Hello after a long break everyone! In addition to having a bunch of stuff going on in my life, I must admit that I have just been lazy about blogging. It’s tough for me when I get out of the habit. Writing again seems like an insurmountable task. But then, like most things, it’s easier once I start. A lot of shit has been going down, though. My mom’s diagnosis is much worse than we thought. She will be getting twice the amount of chemo than is normal, radiation with adjunct therapy after that and the recurrence rate will still be 50%. We have all been pretty stunned by the new development. As for myself, I had another seizure a few weeks ago. It was the worst one in 2 years. I lost almost half an hour to the amnesia that I get. So my doctor increased my Lamictal dosage, which is making me feel pretty dizzy. Poops.
Nevertheless, I have been keeping busy. Just not with studio related stuff. I’m sort of waiting until I came move all my stuff to the basement when my brother moves out in August. Right now I feel overwhelmed because I have almost run out of space completely in the room I use now. But I have been sewing a bunch, which I would love to get good at. Right now I’m working on an apron based on one that I got from my great-grandma before she died. The original apron is very comfortable because it doesn’t have a halter neck; they always give me a headache. And as a bonus it looks sort of like a dress from the front. I made one version using the pattern I drew straight from it and the one I am making now has tons of modifications. It looks even more like a cute tunic top so I’ll be able to wear it outside of the house as an accessory. In fact I don’t think I’ll want to wear it in the kitchen at all 
And as an added bonus it should fit after I loose more weight, too. So I feel like it’s worth spending a lot of time on to make it as nice as possible. It’s even got a lining and totally enclosed seams. I love it. I’m miserable at taking “in progress pics,” I never want to to a break from working. But I’ll have some photos when it is done.
The knitting and crochet haven’t been very well, though. I had a major chemo hat fail. There is something seriously wrong with this pattern. I don’t know how on earth the designer got gauge using a dk weight yarn. 29 stitches to 4 inches, I mean come on! I’m using a sport weight and just barely making it. And on top of that it’s going to be too small. I still think the basic idea is cute, but I feel like I’ll have to rewrite the pattern, which is frustrating. So I’m moving on to another one for now.
Anyway, I’m dying to get back to my sewing, so that’s it for now.
I can’t thank you enough for all of your very kind words of caring and support. And to all of you with family who are suffering as well please know that I will be thinking of you as well. Knowing that others have struggles of their own is a good reminder to avoid getting wrapped up in feelings of self pity. Instead we can focus on feelings of empathy for others who have similar difficulties.
Well, my life has settled down a bit since I wrote last. So I thought I’d give you a brief update. 2 Thursdays ago, which by sad coincidence happened to be my 30th birthday, my mom was diagnosed fairly aggressive breast cancer. She found a great surgeon who she connected with emotionally right away and had a double mastectomy yesterday. The procedure went as well as it could; when we saw her post-op she looked fantastic. We were all amazed at how well and how quickly she was recovering. She will probably be coming home tonight.
So next is the long haul of chemo and radiation after that. I have 1 sister and 4 brothers, all younger than me, the 3 youngest still live at home and the rest of us live no further than 2 miles away. Plus our family is very close and we all, more or less, get along with each other very well. This makes a fantastic support network, which will make the next year of treatment easier to cope with. Your thoughts and prayers would be greatly appreciated.
I want to thank everyone for the good suggestions. You’ve given me some good stuff to think about. My family and I are all of a sudden in the middle of an emergency right now. So I’m not sure how much time I’ll be able to spend in my studio over the coming weeks (months). But I’ll do my best to check in.
The Ditsy Owl is ready for purchase!
Etsy
Ravelry
I’m still working on the basic jointed “teddy bear” style pattern. But it’s going to be a very loooong one. I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up being a 20 page pattern. So in the meantime I want to work on an additional pattern, and I’m a little stumped. I would like it to be a new amigurumi, one I haven’t made before. Any ideas? I certainly won’t be able to make all of them. But it would be nice to get a few suggestions. Thanks 
The Ditsy Owl says “Hurray! I’ll be in the shop on Monday!”
I just finished listening to one of my favorite books ever. “My Life in France” by Julia Child. I bought the abridged version from Audible because I thought the narrator’s voice was charming, plus I read the whole book a few years ago and just wanted to relive it a bit. I am showing the pre-”Julie and Julia” cover because I thought the movie was pretty awful. Don’t get me wrong, Meryl Streep was absolutely brilliant! She did such a fantastic job, I forgot I was watching an actor and not the real Julia Child. I mean, she got Julia’s high, warble-ly, slightly ridiculous voice down pat. Which made me all the more sad that the movie wasn’t a bio pic. I know, I know, I am such a sucker. But I love me a good bio pic. I am so glad Joaquin Phoenix made “Walk the Line” before he went round the twist.
