence the supplement.  So what the hell is it?  If someone could tell me, I’d change it.  I’d do anything at all to conceive just one more baby.  Gonna go now, if I write anymore the rest of the night will be filled with me feeling sorry for myself and crying, eating etc.

Fertility Drugs Can Change Your Life!

Who knew.  Secondary infertility has saved my life!!  Sounds crazy, right?  It’s true, though.  In my last post I talked a little about the meds I’m taking, but more about the side effects etc.  So here’s the deal with the meds:  Dr. Hamilton (my favorite doctor in the world currently) put me on a cocktail of 100 mg of Clomid CD 3-7, 3 mg Estradiol (which is estrogen) every 12 hours CD 8-12 and finally Prochieve gel (which is progesterone) daily from CD 17 until there is a negative home pregnancy test on CD 27 or for the first 10-12 weeks of the pregnancy.  (CD means cycle day, btw).  Since I haven’t been ovulating with any regularity at all for the last 5 years (since Jake was born), my body hasn’t produced any progesterone of its own in most of that time and my estrogen has also been extremely low.  Now I knew that conception would be impossible without those hormones, but what I didn’t know was that those little devils effect a lot more that goes on in your life/brain than just reproductive things.  I’m not a doctor, nor do I play one on television, and I don’t know the whats, whys or hows of it all, but balancing these hormones this past month in an attempt to knock me up has changed my life irrevocably!

People that have met me since Jake was born don’t really know the “real” me, at least not the me I used to be when my body worked the way it was supposed to.  Before Jake was born I was a happy go lucky kind of gal, one who cared what she looked like when she left the house, always wore makeup (unless it was hellishly hot outside and it would just slide off – like today), couldn’t sit at home doing nothing without feeling like she was going crazy, was exceptionally social and happy.  The Shannon people who have known me for 5 years or less that people have known has been slovenly about her appearance much of the time, has never worn makeup – even to things like weddings, has constantly made plans (b/c I genuinely wanted to do things with people that I like) but then cancelled them at the last minute b/c the thought of actually leaving the house and doing something wasn’t just distasteful to her, but was honestly frightening.  This Shannon has been afraid of everything all this time.  I used to spend 6-8 hours a night driving around with my best friend Deniece when we were teenagers, early twenties.  I LOVED being in the car, being on the go.  Now I’ve been terrified of being in the car for any length of time and while I was able to control it to the degree that I could sit in the passenger seat with TJ driving or let friends pick me up (even that was rare, though, and there were only a few people who’s cars I would get into:  Shannon’s, my brother in law’s…OMG those are the only two I can think of…wait, I would let Andrea drive my car with me in it.  I was not, however, able to get myself to drive the car anywhere other than to McDonald’s up the road or maybe the gas station at the corner for a pop, and NEVER with Jake in the car.  It was a full blown phobia, it seems.

A few years ago, I met Spinsanity Shannon and joined a few knitting groups.  I thought that would be the beginning of getting better.  I had met a great group of women who were interested in the same things I was.  I learned to spin, yay, went to meetings and was social for the first time in years.  Even that didn’t last for me, though.  ‘The fears, the laziness, the apathy took back over and it’s been almost a year now since I’ve even seen any of them.  My loss, not theirs.  I keep planning to go back and I always let the fear of not being wanted, not being accepted get in the way.  This is one example of the way that I’ve been self-destructive over the last years.  I feel like I’ve digressed a bit, though, b/c I had to get up to tend to Jacob for awhile.  Back to my point…

Since I’ve taken the meds, I’ve found myself with a completely different state of mind. Where I used to spend 80% of my time in bed either knitting and watching TV or playing on the computer etc.  I’m all about getting my house in order now.  The upstairs is almost done:  our bedroom is completely organized, clean and gorgeous, the office is about 95% there and we have Jake’s room yet to do.  Our upstairs bathroom still needs a lot of work but mostly stuff TJ has to do, so I can’t do it.  I’m doing laundry 3-4 times a week – how the hell do we accumulate so much laundry, seriously?!?!  The biggest changes, though, have been in my fears and my almost pathalogical need to be by myself over the last years.  The last two “weekends” (our weekends are usually Monday night through Thursday afternoon b/c TJ works the early morning shift at Duncan Friday through Monday) we’ve gone up North (I swore I would never go there again after we moved back down here) and I’ve had a GREAT time.  I rode the quads with and without Jake (was TERRIFIED of them before, wouldn’t even sit on one when it was off) and I had a blast.  Going fast rocks!!  I went to the beach (pictures in next post about Jake’s mini-birthday party) and played in the surf and sand (not like me at all, I’ve had a lake/ocean/pond/anything with living aquatic creatures phobia for as long as I can remember) with Jake and loved it.  I even learned how to mud and sand a wall to prepare it for painting.  The big change here is that I enjoyed all of these things and didn’t long to be at home, in my bed watching TV.  My DVR is suffering greatly from this change in me.  Where it used to always be almost empty b/c I watched TV constantly, now it’s almost full b/c I spend so little time with the boob tube.  My knitting has suffered (oh, I just got the Zephyr Options needles from Knit Picks, btw, but haven’t used them yet.  Pretty.) b/c I don’t spend much time sitting around.  Today has been a lazy do nothing day just like yesterday b/c it’s just too hot to move around w/out a/c in the house.  As soon as it’s cool again, though, I’ll be back to chores and getting this house in order.  I tried to work on the living room a bit yesterday but was sweating and dizzy before too long.  It’ll get done, though.

