No Stitching–Some Family Time

I don’t think I even set foot in the studio last week.  On Monday I saw the orthopedic surgeon’s nurse practitioner who told me I was free to do as much as I could.  I complained at the slow progress I was making and she reminded me that I had had 3 surgeries within 5 weeks (none my idea) and that my body was still reeling from the assaults.  So I stopped my complaining.  Then it was off to breakfast out and some shopping at the drug store (which has been getting a lot of our money).

On Tuesday I visited with the cardiologist.  I was again reminded that every time you go to a doctor you have to give them all the same information that you just gave the other doctors.   Anyway, he was pretty happy with how my heart and pacemaker are working together.  He did think there was room for improvement and turned the beats per minute up a bit.  I can’t tell the difference.  Both of these doctors don’t want to see me again until mid-December which is just fine by me.

And today I started the new medication that is supposed to be more potent in cancer retarding.  I will see the oncologist in two weeks and he will be looking at my lab work to see if it is doing what it is supposed to do.  Fingers crossed.

Meanwhile we have been visiting with family.  Our daughter came by on Saturday and we fell into watching football.  She is a rabid fan (wrong school) and yells as though she were in the stands.  She and hubby were so involved I called her the son he never had: I don’t think any of our three sons are as passionate as Lisa.
  

We offered to take her to lunch and she drove us in her new car.  Then the funny thing was that she paid for lunch.  Not bad, huh?











And I must say we looked pretty good in it.













This past Sunday we went to Florida to visit our grandson, his wife, and their really sweet son, Ryder.  We treated them, and ourselves, to Red Lobster where I ate 1# of crab legs and drawn butter.  I was still cracking shells long after everyone else was done: it was worth it!!


















Back at their house his Mommy read to him.  Look at how involved he is in the book.  He is not quite 11 months and you would swear he was reading along with her.










And then it was time to climb on Daddy.  We were again impressed both with how happy a baby Ryder is and his parents approach to parenting.

I do have to say that I was quite tired by the time we got home so was in bed early.  Now I just have to get myself motivated to do my exercises and then move on to fabric manipulation and then yarn entanglement.

I hope everyone who reads this has a great week with a sense of accomplishment, great or small.  Gari

BOMs Away

This week, for the first time in 5 months, I was able to go fabric shopping.  I had known that I needed some red fabric for one of my BOMs but since I was unable to stand long enough to cut fabric and press the fusible on it, it really had been a  moot point.  But since I have been getting a little stronger (slowly, oh so slowly) I decided it was time to venture out and shop.  I took this picture because those two rows of fabric are all polka dot fabrics and I was very impressed.






Then yesterday I spent some time drawing/copying the applique shapes on my fusible: I did this for three BOM blocks.

And then today I began cutting fabric and applying the fusible.  I’m getting all three blocks ready at the same time so it was a little confusing. I only cut into four fabrics so I still have some more to prepare.  I kind of got waylaid by knitting needles and yarn. 



One fun thing we did last week was to drive our daughter to where she was picking up her very first brand new car. It was 300 miles up and back with sitting time while she went through the car buying process and then we also stopped for a late dinner.  But we had lots of fun and she was very happy.  She even got a nurse specialty car tag.

Health Update:  I saw the oncologist a couple of weeks ago and he is putting me on a relatively new medication that is supposed to help build up my bones while killing cancer cells.  It has to come from a special pharmacy and be approved by the insurance.  It took two weeks of back and forth conversations to get that approval but he finally got it. The medication comes in the mail so we are waiting on that.

Tomorrow I see the orthopedic surgeon with the hope that I will be told that all is well with my hip and clearance to drive.  He never told me not to drive but the home health nurse assured me I wasn’t supposed to.
Then the next day I am seeing the cardiologist who will tell me that the pacemaker is working fine.

All three of these doctors are great but I am ready to not be tied to them quite so much.

I hope everyone had as nice a weekend as we did and that this will be a great week.  Gari

Wow, A Finish

I haven’t had a finish since May so this is very special for me.  In fact I had the foot done before I got sick so all I had to do was get well enough to want to knit again and then finish the heels and up the leg a bit.  I am really happy with how these look but since I live in the South it will be a while before I can wear them.
Meanwhile I have another pair started and another pair running around in my head.

Since my last post I have had a hip replacement. Yes, that was my third surgery in 9 1/2 weeks.  Since I had never had a surgery before I think this was a bit much but it is what it is.  I have continued to have Home Health which includes an aid twice a week, a nurse twice a week and a physical therapist twice a week.  And to add to that, doctor visits (3) this month.  It’s a good thing I bought that day planner.  I believe that the home health involvement will be tapering off, especially if I can get my walking better.  My lower back doesn’t seem to want to walk straight up. 

I was very pleased with my oncologist visit as he told me the medication that I am taking has improved my bones by 70%.  What this means is that the medication has been killing the cancer cells (most of them) and cutting off the pathways they have been traveling.  He did say the cells that are left will search out different pathways so we are attempting to get a new med/pill that is even stronger.The insurance is trying to get in the way but the doctor is on it and we will win.

I did get a quilt block appliqued but forgot to take a picture.  I am still having trouble standing for very long but I need to draw two blocks worth of applique so I can get the fabric ready and the applique fused.  If I can get these two done I want to do a first block of a new BOM. The fact that I am 5 months behind on my BOMs has only  got me slightly frazzled.

This is Ryder, our great grandson.  He has recently moved to Florida with his dad and mother, a United States Airman.  And in about a week and a half we will be going down to visit him, and oh, yes, his parents, too.  This little family was part of the group that came to our house Labor Day weekend and we were charmed by all three of them.  So you can imagine how excited we were when we were invited to visit them in their new home.  They will be there for the next two years so we hope to become really good friends.  Oh, and they have two dogs which makes them really good people.


And here we have another great grandchild, Scarlett. 

She is showing off her new sippy cup, an Auburn University Tervis cup.  We do try to get these children indoctrinated early.  And from the smile on her face she is fully on board.  I gotta say, we really have cute kids.

So now I need to stop writing this, get some sleep and prepare to do some work tomorrow.  I would like to have some kind of finish for this month, too.

Have a great week,  Gari