In other news…recent sweater progress has been fantastic. I am finishing up the body on this sweater today. I think my gauge is tighter than my swatch. The sweater is only 14″ across right now. But I haven’t cut the steek, blocked it or put in the button band yet, so I’m not too worried. I’ll just plan on wearing it with some negative ease. This will be the second or third “post fatness” sweater I have made. I think I mentioned before that I joined Weight Watchers at the end of last November. Since then all my knitting time has been devoted to making my “Goodbye to Fatness Trousseau.” Some of the ladies at my LYS have balked and made it pretty clear that they think it’s crazy to knit sweaters 4 sizes smaller than I am right now. But I think it’s the best thing I can do right now to keep myself motivated. Apart from spending hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours too, the visualization is really useful. I know it’s a cliche from therapy, but imaging myself thin and all dressed up in my new clothes is fun and really keeps me going. A month or so ago I said that I wanted to be 30 lbs down by my 30th on May 6th. I’m not quite going to make it, but I’ll be close enough to keep myself encouraged. I’ll definitely hit the 25 lb mark. Which considering I’ve been on the program for 5 months, I call that a pretty good pace.
Well, I went to my doctor’s appointment on Monday and everything checked out fine. The MIR and the EEG where normal. My doctor said that she thinks I had the seizures because I missed a few pills (for which I feel pretty stupid to tell you the truth). And when I was at her office I thought “well yeah, OK, that makes sense” and I felt really happy that I won’t need anyone to cart my ass around because I will be able to drive after all. But on the way home I started to have my doubts. I mean, over the last 2 seizure free years I haven’t been perfect about my meds. I’m not sure that anyone could be perfect for that long. So why all of a sudden did missed pills make such a big difference? And so now I’m feeling all worried again. I know I could call to ask her about this, but I see her in a few weeks and since lots of conversations are better in person, I’ll ask her then. In the meantime my husband, Terry, and my mom will humor me by playing chauffeur.
Last week I took everyone’s advice and did my best to relax. Which is surprisingly hard to do. But like I mentioned before, I adore knitting so it was easy for me fill my time. For days on end I clenched my teeth and struggled to breath easily while working my way through socks and hats, lace and sweaters. On Friday the leisure time finally started to kick in and I felt much better, just a little bit uneasy. Which was a huge improvement over a few days before when walking into an empty room made me feel like hyperventilating. And yesterday I was ready to spent a bit of time in my studio. I say “spend time” as apposed to “working” because I did as much Ravelry browsing as I did actual amigurumi related stuff. Buy hey, I showed up I did make some progress on the owl pattern by taking some of the insturctional photos and I think they turned out pretty well. So today I think I’ll insert them in the pattern and write the instructions that go with them. If I’m able to get a good amount of that done I’ll be happy.
Hi, Everyone. Thanks so much for your kind words and thoughts.
Tomorrow, I’m getting an MRI done and then on Monday I’ll get an EEG done in my neurologist’s office and have an appointment with her right after. I guess my doctor needs some more info before we decide what to do next.
What with the loss of consciousness that my seizures bring on, I’m off driving again. So my mom is taking me to the imaging place in the morning and we’re going to hang out for the rest of the day until my husband gets home from work. Which is good, because I’m pretty much terrified of being along right now. Even going into an empty room when other people are at home makes me nervous. What happens with my seizures is that my brain stops recording events during them, so immediately after the seizure is over I have amnesia and get very disoriented. No shaking or anything, just the very scary disorientation. Before when I had seizures, I was completely out of it and my mom or husband told me what happened after. But on Sunday I sort of knew what was happening and that was terrifying. I had three seizures through out the day and I pretty much had a panic attack during each one.
So I’ve been doing my best to relax, which is surprisingly hard to do. It’s challenging not to think “man, there are a million things I should be doing right now.” Mostly I’ve been knitting, but I need to back off a bit since my muscles and joints are getting sore. Yesterday I finished my first pair of socks (well the first pair since I decided to get really good at knitting socks). They turned out to be a test-run, though. They’re too big for me, but they are perfect on my mom. I’m really glad about that, too. I think she deserves a treat for being so great about taking me to appointments and stuff.
Tomorrow I am going to see the doctor. Which is good since I had a few seizures today. I’ll get back in my studio soon. But for now I think I’ll do the dishes and have a cup of tea.
