Wow, it has been a long time since I have blogged.
I apologize that I has taken me so long to
get back to this.
I have had just about
a rough of a 9 months as someone can have without dealing with a death.
I normally try not to get too personal here
on the blog.
My aim is to keep the focus
getting "excited and creating things" as Wil Wheaton would say.
But I do want to share with you a little bit
of what has been going on and more importantly how I'm dealing with things.
I hope that some of the advice and strategies
that I have been using can help you deal with whatever is going on in your
life.
I have always said that due to our
limited prospective as human that in a very real way the worse problem in the
world is whatever the worst problem you are personally dealing with.
But don't worry, this post will not be all doom and
gloom. I have recovered enough to start
knitting again and I have actually finished some things. I have a scarf I dreamt up that I made for my
mom as birthday gift. In a little bit I
show you some pictures and teach you how I made it. It's super easy.
So a little background on what has been going on. First off late last spring early last summer
my Dad was diagnosed with Lymphoma.
Luckily they don't live to far from Philadelphia, so he was able to go
to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania for treatment and see some of
the leading authorities of Lymphoma. He
had a number of Chemo treatment and it was very stressful on the whole
family. It was a terrifying process with
diagnosis and treatment, but the more we learned the easier it was to
handle. Not knowing what is going on is
the hardest part of anything like this. With
a few bumps (and Hospital stays) along the way the Chemo went well. After that he did a month's worth of
Radiation treatments to get any stray Cancer cell. This also went well and in fact just finished
up a few weeks back. The only bump in
the road from that was the day after he finished he came down with pneumonia,
spending almost a week in the hospital.
The good news is that he out of the hospital and doing well. Now we just have to wait and see how
successful the treatment where. With the
type of Lymphoma he had we should know in about six months if it worked or not,
and the way you know is if it comes back.
In a way this makes the next six months the hardest
part. Once we found out what we're
dealing with and my Dad got into treatment, we were being proactive. But now we just have to wait and hope. It's the helplessness that really eats at
you. That and the knowledge if it does
come back, the success rate of the treatment options go way down.
The next float in our parade of challenges came in
august I was in a car accident. I talk about this a bit before so I won't go
into too many details as to what happened.
Basically a drunk driver rear-ended me half a dozen times, causing
injuries to my shoulders and the spine in my neck. I Have going from being in excruciating pain
and barley able to do anything, to just a fair amount of pain and able to do
most normal things around the house.
However even sitting a typing from more than an hour is still
difficult. I'm on my second round of Physical
Therapy, but I'm hoping to be back to normal in a month or two.
This brings us to the day of hurricane Sandy. I don't know if you have ever tried to make
an appointment with a Gastroentonlogus, which I know is misspelled, but MS Word
doesn't know what I mean to write and at this point I'm tired of fighting
it. Anyway, if you have been to one you
will know that it takes forever to schedule appointment with this particular
type of specialist. I had been having
some pain and nausea after eating and the doctor wanted to an endoscopy. It just so happened that was scheduled for
the same day the hurricane hit. Luckily
the hurricane did hit us in the Philly region till around 1 or 2 in the
afternoon and my test was set for 10am.
They were able to do the test and get me home by 12:30. Unfortunately they found that I have evidence
of gastritis and a bleeding ulcer. Now I
have to take a pill an hour before I eat, which is a big pain in the ass.
One more minor issue, I have been having issue with knee
pain when I go up and down stairs. Told
my new doctor (my old one quit about 3 months ago, and no it wasn't because of
me) and she ordered some X-rays. The
X-rays showed that I have some slight joint narrowing. The fix for which is more Physical Therapy,
after which I believe I will have put in just about enough time to get a degree
in Physical Therapy.
Beside those all those things the last nine months has seen
the following financial challenges:
- Christmas, two family
member birthdays being in December and my anniversary being Jan 2nd.
- Increasing oil prices
- Over $500 in repairs bill
for my heating system which is oil base and also provides me with hot water
-
Increases in the cost of my
medical insurance and co-pays
- Multiple car repairs,
including one caused by Car Sense putting in a new thermostat backwards
(luckily I found a great new mechanic and never need to use Car Sense for
repairs again)
Finally to top it all of my relationship with
Laura end three
weeks ago.
I'm not going to go into all
of the how's and why's.
