Something Wacko This Way Comes.
As Spiff has posted (and totally broken my comment record in the process...whatta guy, and what amazing people you all are), I'm home, and for all intents and purposes, the aneurysm I had is no longer a threat to me. Clearly, we're thrilled at this news, though for a while we were wondering if our choice to go for "elective neurosurgery" was the right one to make. Yes, I said elective neurosurgery. They can tell you the time bomb is there, but diffusing it? That's "elective." Plenty of people feel they can live with the threat. But I had a mini-stroke which made us decide that this particular threat was not an acceptable risk. Still, it sounds kind of bizarre, doesn't it? Um, duh, yes, I elect to NOT have my artery explode and kill me, why do you ask?
But this was not an experience for the faint of heart. Nor me, for that matter...I have had to completely redefine my idea of what is Good and what is Not Good and what is Fucking Awful But I'll Deal. And thrilled? I'm having a hard time working up the energy for that one. Weakly ecstatic would be a more accurate description of my current ability to pump my fist in the air and say Oh Yeah It's Gone I'm Alive...holy shit, this hurts...where is that bed....
Being in the hospital was Fucking Awful. Got to be honest. They woke me up to bathe me at midnight just when I had finally managed to drift off to Planet Dilaudid for a bit, the younger doctors yelled at me at very early hours of the morning, and they served me excuses for food that even Spiff could not smooth over with his uncanny ability to smile at each and every single moment I looked at him. When, on the fourth day, I was elevated to "expanded solids status" (sound painful? believe me, it was), neither one of us could figure out whether the slop on top of the other slop was pastry or last week's mashed potatoes, and the neon pink dessert they called "raspberry mousse" could best be described as "Barney had an accident." The look on Spiff's face when the cover got lifted off of that one made me laugh straight out loud and then cry even louder because laughing made my head explode. But Spiff felt it was his duty to get me to eat in order to get me stronger faster. I resisted...there was a lot of "No way, buddy, YOU taste it" going on.
Since I've been home, I have been covering my head in public so as not to scare the natives. It kind of puts you off your lunch to see 40 staples in a person's head, up close and personal, and while I am all for scaring the crap out of people who deserve it, I don't have it in me to be that brash. Except for when I do. Which is when it hurts to even put a scarf on, and at that point, I'm beyond caring who sees me.
I promised a few people I'd show them "Daywear. Very Nice."
I look like a biker who just discovered she gets motion sick reeeeally easily.
Rather unfortunately, the scarf did not come with a bike to test the theory.
I'm also spinning in bed, on the balcony, pretty much anywhere I can drop a spindle. Here's the beautiful red silk Norma gave me, in laceweight action (apologies for the night-photo blurries):
Norma already outed me as a bedspinner.
But it really does make me feel better to do it.
I'm not bionic, honest. Just rather dizzy and in pain.
But you may as well take advantage of physics, right?
Everyone's been sending me so many wonderful well-wishes, but I have to tell the ones who wished for me the Good Drugs...Dude. Thanks, but...Define Good. Those particular drugs may work for, say, tooth extraction, but they had me on the heavies, which indeed reduced the pain from Just Kill Me Now to Just Put A Cold Cloth On My Head And Pretend I'm Not Here, but they also induced nightmares of the Lovecraft kind. And I can't take codeine, so they could not even reduce me to a kinder, gentler hit to the bloodstream. Believe me, they wanted to: I was asked no fewer than ten times what actually happens when I take codeine. The answer, "Do you like your clean uniform?" was usually sufficient enough to get the point across that yes, I'm allergic to the stuff, and no, I'm not copping to an allergy just to get harder drugs. I mean, having a nightmare implant is not my idea of restful, you know? I could still script and soundtrack all of these dreams today (not that I would want to), that's how vividly I remember them, and I rarely remember dreams. I'll give you a few examples of Life In Lee Ann's Nightmares:
The first dream was so real, I still feel like I have to apologise to my husband for completely destroying his computer and the apartment as well, although it all appears now to have completely recovered, except for Spiff's video card. (No, darling, the fried video card is really, truly NOT my fault.) In the dream, I was playing a game called FACE on his computer while he was out. The game board was like a Tic Tac Toe board, and each time a face appeared in a square, you had to tap it or it would "get" you. I was doing well until the game sped up, and since I'm a total newbie at this kill-or-be-killed stuff, I got "got." Holy shit. The force that blew out of that face in the computer to grab me by the throat blew me through the entire apartment, knocking down walls, throwing aside furniture, and slamming me into the back wall of our furthest room, the kitchen. When I came to, I looked around at the total destruction, wires hanging, old brick edifaces peeking out of plaster dust, toilet in the living room, which was now decidedly "open plan living," and my first thought was, "Fuck. Spiff is going to kill me when he gets this e-mail." My second thought was, of course, "Double fuck. If there's a toilet in the living room, I'll bet we don't even have e-mail anymore..."
The second dream was disgusting. I'll just refer to it as the Redhead Contest, and tell you that I had to apologise to the dogs I was trying to save because it was midnight, the nurses were there, and it was time for my bath.
