made with Red Heart "With Love" yarn. The color is called Mallard. I used US size 5 needles. No pattern, just my standard cuff down sock that I usually make.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Sock Accomplished!
made with Red Heart "With Love" yarn. The color is called Mallard. I used US size 5 needles. No pattern, just my standard cuff down sock that I usually make.
Back to knitting and fibro...
About time to get back to the purpose of this blog.
Here's the thing; taking care of someone who is on hospice for cancer is extremely time consuming, but while I haven't done as much knitting, the act of knitting has been very therapeutic for me. We got to a point, here, where I could only do so much to help Randy and then I was left to hear his difficult breathing and his moans and had to find a way to cope until his medication kicked in. I found that knitting was the best way to do that. I was still able to listen to him in case he needed help, but had something that would distract me.
As is the case whenever I was under stress in the past, my fibro flared up. At first it wasn't bad and I was able to work through it, but if I injured myself in any way, the area of the injury would get crazy out of control. At one point while caring for him, I mis-stepped while I was on the bus and twisted my ankle. It flared up and swelled up and stayed that way for three weeks. Every morning the joint would swell and be too stiff to move and I would have to force it to work. The day before he passed away I pulled a muscle in my upper arm while trying to get him situated on the gurney and that took a week to work past. I couldn't pull my shirts off and was unable to lift my right arm. This week its my left thumb. It stiffens up during the night and I have to pop it when I move it in order to get it working again. It clicks a weird click while I move it when I knit. Lots of fun since I've started trying to knit to sell again. The difference between now and two years ago is that now I just acknowledge that its the peculiarities of my weird body and I have to live with it. I take my ibuprofen and march on. I expected to have issues when I first came out here because I knew I would be under stress and I wasn't going to be able to rest while I faced it.
Now onto the more pleasant side of knitting with fibro; knitting!!!
Here are some of the things I've been working on:
This is my attempt at a braided rag rug. I've decided that this would be a great project to use discarded clothing and make something that can be used around the house or sold. So far I finished this rug and the dog has already blessed it with her urine. It's in a bag to be taken to the laundromat on our next trip there.
These are the socks and the hat I made for Randy the last couple weeks of his illness. They gave him comfort, even if they weren't anything special to look at. I knitted the socks inside out so that the smooth "knitted" side would be against his skin. He was having problems with itching and burning skin, but his feet were cold at night and he needed something to warm them. The hat is a simple tapered crown beanie hat that I made from some worsted weight yarn. He wore it to sleep in. I have both stashed in my drawer in my room and will keep them forever.
A gaggle of wash cloths were made. These are only two of them, I also made two more with variegated yarn that are now nesting in my linen closet and have already been broken in on dishes. I picked up the yarn to make more and a dish towel that I will crochet a loop on and sell as a set. I also picked up a hot glue gun and some magnet buttons to make refrigerator magnets to sell with my dishcloth sets.
I also made a whole bunch of socks that I sent to my charity in Florida before Christmas, but didn't take pictures because I was rotating between computers at the time. Now that I inherited Randy's laptop, I am able to better publish my blog and take knitting pictures.
Even in the worse of times, there are good things that come from it. I had the opportunity to meet a new friend or two while I was helping Randy. It was a huge relief and pleasure to meet Anita, a home health aid that came by three times a week to help Randy shower and shave. She was a tower of strength that stood about 5 feet tall. Her upbeat attitude never ceased to amaze me.
The other person that I really got a chance to meet was Dianna. Randy's best friend Gerald's wife. Even when I was taking care of him right at the end of his life, she was there, making me look forward to the future. She offered her help in starting a craft business and got me off my rear after he passed. I am looking forward to working together with her and making this thing really happen this time.
So now, it happens. I'm on my own and I have a young man here that needs my support. I know that my disability isn't enough to make ends meet so my knitting will have to fill in the gap. That means I have to get serious about it and force it to work for me. Considering all that I've been through in the last few years, this will be a breeze.haha!