It is no else is
business and really unimportant to the purpose of this story.
I will say Laura is an amazing person and a
fantastic artist, if you have never seen her art, click on her name and it will
take you to her website.
Anyway back to
me, the dissolution of the relationship was very upsetting and was the finally
straw.
I need to do something.
So I talked to people, I called a ton of
friends and let them hear my sob stories and that helped to various degrees,
but I did get some very good advice.
My
friend Becky, who is one of the smartest and kindest people I know, told me to
make sure that every day I looked for something good that happened that
day.
To actively seek out the good thing,
even if it something as small as traffic to work wasn't as bad as the day
before.
I know that sounds silly but it
really did help.
The good thing for
today was that I got a bunch of writing done at lunch and after work.
The other thing that I have done is to make exercise a top
priority. I have committed to getting at
least 30min of cardiovascular exercise every weekday. I have placed this commitment before
everything else, if I late to work because of it so be it. And IT has helped a great deal. Back in collage I had psychology professor
who was also a practicing psychiatrist.
She told us that in all here years of treating patients the single most
effective antidepressant she had ever seen was regular cardiovascular
exercise. It was the first this she
proscribed any patients with depression.
Even if it doesn't help the depression, the patient was getting healthier,
so it's a win/win.
Another thing I have done is applying for a loan to get a
new heat system that uses natural. The
reason I say that is there are a number of government programs that one can use
to help one's self. This one is run by
the state. I was turned down the first
time I applied. I didn't just that no
for an answer and found out why I was turned down. I then took steps to fix the issue that
caused me to be turned down and reapplied.
It looks like this time will be a win and I hopefully will have a new
system in place by the end of the month.
Being creative has also help a great deal. I have done a fair amount of knitting which
has the benefit for being both creative and relaxing. The things I'm making for the most part are
for me, which is a nice and need change.
I'll be posting the things I make here, just don't expect them too soon,
I'm still learning. I also have been
writing a fair amount. I hope to have
some of it finish and published soon.
Being creative has always been a good outlet for me and when I'm not
making something I just feel off.
Finally, writing this all out has helps some. It's nice to just enumerate everything that
is going on, put it down in words and say I'm having a tough time of
things. It helps me not feel so guilty
about feeling depressed. I do in fact
have things that are depressing going on.
I felt bad about feeling bad and it became the snaking eating its own
tail. Posting this hopeful will help me
break the particular cycle.
All that being said, I still have a long way to go. I spend more time than not being
depressed. My life has moved in a new
and completely unpredictable direction, a direction that has yet to even fully
taken shape. That fact of the matter is
that I need to talk to someone professional about everything. I just need to find out how to afford it.
Now if your still reading or if you skipped down to the
picture (and who can blame you) on to the fun part. Here you can see the scarf I made my mom for
her birthday. It mainly garter stitch
with a bit of flourish at the ends. She
has a brown jacket so the terracotta yarn will match it well. Here are the steps to make one:
- Cast on 32 stitches
- Work in garter stitch for 2 inches
- Start Ribbing with Knit 1 then Purl 2. Knit 2, to the last stitch which to you knit. Then reverse that and
start with a purl. Repeat this for about
an inch.
- Work in garter stitch till you have it about three inches form
where you wanted it
- Repeat step 3
- Work in garter stitch for 2 inches
- Bind off
And there you have it.
I know that my directions are not in the normal terminology of patterns
you can find in book, but I'm still new at knitting.
I have also knitted something for my sister for her
birthday, but she hasn't gotten it yet.
I'll post it when I know she has received it.
OK, enough belly aching.
Now that I'm single I will need to find someone to cook for because even
with all the biking at the gym, I'll get nice and fat if I eat all the stuff I
plan to cook. So if you know me in real
life, come on over and I'll try out a new recipe on you.
Till next time, get the hell out of my kitchen.
Oh and one more piece of advice from RuPaul "if you
can't love yourself, how the hell you going to love anyone else"
I originally picked up this free pattern from Michaels when
I was first learning to knit a year ago to make as a gift for someone
else. Very quickly into the project my
kitting teacher realized that this was way too much for someone who could
hardly knit two stitches in a row without fouling up. The pattern was set aside and I started on my Franken-scarf. After making a many
scarfs I was finally ready to come back to the fingerless gloves.