So, long story short, as TJ says, it’s not like my wife has changed, it’s like being married to a completely different person!!  I’m glad when he says that and I like the person I’m becoming.  Still have a long way to go, and I’m still a little nervous re: the social aspects and being accepted by the people I want to be with most after blowing them all off for so long, but I guess even that is a part of growing and changing.  I’m going to have to face it eventually; I’m working on my courage.  Oh yeah, one other HUGE change.  I’m driving again.  All over the place and LOVING it more than I have words for.  TJ is now regularly getting into the passenger seat and having me drive him around…the freedom is exhilerating.  It’s been a real pain to try to schedule everything around when he could drive me or when someone else can.  I’m not usually one to toot my own horn, but GO ME!!!  LOL

Back from Cali, knitting socks and staying off my feet…fun times!

Been awhile again since my last post.  I don’t know what it is, but I just can’t seem to find the time or the energy for the computer these days for some reason.  I can’t remember the last time I actually checked my email.  If anyone has sent me anything and I haven’t responded, sorry.  I’m more apt to see something you send me on Facebook or Twitter than I am in an email…LOL  Kind of sad, huh?!?!

So I went to California on June 9th and stayed for 3 weeks.  Seeing my mother is always so great for me; if you know me and my mother, though, you also know that it’s a hugely stressful time for both of us.  We are both very strong personalities and we tend to clash in a lot of ways.  There is so much love there, though, that the happy moments always far outweigh the stressful ones.  This trip was about going to see David Cook with my favorite family member in the world, Krista and taking Jake back to Sea World to actually touch the dolphins.  The rest was all up in the air.  Spending time with Krista is always one of my favorite things to do.  We have the sort of relationship where we don’t really have to be doing anything special, we just like to be together.  One of our favorite group activities is, believe it or not, just sitting around with coloring books and colored pencils and coloring.  We both have these stupidly expensive Disney Princess coloring books that have really high quality paper and we guard them jealously, not letting anyone (no, not even Jacob) color in them but us.  Kind of sick, really, but it’s really so much fun to just stop for an hour and do something so simple and so rooted in our childhoods.  Oddly enough,though, neither of us really color at all when we aren’t together.  Krista gave me another new hobby this trip, though.  The Lakers were playing in the NBA championships against the Orlando Magic and K is a HUGE Lakers fan.  So the first night we hung out together game 4 (I think) was on and she said she had to watch it.  Anyone that knows me well at all knows that I’m absolutely not a sports fan in any way, shape or form.  So we got out coloring books and I got out Mom’s laptop and settled in for what I thought would be a boring television event, but still time with K is so rare b/c of the distance, so any time at all is priceless to me.  About halfway through the game, though, I realized that I was watching the TV almost as much as I was reading posts on Ravelry.  By the last five minutes of the game I had put the laptop down and was watching the action raptly.  By the time the final game rolled around a few nights later, I was all about the game.  I cheered and I booed and I jumped up and down.  I was almost hoping the Lakers would lose so that there would be another game.  They didn’t lose, though, and the victory was amazing.  So now I’m a basketball fan. A Laker’s fan at that.  Looking very much forward to pre-season.  Of course, knowing me, it may not last.  We’ll see.  I was a “hockey fan” for awhile when the Wings won their first Stanley Cup in however many long, long years.  That lasted about half of the next season and then I got bored out of my skull with it all (I think I just committed a sacrilege as far as my mother – a RABID Wings fan – is concerned).

