I LIKE My Doctor!

As you may recall, I had multiple things done to my foot Jan 4th. Surgery that "forced" me to hang out at home for a month. This past month was a return to work but with limited walking and lifting to let the tendon re-attach to my heel and my toes to get back to normal.

The normal healing time is 4 weeks no weight bearing and 4 weeks with an air cast. Then up to 4 months more of getting your foot back to normal as far as walking without a limp, incision scars healed without "shrinking" to cause toes to be malformed, etc.

Well, yesterday was my latest check up with Dr Cute Eyes. Did I mention he has the greatest eyes. I'm an eye person. Anyway -

Two weeks into this whole thing he was so impressed with my healing powers that he lessened the no weight bearing by a week and let me try walking a very little bit after week 3. My check up a month ago he declared I was healing "spooky fast" and I could try a loose shoe the beginning of this week instead of waiting for normal time period.

Yesterday he looked at my foot and chuckled that I was healing "wicked good". Doesn't know what I'm doing to make this go so fast but - keep it up and if I figure out what I did I should bottle it. You have to love a doctor that calls you spooky fast (in a good way) and wicked good!

I've been wearing an old loose Velcro strap sandal this week with a major limp and soreness but - no more air cast and that's just fine with me. My heel is healing!


How about a quick game of where's Bert. We haven't played that for a while.
I came home earlier this week and was greeted by Chief but no Bert. I called him, Nada.
After searching his usual hiding places I noticed something wrong in the living room....

Guess he wanted to take a nap with Sam the Ram.

Farewell to January

I'll be glad to say good bye to January in one way and sad in another. I spent all of January with my foot surgery and staying in the house recovering so I am glad to be now getting out a bit and seeing the "real" world again. But - I also spent January relaxing, decompressing from the stresses of everyday life and getting some knitting done with no guilt about other things I should be doing. That part I'll miss a lot.

Stress free is a good thing and I hope one thing I learned this month is that I need to allow the problems of the world to stay away from my den. So, I don't do new year's resolutions but this year I'm going to try and keep problems out of the den. When I come in here - the world doesn't. Let the kitchen table be the place for bills and life problems and let the den be a place for knitting, friendship, relaxing, etc. My little safe zone in the world.

My view of the outside world this month was through the window in the den (and the TV). All I worried about was seeing whether there was new snow on the roof of the house behind me. I was lucky this month and we had so little snow I didn't even have to hunt up someone to shovel the driveway/walkway. I hope February stays the same.

As I said earlier I did knitting this month. A few days ago I started a new sweater. I can tell I'm feeling better cause I burned through 2 skeins in 3 days. Much quicker knitting than the beginning of the month when it took me 2 weeks to go through 1 skein.

The sweater has cables on the front along with a yoke filled with "berries". The back is plain rev. st. with the berries yoke. I've knit a lot of berries the past few days with many more to come!

As for the Boys - they're off sleeping somewhere. (what a surprise).

Hangin' out with the Boys

I'm definitely seeing more energy and strength this week compared to the last few weeks. My foot is on the mend. I've managed to stay awake for most of the day now except I still sleep about 10-12 hours out of the 24. It's amazing what the body does to heal itself. The other thing that's helping is I haven't had to take any drugs this week (not even ibuprofen) so it looks like the next hurdle is being able to drive. I'll be trying to drive later this week once the doctor gives me the OK. Then......... back to work. Will I survive? Will the boys survive without our afternoon nap time?

What could be better than an old quilt, knitting and the boys to hang out with!?

Knitting news - I finished the red sock shortly after the above picture.

Saturday a friend gave me some KnitPicks Crayon in green, a Christmas sweater from her little bear and a request. She wanted a St. Pat's Day sweater for her bear. Sunday I made the sweater and I'll get pics before I give it to her.

Knitting meets Camera

I finally got my camera, my knitting and my ambition together at the same time so - we have pictures.

First up - the Wonderball Shawl. You may remember for Christmas my knitting cousin gave me a Wonderball. I had a problem deciding what to knit because I didn't know what kind of yardage it had so - I decided on a shawl and if worse came to worse I could add yarn from my stash.

