A Message from Garcia

This is Susan's husband, Jim. This is just a short post with a brief report of Susan's condition for all her fantastic friends.

Susan's surgery lasted only 3 hours. We had been told to expect a duration of 5 hours. She was out of recovery in less than 30 minutes and spent the remainder of Friday and half of Saturday in ICU. She had a CT early Saturday which showed no bleeding. Her surgeon visited and was pleased with her rapid rebound from such a traumatic event.

Saturday afternoon, Susan was moved to a private room and has been resting comfortably. She is very weak and, although having sensation in her left leg, has been unable to move the leg. From the time she arrived in ICU, she has been "wise-cracking" with the nurses. She says she feels relatively good, with the exception of a headache that comes and goes. Fortunately, the intensity of the headache has decreased markedly since Friday. She rated her pain as 8.5 to 9.0 on a scale of 10 on Friday. Today, she says it started at 2, increasing occasionally as high as 6, but that hasn't been too frequent.

It will be early next week before pathology reports are available for the tissue samples taken during surgery, so there probably won't be much to report till then. Many thanks to all who have been keeping Susan in thoughts and prayers. We both appreciate that more than you will ever know.

Jim

Be Back Soon

One last post before the hospital. I expect to be back in a couple of weeks. Then it'll take me another couple of weeks to get caught up on everyone's blogs. And I've got my hospital knitting already picked out.

I got a surprise package of yarn in the mail a couple of days ago. My sister Jan sent me the alpaca she was supposed to be knitting into a scarf. Now I'll knit it into a scarf for her. I'm thinking of using the same lace pattern as my Emily scarf, if I can remember where found it. Knitting the alpaca is like knitting kittens! It is SO soft and fluffy. She got it at Gourmet Yarns when she was out here.

No pics to post and the sole knitting content is in the above paragraph. I really appreciate the prayers and support from all of you. It makes a day like tomorrow a little easier to handle.

I love you all!

The Mad Hatter

Before I threw myself into charity knitting, I had knitted three hats and a bag to felt. The pattern is everywhere on the net

and is very easy. I made one with Lambs Pride and yes, the black band was knitted in. It turned out very cute and felted perfectly. I made another with Ali's handspun and Cascade 220:

The picture doesn't do it justice! It's really red with the black band knit in and the Cascade 220 at the top matches the blue in the variegate. But it's a little big. I'm thinking of refelting it to see if I can get the size down a little.

And I also made my sister Jan a hat and bag. She picked out the yarn when she visited a couple of months ago. I used the same pattern Carolyn used for the hat and it turned out very cute. Unfortunately I was doing guesstimates on the size of the purse so it will also get another hot bath to see if I can get down to the size she wanted:

The bag does look a little wonky! I am planning to make another of the rolled brim hats in black but make the brim a little wider.

I was visiting with Eileen, Jim's sister, and ended up volunteering to make HER a hat. The rolled brim will look really nice on her so I neeed to get over to Gourmet Yarns and buy some more Cascade 220. It will probably be a hospital project.

Did I mention hospital? Yes, a matter of fact I will be back in for surgery on Friday. It appears the Gamma Knife was unsuccessful in frying the tumors and they are growing. So come Friday at 6:30 am(!!! What is wrong with these people? Are there no night owl sugeons?!) I'll be back at the hospital for a baseline MRI and getting my head shaved (of course since I actually have hair again).

The good news is both tumors are on the surface of my brain, not embedded, and both will be removed. I'm going to try to post one more time before Friday but it just depends on how life goes.

I appreciate all the prayers and good thoughts!

Kitty Kapers

Our oldest cat - Rimsky - is 15 years old. He recently had an abscess inside his cheek! Our vet could find no reason for it but thought it probably had been building for quite a while. Rimsky's poor little face was so swollen on that side he couldn't open his eye!
We took him to the vet on Monday. Poor guy. He had to stay overnight so they could try to get the swelling down before draining the abcess. He was once our biggest cat and now he's down to 8 lbs! We've watched him change over the last couple of months. Now we think it was the toxins his system. We picked hm up on Tuesday and brought him home. He has a drain tube in his cheek (which looks really gross so I won't be treating you to pictures of it) and a shaved face. BUT he's starting to act like his old self and not like an old cat. We are certainly thankful for that!

Now who do you think was scared to death of him? That's right - Sugar. She hissed and growled if he came within ten feet of her! He must have smelled really odd. She jumped up on my lap, sniffed my sweater, and hissed at me! I had him on my lap for a few seconds while Jim got the carrier. So all last night Sugar sat under the coffee table and hissed or growled or both at any cat who came into the living room. She's a little better today. She's still hissing at him but now she's trailing about five feet behind him. Maybe she just wants to keep tabs on him.