I finally got my own copy of New Pathways for Sock Knitters, so I can finish the second Spiraling Coriolis sock.  I’m about 2/3 of the way done with it, maybe a little less.  I got so excited about sock knitting that I joined the 52 Pair Plunge III @ Ravelry.  Of course I haven’t even finished pair #1 so I’m WAY behind…LOL  I think , though, that once I finish the WIPs that are outstanding gifts I owe to people (the Moderne Baby Blanket for Fran’s new granddaughter and the Anouk dress for Lisa’s new baby due any time now) I’ll throw myself a little more into sock knitting.  I’ve just ordered matching sets of fixed circs. from Knit Picks: one each of the Harmony and the Nickle plated in sizes 0-3 (which is actually 6 needles in each material b/c there are 2 different sizes of 1 and 2 b/c of the metric measurements) in the 24″ length.  I was going to just order the sizes in the Harmony wood in the 24″ and 32″ lengths so that I could differentiate easily when using 2 circs (which I really do like for socks) but I thought that the different materials for the tips would make the distinction even easier and I really have found that I like the nickle more than I thought I did.  I have the Options sets in both materials so if I need longer than 24″ needles I’ve got that covered as well.

I love shopping at Amazon, btw.  I just ordered and received the newest version of the Kindle; it was an early birthday gift from my mother.  LOVE LOVE LOVE it!!!  I’ve already got five or six books and several blogs on it.  So nice to have choices in such a slim and light container.  I always want to take something to read with me, but can’t ever decide what so I end up schlepping three or four hard cover books with me on vacations or when I know I’ll be bored for awhile.  Great for choice, but heavy as all hell.  This is much nicer!!  I also ordered a whole slew of knitting books:

• A Treasury of Knitting Patterns Volumes 1 & 2:  I’ve always wanted to have a great stitch dictionary collection and I like these the best so far.  I’m not big on designing things myself – I’m still too chicken to even play too much with changing elements in patterns that I’m following.  Just looking through these books, though, has inspired me a bit.  I found myself thinking ‘that would make a great cuff or edging on a sweater’ or ‘that would be a great cuff or leg pattern for a sock’.  It’s a step in the right direction.  I WILL get braver with my knitting before the end of year.  My goal is to design one thing, no matter how simple it is – maybe I’ll design the scarves I’m planning to make for TJ and Jake this year rather than following a pattern.
• Elizabeth Zimmerman’s  Knitting Workshop, Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Knitting Almanac and Knitting Without Tears:  I’ve  heard so many great things about E.Z. and I thought this would be a great time to “get to know her”.  I thought I ordered The Opinionated Knitter as well, but I guess not.  It’s something for the future.
• Lace Style:  You can never have too many lace knitting books
• A Gathering of Lace:  See above….love the lace knitting!!
• The Intentional Spinner, The Spinner’s Companion and Spin Control:  I’ve been spinning for a little more than a year and a half now and I still kind of feel like I’m working blind.  I can spin a decent yarn but I have very little control as to how it comes out.  I’m still not sure about the different kinds of drafting and how to do them.  I’m in love with spindle spinning, which I feel like I have a lot more control with, and I love my wheel, but I feel like I’m always playing catch up when I’m using the wheel.  I rarely, if ever, get the yarn that I expect to get from it.  I want to learn more and to get better.  I really need a spinning class to get me on the right track.  I need someone to teach me all these different “draws” and how they work and what I’m doing wrong…
• Teach Yourself Visually Hand-dyeing:  I love hand dyeing and another book on it can only be good.
• Sock Innovation:  I’m all about sock knitting these days and I’m a big fan of Cookie A.’s designs even though I’ve never knit one.  The chapters on design are really a big selling point for me.

• Toe Up:  This is the WendyKnits book.  I didn’t actually order this one, I bought it at Barnes N Noble while I was in CA.  I found I really like the toe up method of knitting socks and there are really cute patterns in this book.  I’m looking forward to knitting some of these for the “Plunge”

I’ve had a lot of time to look through my book and play with the Kindle in the last few weeks.  Here’s a big TMI warning if you don’t want to know more than you ever dreamed about my cycles and periods….

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I’ve been undergoing the very beginning of fertility treatments since late March.  50 mg. of Clomid from days 3-7 of the cycle.  Only did one cycle and it didn’t work.  I got my period 50 days into the Clomid cycle and it started with spotting that lasted for almost 2 weeks, which was annoying but tolerable.  When I was out in CA the real period finally started and was heavy (which I expect) and irritating – it got bad the same day as the David Cook concert, of course – but it wasn’t unbearable.  Now that I’m three weeks into this period and I’m bleeding like a stuck pig half the time with HUGE clots and not bleeding at all the other half, I’m irritated.  It’s gotten to the point where I have to stay in bed or on the couch most of the time b/c any real activity or straining myself makes the bleeding horrible.  For example I got out of bed on the 4th to hang out at the bonfire in the yard b/c my mother-in-law and TJ’s Aunt Nancy were there.  Just sitting out there, walking around and playing with Jake a bit was the most I did and when I got back inside I ended up having to change my pajama bottoms twice in 30 minutes.  I’ve been feeling dizzy, foggy headed, crampy and just plain yucky since this started.  Saw the doctor today, had an ultra sound and am going to meet with a new fertility specialist tomorrow morning.  So nervous!!  I am terrified that I’m going to find out that I can’t have another baby and that would break my heart.  TJ and I are not necessarily in agreement about fertility treatments.  I’m all about doing whatever it takes to have another child and TJ isn’t sure if he’s on board for getting really into the infertility treatments.  He’s terrified by the though of higher level multiples and he’s afraid that my body won’t deal well with “forcing” pregnancy.  IVF is still a long way away, I hope, but he’s so against the thought and while it’s not my first choice for a way to have a baby, if it’s my only option, I’m totally on board with it.  This is going to be a long process, and it’s going to take a lot of talking and figuring out what is important to us and what our priorities when it comes to family are.  I’m scared!