Size 10 1/2 needles - Cast on 5 sts and I did the yarn over increase at each end and either side of the center stitch. I did the whole shawl in knit so it's a garter stitch.
When I came to some of the yarns they definitely had a right side and wrong side. Check out the light purple fringe stripe. Once I knit that yarn I pulled all the fringe to the right side. The yellow/teal stripe is fun fur but that fulled in enough so I didn't need to pick any to the front.

Besides not knowing what yarn will "show up" next the Wonderball includes presents wound in the ball throughout.

I ended up getting 5 presents: a crocheted bunny which was at the very center, a felt pin cushion, silk ribbon, a crystal Christmas ornament, and stitch markers. The stitch markers and crystal gave me some problems because they popped through long before the whole item so I had to be careful pulling yarn around the sticking out part.

But - it was fun to knit and an adventure to see what yarn or present would show up next. Had me thinking about making some Wonderballs of my own for presents to fellow knitters.

Other knitting?

I started making some bath mitts to create spa baskets for presents. No time like the present to get started on next year's presents.

This mitt is Sugar'n Cream and the pattern was on the ball band.

One friend stayed with me at the hospital the whole day during my surgery - drove me there and home so I decided to make him a pair of Elizabeth Zimmerman's Woodman's socks. These socks are great for outdoor Minnesota winter activities. One sock down - one to go.

Slow but sure. I'm making the Tree of Life Afghan. It's been sitting next to my chair all month so when I have nothing else to do I pull it out and work on a few rows. So far I'm over half done

The second pattern is a flower garden and supposed to be 4 flowers high but - the leaves are yarn pulled through making long strands. To me it's asking for someone to get their fingers, toes, etc. caught in it and that would pull the stitches out of shape making the afghan look ugly. I came to this decision after a couple flowers and changed the pattern up a little. It only has 3 rows of flowers and I added another little design above it to keep the length of the whole afghan.

What I really like about this afghan is the tree of life pattern. The afghan has 4 of these across and repeats it at top and bottom and in the middle.

I can't go a complete post without mentioning the foot. It's been 2 1/2 weeks since my surgery and I'm finally starting to walk around a little. I also managed to stand in the shower a few times and it feels SO good to be really, really clean! My walking around is usually to the kitchen and back to my chair followed by a nap or at least sitting around for 2-3 hours to recover. My foot no longer looks like something out of a bad horror movie but it has a new feature that amuses me.

Three weeks ago my 2nd toe was the same length as my 3rd toe. No more. My toes is now longer than all the toes, it sticks out past the big toe even. This length comes at a cost. It no longer bends. When I bend the toes of my foot all the others bend as they should and the 2nd toe stays sticking straight out. Good thing it wasn't the 3rd toe or people would think my foot my giving them the finger!

On the Mend

It's been 1 1/2 weeks since my surgery and I'm definitely on the mend. I've managed to make a couple things in the kitchen (although I was totally worn out after) and I've had my 2nd post surgery Dr. appointment today.

The Dr. says everything is mending as it should. We removed the stitches and I have permission to stand lightly on my foot. AND take a real shower!! I still can't walk on it and doing anything more than getting to the kitchen and back to beyond current capability but we're moving the right direction. I have another appointment in 2 weeks and that will tell whether I'm ready for work or not.

In the meantime it's lots of naps, lots of TV, some knitting, and lots of cuddle time with "The Boys".

I like taking naps on your lap, Mom. - Bert

Stay off That Foot!

Well - Monday was my foot surgery. I got there at 8:30 for 10:30 surgery time. The normal prep took place and I ended up in a huge paper gown and disposable underwear and footies. If you have never seen the underwear they give you you're missing one of the great events in life. I'm a larger person and therefore wear larger undies. The pair they gave me were a one size fits no one. They were kind of wide, a boy cut and about 3 inches tall (if that). They were pretty much a "why bother" kind of thing but, well, better than nothing sort of.

