Friday, July 20, 2007

Blockages


I spent most of June in and out of the hospital. I'm just fine, but, as turns out, my dad was not. What seemed as though was going to be a routine cardiac catheterization (with the possibility of angioplasty) ended up resulting in major bypass surgery.
This was a shock, as my father seems to be a fit and active man. Apparently he's been having (and ignoring) chest pains for at least a year. He's also been only occasionally checking his blood sugar and taking his diabetes meds. And he decided that an herbal alternative to his cholesterol medications would be a fine substitute, though didn't have his blood levels re-checked to make sure it was working.


Anyway, this was all shocking for me, who thought he was taking care of himself.
His arteries were 95-99% blocked in five places. The surgeon said he shouldn't have been alive, let alone mobile.

He came through the surgery well, I took him home a week later and spent another week settling him in and arranging his care before returning home myself.
All this would have been bad enough, but was made exponentially worse by the behavior of some of his close friends. It's not worth going into here, but let's just say it's very frustrating when educated adults act like jealous, petty children. I expected more.


While sitting in hospital waiting rooms, I had time to work on and finish the Clapotis. It's a blend of reds and pinks, fitting for a cardiac unit. I'm happy with it - the color and size are perfect. The yarn was a little hard to work with, as the 100% wool didn't like to be dropped, and I had to pick at each stitch to get them to unravel.


I had time a couple of weeks ago to block both the Clapotis and the Print O' the Wave Stole, which has been finished for months. The Stole is my favorite thing I've made up to now. I look at it and realize how much time and work went into this one thing. I didn't really notice while I was making it, but in hindsight, it was an extremely time and labor intensive project. But so beautiful!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I'm sorry to hear about your father. I am going through something similar with my mother, so I will keep you in my thoughts. The shawls are BEAUTIFUL! Your knit lace is amazing... I tried the Clappy 4 times and had to frog like 54 inches at one point. Maybe one day, but for now I put it to rest. Yours is inspiring though!