A little of this and a little of that.

Maybe not as better as I thought.  The kidney infection is still gone, thank God, but now I’m plauged with cluster or migraine headaches that suck just as badly if not worse.

I”m getting my shit together, though.  Even though it was late, I got my secret swap package sent.  I really hope she likes it.  I plan to spoil her rotten next month (the last package) to make up for the lateness.  I’ve wanted to be a much better swap partner than I’ve been, but my swapee has been so great and understanding about everything I’ve been through.  I’ve been blessed with great swap partners on both sides. Since my camera seems to be another of the things on the dead list, I thought I would just go ahead and describe what I got in my first package ( a little late, I know, but I was hoping to have pictures instead of just describing…argh).  First and foremost I got an amazing skein of sock yarn from the Great Aiderondak Yarn Company; mostly deep, saturated blues and burgandies with some orange, green and purple thrown in for good measure.  Swapper (I’m tired of saying “my partner” etc. so I will just call her swapper for now) said that she hoped it would inspire me to try my hand at socks and all I can say to her is “enabler!” LOL.  I am going to try to make a pair of socks with it once I’ve finished up my commitments to X-mas knitting.  There were goodies for Jake (too sweet) also a Disney towel that expands and opens when you throw it in the water…I’m saving that for a day that a bath is the last thing on his agenda.  There were two stunning stitch markers that had leaf charms on them and I’m in love…of course I’m a total stitch marker whore to begin with so that isn’t too surprising.  There was a tub of body butter (another of my weaknesses in life; I swear Swapper read my mind) in a very relaxing lavendar scent…great for right before bed moisturizing; calming and soothing scents help me drift off to sleep (now if I could only stay asleep…)  I saved the best for last, though, an absolutely charming little project bag with squirrels and pumpkins all over it; the perfect autumn project bag.  I will post pictures as soon as I get the camera working again, or get a new one, whichever comes first.

On the house front, it’s a done deal now.  We had our inspection and everything came back okay, so we’re going ahead and will be closing on election day.  We’re hoping to be fully moved in by Christmas.  There’s quite a bit to do in the kitchen.  That’s an understatement, really.  We have to gut the whole thing and start over.  I’m excited about that prospect, though.   It means that the floors, counters and cupboards will all be our choices and that will make it feel even more like home.  We’re also going to get all new fixtures and lighting to start with. Those will be our two big before we can move in projects.  There are a lot of other little changes and tweaks that we want to do here and there, but they will come over time.  There is so much really beautiful old, dark wood in the house and I’m in love with it.  I’d love to be moved in even sooner, but we leave for CA and AZ in mid-November and will be gone for 3 weeks.  It makes for a bit of a crunch to get everything done in time for moving in; in my insanity I’ve insisted that I want to host Christmas Eve for my MIL, BIL and SIL (really by BIL’s girlfriend, but they’ve been together since Jake was a newborn and she’s his “Aunt Katiebugs” so that makes her family in my book) in the new house.  The offer was made in the excitement of getting the house and I’m a little stressed about it, but I don’t regret it.  It’s my motivation to stay on track and get things done.

