Monday, March 09, 2015

It's all fun and games

until you see the hand specialist.

Honest, I'm sitting here trying to figure out where the entire last week went. I mean, I know where it went, but dude. AN ENTIRE WEEK.

Last Wednesday, I saw a hand specialist. One who didn't suck. His conclusion was pretty much "you're doing better than any other case like this I know of, OMG, don't look at your hand wrong or breathe funny, you'll jinx it". (Okay, thanks, I think?) But the exam consisted of lots of poking and twisting and at one point shifting the bones in my wrist, and when they ground together, the doc goes "you feel that?" and I said "you're kidding, right?" and he looked sheepish and said, well, that was the arthritis and messed up cartilage taking. Then he went on to smoosh the other wrist to show how it doesn't do grinding stuff. THANKS. I WOULD TAKE YOUR WORD FOR IT.

Anyway. That torn ligament that's driving me nuts? Fixing it would make a worse mess than it already is. All those little bones and tiny spaces between them, So apparently the laundry list of WTF that is setting off the pain thing is a permanent fixture and I'm back to the usual bullshit.

Although, a steady diet of nerve blocks is helping that, too, so with luck I might be functional one of these days.

--

Last night was the shop's holiday party (everyone's always busy at Christmas, so they do it in the spring, it is very awesome, no one is stressed and it is a very good time). Everyone gives each other knits, and I'd done a Batkus with some yarnovers and beads, in some of my hand spun.

I never got a full picture of it, because I'm a ding-dong. But! World's easiest beaded edge! You know how when you're normally knitting along, for a selvedge, you slip every first stitch in the row? Use a crochet hook and put a bead on every other slipped stitch. Looks fab, is fast and easy, and it's never so many beads at one time you go crazy. I love how it worked, and now want to put beaded edges on everything. (And probably will.)

The person I gave it to made squeaky noises and wore it the rest of the night, so that's a win.

--

The spinning continues. Remember the pink and orange gradient? Honu decided to help me with that.
Did the fucker eat one of the ENDS? No. It's a gradient, so OF COURSE she chewed up a hunk in the middle. I picked out the cat spit and kept spinning. Damned cat.

Uh, still working on the blue shawl? And some evidence for why I let the cat live. She's very warm.

Oh, the foot stool? Yeah. It's got storage space in it. We were buying it, and hub said oh, we should get a bigger one. I told him a bigger one would be filled up with fiber. Right then, small one! (Instead of fiber, it's full of electronics odds and ends - cords, Wii bits and bobs, the usual. So far no fiber. I'm fighting the urge.)

Ah! One last bit. My buddy W does millinery, and hooked me up with an on line shop that sells hand dyed silk ribbon for not-extortionate prices. www.fabricandart.com is the place. Ordered last Friday, and here they are.
Aren't they PREEEEETTY? I love how silk takes dye. Hub was muttering until I said this may finally motivate me to unpack my work room. That cheered him right up.

With luck I'll actually do something this week, that'll be more interesting than taking painkillers, watching Netflix, and going "buh?" blearily at loud noises. At the least, no more doctor's visits for a while.

2 comments:

Jen Anderson said...

Ugh! I hate it when doctors make the pain worse. I had an acupuncturist who would "skillfully manipulate the needles" after insertion and he managed to make my migraines worse.

Have you tried EFT tapping for the pain? I've been trying it for the migraines. You tap on acupressure points (with your good hand, natch) and think about the pain. The lizard brain freaks out at chronic pain because it thinks you can actually do something about it. The tapping tells your lizard brain to chill out and stop making things worse by flooding your body with useless stress hormones.

Also? Those ribbons are the prettiest thing I've seen all winter. I wonder if I could justify ordering some just so I could look at them all winter long.

Emily said...

I'm actually impressed with your doctor for being straight and not urging surgery on you. Doctors loathe not being able to fix things.
I'll be curious about how the tapping thing works.
Good to have you back!