Once in the OR I did the deep breathing thing and some time later I saw a clock in front of me that said 1:15. Then it said 1:25 and so on while I tried to wake up. They gave me anti-nausea drugs because I don't wake up well from surgery. All in all it took me until almost 4:30 before I was alive enough to get dressed and leave.

One of my friends stayed the whole time and got me home. He stayed till 6:30pm when his wife took over while I slept on and off. By 10:00 I was alert and felt fine so I sent her home and promised to call if I needed anything. I'm a loner and it's easier to sleep if I don't think I have to be a hostess. So, slept I did.

Tuesday and Wednesday I would get up for 3 hours and sit in my recliner, then back to bed for 4 hours. I have a knee walker so I can pedal around the house pretty good (in short spurts).

Here's the first shots of my foot. Lots of bandages and braces keeping it from moving. No weight bearing allowed.
Here's a more typical shot of the last few days. Chief has been my nurse and rarely leaves my side. That thing in the back right of the picture is the knee walker. What a great invention! I just prop my bad leg knee on the cushion and pedal around on my good leg. I'd be lost without it!

Today was my first doctor visit and I now have a little less bandages. Everything is looking good but no weight bearing for the month. My little trip to the doctor showed me staying in the house and not going anywhere is a very good thing. The trip wore me out, getting in the car was tricky and well - I'm very glad I have the sick time to take the month off and be sure things heal properly.

Nothing left to do but stay off my foot and knit.

This little Piggy is going to the Hospital

I'd like to know how the average person gets ready for long term recovery. As a knitter my first thought went to "long time to knit stuff". What am I talking about?

Well - Monday is the first week of the new year and it is also the day of my (finally) foot surgery. About 6-7 years ago I had heel spurs removed from my left foot. The Dr did not remove all the calcium build up so that foot still has a bit of a bump in the back but I can walk and that was the main thing. Fast forward to today and my right foot followed and grew a boatload of icky heel spurs. Over the years I also developed a few other problems. Seems I have a bunionette. Doesn't that sound cute? It's not. When you have a bunion its on your big toe. When the little toe decides to grow the wrong way and have its bone stick out, its called a bunionette like its not going to hurt as much. WRONG! That puppy hurts a lot. I've spent many-many years not being able to wear normal shoes.

So- I have heel spurs and a bunionette but my foot likes to overachieve and I also ended up with a hammertoe on my 2nd toe. Are you impressed with my ability to have a deformed foot? Monday things change. I won't go into the details of the surgery but the Dr & I decided to go for broke and get everything taken care of at once. The surgery he is doing on the heel will get rid of all the extra calcium but it means I'll be off my foot for a month. One month of not being able to go to work or do much of anything but sit and knit (and take really good pain killers). Followed by another month of an aircast and not getting around a lot other than to work and home.

So- I've been getting ready for my convalescence. Stocking the freezer with easy to prep meals, getting Netflix set up on the TV instead of instant watch on the laptop, getting a knee walker (a very cool devise!), but most importantly - getting knitting projects into bags with the pattern-needles and everything needed. I may not being blogging the first week of January because I've told myself I won't post until I can make sense talking. You don't want to see what strange and bizarre things come out of my brain when I don't edit myself a bit. Trust me!

If I don't get back here until after the 1st. Have a safe and happy New Year's Eve.

Serious Kntting Time Ahead

I've been limping around for the past year or so waiting until my heel got crummy enough to do something about it. 6-7 years ago I had 3 spurs removed from my left heel and the past couple years my right heel has been heading the same way. Today the doctor confirmed it. Time for surgery. Not only do I have major heel spurs going on I also have what is the equivalent of a bunion on my small toe side and a hammer toe starting on my second toe. The decision is to do everything at once so there's one recovery time. So just after the first of the year I'll be getting 3-4 weeks of sitting around with nothing to do but knit and then about 3 weeks after that with an air cast. Able to go to work but after work - come home and sit around and knit. It's gonna be tough but I'll try to survive all the extra knitting time this winter!

Oh - I made the doctor promise I'd be good to go by April so I can enjoy Yarnover and all my net friends that will be coming here. I must be good by then!