I really think this move will be good for me.  A fresh start, if you will.  Andrea disappeared on us, again.  I don’t know why I thought this time would be different, but it’s the elimination of one of my crutches to stay in the house all the time.  I’ve been working (with limited success) on becoming a much more social person.  I’m trying to get past all the phobias and hermit-like habits that I became so enmeshed with when we were in Lake City.  I’ve made some really good friends in the last year or so and I really hope I haven’t blown them by being me and not ever going out of the house.  It’s the craziest thing.  I WANT to go out and do things, I have a great time when I’m out with friends, but when it comes time to actually LEAVE the house, to go out, I feel this panic start to rise inside me.  The last time I did anything social was the Michigan Fiber Festival with Andrea, Shannon, Emily, Kai (I know I spelled that wrong, didn’t I Shannon?) and Abby.  Jake had so much fun with the kids and I had a blast with the older folks.  We made plans to get together and Jake got sick, then I got sick and this whole thing spiralled.  Needless to say, plans never happened and even though TJ keeps telling me that people understand when you’re sick etc.  I feel too embarrased to call and apologize for my freakish behaviors and phobias – again.  Yes, I know I’m an idiot.  So anyway, I plan to be a lot more social and spend time with my knitting group again (if they’ll still have me) and do other things.  Being in Battle Creek will be good in that sense since one of my biggest hurdles is the long drive (and yes, for me Kalamazoo to Battle Creek seems like a LONG drive).  It’s time to get Jake socializing with other kids and to allow myself to have a life and have fun and not hole up in the house like some sort of leper.  I deserve to have a life and friends, damnit and I’m not going to blow it if I get a second, or is it third or fourth, chance.  Okay, when did this become a self-pitying rant about how I’ve screwed up friendships and made a agoraphobic out of myself?  Life is positive and I’m going to be positive.  Self-loathing over, let’s move on!!

Spinning from the fold

…is a lot easier than it seems like it would be.  I just got four gorgeous bumps of Abby F.’s silk from Beth at The Spinning Loft to use for making Abby from this issue of Knitty, and even though I have other patterns that I need to finish before I’m supposed to start new things, I just couldn’t resist getting started.  The problem:  There aren’t very exacting spinning directions, just spin a heavy laceweight single from the fold.  From The Fold?!?!  ARGH!!!  So I got out the spinning books and read what I could, but while I got the concept, it just wasn’t clicking with my hands.  Next came the computer and Ravelry which led me to You Tube and Abby’s video on spinning from the fold.  That was helpful, but I wanted to find more information.  What really did the trick for me, clarified the concept was this video.  Again it was Beth helping me…LOL  First she and Shannon Too helped me pick out my wonderful wheel and now her video is helping me with spinning from the fold.

After reading and watching videos I decided to just bite the bullet and give it a try.  I figured I wouldn’t be “wasting” more than a few staple lengths worth if the effort didn’t pan out.  Guess what?!?!  It worked.  LOL  I know I shouldn’t be so amazed, but I am.  I’m also very proud of myself.  So I’m going to spin the first ounce of silk up on my very first spindle (still my favorite, although I love my square spindle as well) and hope that I get the yardage I need to try my hand at Abby.  I’m also anxious to try spinning from the fold on Penelope, but I think I’ll perfect it with the spindle first. 

On a health note, I’m finally starting to feel a little better.  I actually got dressed and went out to eat with TJ and my brother in law and his girlfriend the other morning.  I ended up with a major headache, but it still felt good to get out.  I’ve always been more than happy to stay and home and forego most outings, right Shannon?  LOL, but now that I’ve been told I have to stay home and rest, I hate it.  I’m so anxious to go out and do something.  If you’re reading this, Shannon, email or call me…I want to go out to lunch this week or something fun like that.  Yes, I actually want to leave the house…LOL  I’m seeing my doctor tomorrow and hoping to get the all clear from her.  I’m still having some pain in my kidney area but I think I’m getting better.  Hopefully no more hospitalizations.  Fingers crossed.  Okay, I’m off to rest and spin some more of Abby’s amazing silk.  Here’s hoping lunch works out this week…ugh…I’m so ready to see friends and do something fun!!!

Will I ever be better? Enquiring minds want to know…I want to know…

Does anyone remember that old commercial for The National Enquirer…you get points for being both old (LOL) and for being a font of useless information and trivia if you do.  No copyright infringement meant by blatantly stealing the quote for my blog title.  Don’t sue me, cause I ain’t got nothing worth taking…LOL