Here's the thing; taking care of someone who is on hospice for cancer is extremely time consuming, but while I haven't done as much knitting, the act of knitting has been very therapeutic for me. We got to a point, here, where I could only do so much to help Randy and then I was left to hear his difficult breathing and his moans and had to find a way to cope until his medication kicked in. I found that knitting was the best way to do that. I was still able to listen to him in case he needed help, but had something that would distract me.
As is the case whenever I was under stress in the past, my fibro flared up. At first it wasn't bad and I was able to work through it, but if I injured myself in any way, the area of the injury would get crazy out of control. At one point while caring for him, I mis-stepped while I was on the bus and twisted my ankle. It flared up and swelled up and stayed that way for three weeks. Every morning the joint would swell and be too stiff to move and I would have to force it to work. The day before he passed away I pulled a muscle in my upper arm while trying to get him situated on the gurney and that took a week to work past. I couldn't pull my shirts off and was unable to lift my right arm. This week its my left thumb. It stiffens up during the night and I have to pop it when I move it in order to get it working again. It clicks a weird click while I move it when I knit. Lots of fun since I've started trying to knit to sell again. The difference between now and two years ago is that now I just acknowledge that its the peculiarities of my weird body and I have to live with it. I take my ibuprofen and march on. I expected to have issues when I first came out here because I knew I would be under stress and I wasn't going to be able to rest while I faced it.
Now onto the more pleasant side of knitting with fibro; knitting!!!
Here are some of the things I've been working on:
This is my attempt at a braided rag rug. I've decided that this would be a great project to use discarded clothing and make something that can be used around the house or sold. So far I finished this rug and the dog has already blessed it with her urine. It's in a bag to be taken to the laundromat on our next trip there.
These are the socks and the hat I made for Randy the last couple weeks of his illness. They gave him comfort, even if they weren't anything special to look at. I knitted the socks inside out so that the smooth "knitted" side would be against his skin. He was having problems with itching and burning skin, but his feet were cold at night and he needed something to warm them. The hat is a simple tapered crown beanie hat that I made from some worsted weight yarn. He wore it to sleep in. I have both stashed in my drawer in my room and will keep them forever.
A gaggle of wash cloths were made. These are only two of them, I also made two more with variegated yarn that are now nesting in my linen closet and have already been broken in on dishes. I picked up the yarn to make more and a dish towel that I will crochet a loop on and sell as a set. I also picked up a hot glue gun and some magnet buttons to make refrigerator magnets to sell with my dishcloth sets.
I also made a whole bunch of socks that I sent to my charity in Florida before Christmas, but didn't take pictures because I was rotating between computers at the time. Now that I inherited Randy's laptop, I am able to better publish my blog and take knitting pictures.
Even in the worse of times, there are good things that come from it. I had the opportunity to meet a new friend or two while I was helping Randy. It was a huge relief and pleasure to meet Anita, a home health aid that came by three times a week to help Randy shower and shave. She was a tower of strength that stood about 5 feet tall. Her upbeat attitude never ceased to amaze me.
The other person that I really got a chance to meet was Dianna. Randy's best friend Gerald's wife. Even when I was taking care of him right at the end of his life, she was there, making me look forward to the future. She offered her help in starting a craft business and got me off my rear after he passed. I am looking forward to working together with her and making this thing really happen this time.
So now, it happens. I'm on my own and I have a young man here that needs my support. I know that my disability isn't enough to make ends meet so my knitting will have to fill in the gap. That means I have to get serious about it and force it to work for me. Considering all that I've been through in the last few years, this will be a breeze.haha!
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Another update
Its about time that I updated my blog.
Since I last posted a few things have happened. First of all, I lost my husband and my soul mate. Randy passed away on the 18th of January from the cancer that he found out about in October.