And speaking of Sugar, you know how she feels compelled to be in the middle of things if it seems the least bit interesting. Jim and I play Yatzee once in a while. Here is Missy Big Buns trying to fit into the box. Of course she doesn't, the box is too small. But that doesn't keep her from trying to lay down in it EVERY time we play. She's probably hoping for a bigger box (which, believe it or, we provided for her. But it wasn't the box we were using so she didn't want to sit in it - spoiled, spoiled spoiled)
As for Blueberry, she's like a little gray shadow flitting through the house. Except for the times she's racing though the house after Sugar, which happens at least once a day. And all this time I thought she was six but Jim and I were working out cat ages the other day and it turns out she's only FOUR! How I got her to six, I'll never know!

Well I was going to post a picture of Blueberry in her vulture pose, waiting for Sugar, but blogger is not cooperating.

I'm off to finish a couple of listing packets. I am going to look at two houses tomorrow to see about listing them.

No Rain On Our Parade...I Mean...Meeting

The Guild meeting yesterday was packed full of things! Try to come if you can, this is just a fun group. Dispite the rain, we had 17 - 20 people show up including two new people. We had a charity knitting program, a swap meet, and several other things. Here are a couple of pics of the swap meet. This is Anna and Jo Ellyn checking out the yarn:

Here is Helen and Helen checking out the books, patterns, and magazines:

We had a great assortment of yarn and patterns. It's always fun to do the swap meet. When the October Guild Newsletter goes up, I'll put up some more of the guild meeting along with pictures of the big surprise Carolyn told us about.

All of my knitting has been for our charity knitting lately and I did win a prize (so did Jo Ellyn) for the most charity items turned in. I got some darling christmas cards and a skein of PURPLE Lustersheen. Very fun!

And I finally got the pumpkin hat and booties done and will try to get them in the mail tomorrow. I apologize for the picture - I was leaning half on my walker and half across the table to take it. This set is cute, fast, and easy!

Enough for now. Hope your week is going spendiferously!

Knitting on Hold

I finished the pumpkin hat and booties for my third niece's new baby (I have three nieces who all are having or had babies in September/October). I have tried two or three times to put leaves on the booties but they just look silly, so I'll probably send them leafless.

I need to work on charity knitting the rest of the week. Anna Hester, who is in charge of charity knitting for the guild, has offered a prize to the person who brings the most knitted items to the meeting on Sunday. I can make a hat or a pair of booties in an evening so all other knitting is on hold while I see how many little sets I can crank out.

And I have more mobility - thanks to Polly G. She lent me a walker and now I can get around the house without Jim having help me. It doesn't seem like a big deal but believe me, it's great to be able to make a cup of tea, go to other rooms on my own, etc., and not have to interrupt him all the time (okay, he DOES have to carry the cup of tea for me). It allows me a little more independence.

I never did tell you the results of the petscan done in September. It was, and this is what the report said, "unremarkable." When I was going to radiology the other day, I told the receptionist I'd had three cat scans already that morning and didn't see why I needed any others. She looked really surprised and concerned. "Where did you have them?" she asked.
"At home," I said, "I have three cats."

It's About Time!

After harrassing Wayne about not posting on his blog for ages, I figured I better put something up before he REALLY starts to pick on me.

Not much of interest in my world and no pictures. I finished another preemie layette but haven't gotten around to taking pictures yet. Have almost finished a pumpkin hat and booties set for another grand nephew. I'll post pictures when I get it done. I only lack sewing the leaves on the booties.

And another Sugarism - We rented a wheelchair in September so I could go to the fair (which was really fun), and have found it to be very useful at home. We have one small black problem - if Sugar is ANYWHERE within sound of the wheels turning, she comes on the run yelling all the way. She LOVES riding in the chair. I don't even have to be in it! She just loves to ride!

Oh, another great reason to have a wheelchair - if you are stupid enough to fall down the stairs at the house you are going to list and sprain your ankle! Not a great way to start off a meeting, let me tell you! At least it was the left side which isn't working correctly anway. And it gets me out of PT (which I secretly blame because my knees are weaker now than before I started it and I am really embarrassed about being so clutzy as to fall off the bottom step).

Back to Sugar. Rimsky has started sleeping on Sugar's blanket. I keep her blanket next to me on the bed for whichever cat want to use it. Sugar rarely uses it, she prefers to just sleep on top of me (if any of you would like to see what it's like to sleep with a heavy bowling ball on your chest, I'd be happy to lend you Sugar). The other morning, Rimsky was sound asleep on the blanket when Sug popped up on the bed, saw him and laid down next to him.

How cute, I thought, they're finally getting along. The next thing I see is Sugar CASUALLY STRETCHING. Everytime she stretched, she poked Rimsky. She continued stretching (and poking) until he got up and left. Did she lay on her blanket? Of course not, she came over and did her impression of a bowling ball.

Leave me a comment and share what strange or funny things your fur-babies have done or what kind of personality quirks they have.