So here we are, almost a month after the hospital debacle of ‘08 and I’m still not well.  I kept saying that I wasn’t better, that my back (kidneys) still hurt and that I still felt like I had a bladder infection, but the doctor assured me that it was my imagination or that I was just healing a little more slowly than most people.  “The urine test came back clean.  We didn’t see any bacteria in it,” he assured me over and over again.  Just a few problems with that ladies and gentleman of my readership (which is small indeed, just look at my blog stats if you don’t believe me.  The numbers, those sad, pathetic little numbers, don’t lie):  first of all, and most importantly I feel the need to stress, I STILL HAVE ALL THE SYMPTOMS AND ASSOCIATED PAIN WITH A BLADDER AND/OR KIDNEY INFECTION!  Secondly after doing extensive reading on the subject of these infections, it is possible I’ve read to drink so much fluid before a urine test that you essentially flush the bacteria out of your system, or so it will look to the test.  In reality, they are still there, they are merely regrouping from the flushing and drowning they’ve just had.  Had they bothered to test my urine EVEN ONE MORE TIME after they admitted me they would have found those little buggers and treated me accordingly.  Not that I’m angry and bitter or anything.  So now, like I said, it’s almost a month later and I’m still in horrible shape.  I’m in more pain than I was in when they admitted me.  Thank God for Percocet or I don’t think I’d be making it through this.  I’m taking a lot more than I should be, but it’s the only way to alleviate the pain.  For God’s sake when I was in the ER they had to give me 6 mg of Dilaudid before I felt any relief at all.  Hello, I’m completely tolerant to pain meds at this point.  The only blessing through all of this has been that the one symptom I haven’t had is the frequency.  Stupid name, by the way.  They should call it intense burning pain accompanied by a fullness that you feel you have to constantly expel even though there is nothing there to expel.  Well, now I have that as well.  So my current dilemma is do I go to the ER and deal with this on a Saturday evening when every moron person in the world is sick and/or hurt or do I buy the OTC pills to help with the symptoms and wait until Monday to go to the doctor.  I think I’ll wait until Monday at this point because if they do (by some miracle) actually find the kidney infection that I’ve been trying to tell them I have for a month now, I’m not going through the whole oral antibiotics at home routine again.  I did that last time and it didn’t work!  Nope, I’m going to insist, demand, beg pathetically, ask very nicely if they will please admit me and do this with the strongest IV antibiotics they have.  I want this infection knocked out of me yesterday!

As if this whole kidney/bladder thing wasn’t enough to make me want to curl up in the fetal position and cry violently, I’ve had horrible cluster headaches or migraines (not sure which) these last two days.  Both of them lasted about 4 hours or so for the main pain with the effects lingering for the rest of the night.  It felt like the left side of my head was trying to detach itself from the right side and start its own new head.  Seriously, my eye was throbbing, my jaw bone was throbbing, light and sound were excruciating.  It hasn’t been fun.  I don’t know if it’s possible for a kidney infection to cause that, but I’m sure gonna find out.

On the knitting/spinning front, not much going on, I must admit.  My life, if you call sleeping, peeing and crying a life, has just not been overly conducive to it lately, I’m afraid.  I’ve started a pair of what are called Thigh High socks from Lion Brand’s free patterns, but are really a pair of leg warmers that cover the tops of your feet and have slits for the heels.  They are really cute looking and I’ve been promising Kate a pair of leg warmers forever.  It’s my first foray into solo color work.  Very basic striping using Fibonacci numbers and 4 colors of Rowan Calmer (I love this yarn so much) that I’ve had in my stash forever and a day.  I’ve put the Tidal Wave scarf aside until I finish Storm Water, which is coming along nicely.  I’ve also put aside my camel down mitts until I finish Storm Water.  It was part of a deal I made with myself when I started the mitts flouting the no new projects until I finish the scarves for X-mas rule.  I decreed to myself that I would allow myself to work on one mitt per scarf.  Since mitt one is done, but scarf one is not, there will be no starting mitt two until aforementioned scarf is completed.  It’s a good thing I took really good pattern notes when I did the first mitt, huh?  LOL  Yeah, like I took pattern notes, good or otherwise.  My idea of pattern notes is counting the number of rows in each section so I can copy it for the next mitt…on a napkin that I most likely used to wipe my mouth…LOL  Seriously, I have some very basic notes to follow from when I get to mitt number one.  Would I really allow my precious handspun to be wasted that way?  Not on your life.

Getting ready to get my first swap package together to go out.  I’m still waiting for a few things I ordered to arrive, but I think that my “swapee” is going to enjoy her package.  I’ve gone with a lot of the things that she said she liked in her questionnaire.  I planned to be much more sneaky and stalky and to find out secret things about her and really spoil her good, but this whole illness has kind of put a damper on that.  Still, I plan to spoil her the best way I can from this position.  I really hope she like me the package.

Have a great weekend everyone.  Have some fun for me since I’ll either be in the hospital if I can’t take this anymore or at the very least in this bed, wishing I was able to enjoy some of this Indian summer we’re having. ARGH!!!

Bob Ross, I Love You!!

Now there’s a title for a blog post…LOL.  Being sick and forced to sleep whenever I can, I’m catching a lot of TV that I wouldn’t normally pay attention to at all.  So I’m flipping channels a few weeks ago (before I was really sick, but when I couldn’t sleep) and I caught the last few minutes of “The Best of The Joy of Painting” on PBS.  I remembered the “happy trees” from my childhood; I guess I must have seen the show when it was originally run way back then…maybe before or after Sesame Street, I don’t know.