After I last posted, I got so frustrated with State disability in California and the way they were sitting on his paperwork and causing us so much difficulty that I e-mailed the State Senator, Senator Fuller, and complained. I really didn't expect to hear from her, so I continued to sit on the phone until, finally, after several days of calling almost constantly every 20 minutes, I got through. They were holding his paperwork in Sacramento because it lacked a code number for his diagnoses that the social worker at the VA forgot to put on it. I called the VA to try and get it remedied and the social worker stated that there wasn't anything they could do unless Randy made the hour long trip down there to sign a form. While I was looking up a number to call for a patient advocate, the senator's office called me. Her aid asked me what issues I was having and, after I explained, told me to stay by the phone, someone would call me right back. Sure enough, in about 15 minutes I had a patient advocate from the VA on the phone telling me how they could work things out so that Randy wouldn't have to make a trip in to the hospital to sign forms. We got his check 3 days later.
Randy wanted to have his mother and father sealed in the temple. It was something that he always spoke of over the years, but we always seemed to have something that kept us from getting it done. There are times when I've know someone that was ill and was hanging onto life because they had something that was so important to them that they just weren't able to let go until it was finished, and that turned out to be what Randy felt about his parents being sealed. He tried to go to church to ask the Bishop about it while he was on hospice, but he just wasn't strong enough to do so. The week before he died, he asked the missionaries if they could have the Bishop come to the house and he did. He informed Randy that he had his wife check the records and that his parents had already been sealed for several years. Randy was so relieved and happy that he broke down into tears and wept. The next day, he and I decided that he was too weak to get up and use the facilities and that I wasn't strong enough to move him in bed so we had the social worker for the visiting nurses association find a spot for him at a convalescence home. He was moved to the home on the 17th and passed away on the 18th, just three days after finding out that the sealing had taken place.
The last three months that I spent with him went by way to fast and there are so many things I want to tell him and share with him, but I won't be able to until I see him again.
Since I last posted a few things have happened. First of all, I lost my husband and my soul mate. Randy passed away on the 18th of January from the cancer that he found out about in October.
After I last posted, I got so frustrated with State disability in California and the way they were sitting on his paperwork and causing us so much difficulty that I e-mailed the State Senator, Senator Fuller, and complained. I really didn't expect to hear from her, so I continued to sit on the phone until, finally, after several days of calling almost constantly every 20 minutes, I got through. They were holding his paperwork in Sacramento because it lacked a code number for his diagnoses that the social worker at the VA forgot to put on it. I called the VA to try and get it remedied and the social worker stated that there wasn't anything they could do unless Randy made the hour long trip down there to sign a form. While I was looking up a number to call for a patient advocate, the senator's office called me. Her aid asked me what issues I was having and, after I explained, told me to stay by the phone, someone would call me right back. Sure enough, in about 15 minutes I had a patient advocate from the VA on the phone telling me how they could work things out so that Randy wouldn't have to make a trip in to the hospital to sign forms. We got his check 3 days later.
Randy wanted to have his mother and father sealed in the temple. It was something that he always spoke of over the years, but we always seemed to have something that kept us from getting it done. There are times when I've know someone that was ill and was hanging onto life because they had something that was so important to them that they just weren't able to let go until it was finished, and that turned out to be what Randy felt about his parents being sealed. He tried to go to church to ask the Bishop about it while he was on hospice, but he just wasn't strong enough to do so. The week before he died, he asked the missionaries if they could have the Bishop come to the house and he did. He informed Randy that he had his wife check the records and that his parents had already been sealed for several years. Randy was so relieved and happy that he broke down into tears and wept. The next day, he and I decided that he was too weak to get up and use the facilities and that I wasn't strong enough to move him in bed so we had the social worker for the visiting nurses association find a spot for him at a convalescence home. He was moved to the home on the 17th and passed away on the 18th, just three days after finding out that the sealing had taken place.
The last three months that I spent with him went by way to fast and there are so many things I want to tell him and share with him, but I won't be able to until I see him again.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)