So now that I’m having tons of trouble sleeping for more than a few hours at a time; the latest drug to help me sleep that we’ve tried, Elavil, didn’t do me a whole lot of good; I’ve been DVRing and watching the daily episode of “Best of…”  I’m hooked.  There is such a calmness to Bob Ross’s voice, it’s so soothing.  He seems to be totally at peace all the time, is he on qualudes?  And the afro, what can I say about the afro…so crazy.  I love the way he makes painting those gorgeous outdoor scenes seem so easy, so effortless.  Watching him, I keep thinking, ‘I can do that’.  There is a DVD workshop set that comes with the paints that he used and instruction for a bunch of his works that I’ve thought about getting.  Even better, though, Michael’s has Bob Ross Method classes regularly.  I definitely plan to take one of those one of these days.

It’s funny, I’ve never thought of myself as a particularly artistic person, but since I picked up knitting, and more importantly spinning and dyeing, I find myself reveling in creativity.  I want to explore as many different mediums as I can.  I’ve played with digital scrapbooking and I LOVE it.  I haven’t done it in quite awhile, but I have disks and disks of digital elements and backgrounds etc.  Now that I’ve written about it, I’ll probably find myself drawn back in for awhile.  I’ve never actually paper scrapbooked, but I have boxes of paper, stickers, elements and some tools; more than enough to get started and make several albums.  I have no pens, though.  Odd, that I forgot that after buying all the rest of the stuff.  As you all can see, I get obsessed with crafts and then frustrated when I’m not good at them from the get go.  I’ve dabbled with embroidery and cross stitch (I have a cross stitch project that I have to finish for TJ’s family.  His Uncle’s 2nd wife passed away early this year and she was an avid cross stitcher, they’ve asked me to finish the cross stitch she was working on when she passed.  What a great honor to have them have so much faith in me.  It’s VERY slow going, though, b/c I want to do it justice, I want it to be absolutely perfect).  The one needle art that I haven’t tried, but will eventually, is needle punch.  That looks like a lot of fun and fairly simple.

Sleep is still eluding me, but it’s giving me a lot of time for working on the X-mas scarves.  I was working on the one for my MIL and I realized something:  I’ve been using the chart for the first three or four repeats of the scarf, in fact I’ve been using charts rather than writeen directions ever since I learned how to read a chart, but last night, the way I was sitting made it difficult to read the chart.  Being lazy and tired, I started using the written directions instead of reorganizing all the things I had around me – being bed-bound is really annoying at times – and I got through the row much more quickly.  I think that I learn by reading much better than I do visually.  For some reason, when I read the charts, I don’t see the bigger picture, which is kind of funny.  For example, when I read (p3, k5) 3 times it’s simple for me to know what to do with the next 24 stitches, when I see the same thing on a chart, I take each part as a single entitiy: e.g. p3 then look at the chart, k5, look back at the chart etc.  I don’t know why I can’t see that it’s a repeat and take it as such from a chart.  Oh well, at least I can work with a pattern that has no written directions and follow the chart even if it does make me work slower.  I’d kill for written patterns for some of the mystery KAL’s that I’ve done.  I’m obsessed with mystery KAL’s.  I’ll actually finish one one day, I swear it!!  LOL

Home but still not well

I keep meaning to post more often, but this kidney infection thing is kicking my ass.  They sent me home from the hospital late last week and told me that with some rest I should be feeling better pretty quickly.  Here I am, still sick, still with symptoms and still feeling like total shit!!!  I have to go back to the doctor tomorrow and am anticipating another hospitalization…no fun!!!

On to happier things.  I’m getting ready to put together a package for my first swap.  I hope my swapee likes it.  It’s not going to be as extravagant as I had first planned b/c of this illness, but I figure I can save the really extravagant package for the final one.

I finished knitting the first of the fingerless mitts that I’m making from the yarn I spun from the camel/merino fiber I got at the Michigan fiber festival.  I love, love, love camel fiber is what I’ve discovered from this.  It’s so soft and so amazing to work with.  The yarn, I’m afraid, still leaves a little something to be desired, but I made it myself and that gives me a great sense of accomplishment.  I smile everytime I look at the glove and I imagine I’ll have a similar reaction whenever I wear them.  In just the short time I’ve put on that single glove, to figure length etc., I realized that this is a VERY warm fiber.  Would be great for a hat/scarf set or even for a sweater (Perhaps Evangeline from White Lies Designs – although that would be awfully expensive to do in a camel blend…LOL)

Evangeline is my dream sweater, btw.  I keep looking at it and telling myself I’m going to buy it, but I never do.  It’s definitely more difficult than anything I’ve attempted (I have yet to make a garment for myself or anyone else for that matter) but I love it anyway.

On the projects I want to start front:  I just discoverd that Knit Picks has a Sheldon the Turtle kit with his different career costumes here.  How cute is that?!?!  I’ve never really been struck with the urge to knit toys at all, but this one speaks to me.  You can’t beat the price, either.

On the swap front:  I’ve got a great swapper (the person who is sending to me) so far.  She’s been great about contacting me and we seem to have quite a bit in common.  I’m really enjoying the communication!!  Thanks swapper o’ mine!!  For my swappee I have some things planned.  I was planning for her first package to be big and extravagant, but with all the illness stuff I have going on, that will have to wait for the final package.  I really want to do a good job and spoil my spoilee the way I would want to be spoiled.  This being my first swap, I really want to make a good impression.

My Christmas knitting for my MIL and my FIL’s girlfriend Fran are coming along nicely.  Last year I started gifts for both of them, but didn’t finish.  ARGH!!!  So this year I picked something smaller (Tidal Streams for MIL in Silk Twist in the colorway Peridot and Storm Water for Fran in Sea Silk in the Dandelion colorway)  I’ve really come to love the Handmaiden line of yarns.  My dream yarn currently is the Camelspun that they offer.  I’m just obsessed with Camel yarns right now.  I really wish I had bought a pound of the camel/merino fiber at the festival instead of just the 4 oz. that I bought.

I’ve spent so much time on Ravelry lately drooling over patterns and yarns that I want and it’s almost like punishment b/c I’ve made a pact with myself to work on nothing but these scarves until they are done.  No debacle like last year, thank you very much.  The camel/merino mitts were different; I had to try out the yarn after I spun and set it.  LOL  I will post pictures of the yarn and the mitts when I’m feeling better and can do all the camera stuff.

Have I mentioned that spending the majority of one’s time in bed doing nothing but watching TV, knitting and playing on the computer is not nearly as much fun as it might seem?  When I’m well and doing stuff around here, I long for time to do nothing, but now that I’m pretty much bedbound for at least 3/4 of the day, all I can think about is how much I have to do around here.  The other day I was feeling a little better and I did some cleaning and reorganizing of the bedroom and the craft room and I woke up the next morning feeling worse than I had in weeks.  The doctor chastized me and said that rest does not mean major organizing projects.  Who knew…

We’ve sent in the app. for the apartment we’re hoping to move to.  It’s a three bedrom with a private entrance, two full baths (one in the master bedroom, yay) and a washer and dryer (full sized – what will I do with my washer and dryer though?) in the unit.  There is also a great balcony (bigger than any I’ve ever seen in an apartment) that we will be able to put some outdoor furniture on for BBQ’s etc.  It’s really well laid out and spacious and I can see us living there for the next 4 or 5 years.  That’s important to me b/c I told TJ that if we decided to get an apartment instead of looking for the first house available that we could afford, I wanted to commit to at least 3 years but would be happier with 4 or 5.  I hate moving and there has already been so much upheaval in Jake’s 4 years that I don’t want to put him through another move until he’s older.

Okay, I guess that’s it for now.  I have to get back into bed…ugh…I hate being sick!!!!

Hospital Woes

This will just be a real quick blog post.  I had a whole long post about swaps, spinning and X-mas presents planned, but I’m just not up for it.  I’ve been battling a bladder/kidney infection for the last few weeks and yesterday things came to a head.  I ended up in the ER for 12 hours and after a lot of waiting and a lot of horrible tests (when they tell you the contrast solution for the CAT scan is called Berry Smoothie, don’t believe them!!  It’s really called chalky shitty tasting yuck…I threw up as much of it as I got down, if not more).  they decided to admit me.  I’m in a lovely private room and the room service meals almost make up for being stuck here in this room.  I’m at Bronson in room N3853 if anyone wants to come visit or call, but I don’t know how long I’ll be here.  I’m hoping to go home tomorrow or the next day, we’ll see what they have to say, though.  I’ll add more info. as I get it.

Withdrawl sucks

So pretty much anyone that knows me well knows about my back problems over that last 4 years and that I’ve been on pain meds. ever since.  I decided that it was time to live life without the constant narcotic haze and the apathy and lack of desire to do anything that comes with it.  My doctor didn’t feel like it was a good time to start weaning me b/c it took so long to get my meds just right and to make me able to function without pain and take care of Jacob.  So, being the very smart individual that I tend to be, I decided about a month ago that I was going to stop taking them on my own.  It’s been a long and painful (at times) road getting through the withdrawl that comes with years of taking strong narcotics – I always thought it would be easier somehow b/c of I wasn’t taking them for fun, rather for a genuine medical need and it was perscribed for me.  Not so!!!  I’m almost done now, but it’s sucking more than ever at this stage.  I do have some really good days as well, though.  I feel like I’m starting to get emotions and drive back and that can be good or bad depending.  For example, I just spent fifteen minutes crying about the Worthless song on The Brave Little Toaster movie that Jake was watching.  Silly, huh?