I was extremely happy to hear that the third dream had not materialised. My landlord and his wife are still the same sweet people they always were. They did not, in fact, change into a scarily hipster-gone-wrong woman and her enormous husband who dressed their five children like Vegas show dogs and decorated not just their apartment but ours too as if The Museum of Modern Art had puked on every single available white space, partying like it was 1979. The kids too. All night long. I hear it can be like this in LA. I'm glad to say that in my little corner of Montréal, it's a hell of a lot more peaceful.
Although...
Spiff just discovered an album that completely sums up my bad teenage dating life: Greatest Hits from MTV, The Early Years. Dear oh dear. Did I say peaceful?
You see, Spiff likes to whistle. And he is Very Good. He can whistle anything. And does. Often.
But if I hear "99 Luftballoons" one more time, my head will spontaneously combust, and dude, that will be Very Bad. We even have easy access here, now. The staples were removed today. Please, darling. Be kind.
Also, "Come On Eileen" is a coagulation of the very worst stereotypes of Celtic music lumped together with a beat you couldn't jig to if you tried. I know it was one of "your" songs, Spiff, and I'm not a cruel woman, but dude. You've danced ceilidh. You know better. These guys wouldn't know a too-rah from a loo-rah if either one bit them on the ass.
(Spiff has just admitted to me that he never bothered to find out what the lyrics to "Come On Eileen" mean, so although he can sing all the words, he has no freaking clue what they actually are. I find this so hilariously funny that I might even let him whistle it one more time without complaining. But only one more time. I have my limits.)
Wednesday, I get to wash my hair and whatever unmentionables are hiding underneath it (let's just say I figured out where the head clamps went via a few visual clues). I can't wait. Meanwhile, the absolute love of my life, while not giving me footrubs because he does not want a kick in the face (we are talking hyperticklish), is taking care of me in the best possible way he knows how, and yes, it does involve chocolate. I think I've mentioned that Spiff can cook (although he's realised that "having to cook" and "loving to cook" are two entirely different planetary realms). My first full meal at home was actually sashimi, though, from chef to Spiff to me, almost direct delivery.
Still, Spiff has been doing most of the cooking lately, and he's wonderful, though I can't eat much. He asked me one day if I wanted a croque monsieur, and sadly, I turned green. Normally, I love them, but lately, I'm not feeling the bechamel love. Yes, bechamel. No, croque monsieur is NOT an open faced grilled cheese sandwich with a half-dead tomato slice bleeding its poor self down the side of the bread. Croque monsieur is a full sandwich, with ham, a bit of cheese, and bechamel (that's white sauce, Mum) inside, grilled a tiny bit, and then put under a broiler with bechamel and cheese over top to brown. Croque madame equals croque monsieur with an egg on top. Madame monsieur equals way more fun than a sandwich, but I really would like to wash my hair first.
If you'd like to see what the head looks like without the staples, we're all about education here. As we said before, do not click if you are the sensitive type. But no matter what type you are, I want to thank you for being here for me. A girl never had a better planetary shit magnet forcefield. You all rock the house.
July 25, 2006 1:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (132) | Print
35+ Stitches!!
This post contains coarse stitches and mature subject matter. Readers' discretion is advised.
For once, this isn't Lee Ann who is posting on this blog , and believe it or not, it has nothing to do with brain function limitations or anything wrong with the surgery. It is I, Spiff, who ordered her to stay in bed while I spread the good news of her recovery.
In total vain.
For instance, as soon as she got home, she just couldn't refrain from jumping online after some Dilaudid pill (something that is supposed to make you feel less crappy as I understand it, provided you keep up with the nightmares it seems to induce) and a good auld gran'ma yogourt recipe boosted her energy and got her up ready to chat online with Mamacate. And too bad if Spiff had some recommendations...
So I'm afraid that for some of you this is already old news, but...
There are stitches everywhere!
Hum...Wait...No, this one is the remains of another life - probably the Dilaudid side effects. This thing works a bit *too* well...
So...Stitches was I saying. And a lot of them. Check it out:
Heu..hehe...oops...wrong again...this is a sock in progress...Still, that's stitches, isn't it? And don't ask me how long that has been a sock 'in progress', I think I have always known it.
So really, the photographer not belonging to our team anymore, if I can find the picture, that'd be a lot of stitches to show off. For the scientifically curious, while we wait for the picture, here's some statistics.
- 40 stitches spanning over 7 inches.
- The surgery lasted 6 hours, roughly.
- That's 5.7 stitches per inch, and 6.6 stiches an hour.
- For the rest of the world, that's 2.25 stitches per centimeter, and 0.018 stitch per second.
As for the patient, she is doing slowly better every day, but the head feels exactly like it looks: terrible. Ice cream and other treats should cure that after a while.
Special thanks to the senders of packages, wool, UKO (Unidentifed Knittable Objects) and such.
Spiff
July 21, 2006 1:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (99) | Print
Bent Screws and SNAFUs
In theory, this was supposed to be Spiff posting, telling you that all went well, that my hair is indeed looking mighty skanky, and that the common sense brain implant he requested as a surgical add-on is functioning so brilliantly that not only have I managed to remind him to turn the oven off when he's done heating up his crappy frozen food but I've even asked him to water the plants. (You don't want to know what happened to his peace lily. He thought I was watering it. I thought he was watering it. Then we both watered it, unbeknownst to the other, and...let's just say we're hoping for a hydroponic resurrection.)
However...
The F*cked in SNAFU is entirely appropriate, because when you go into hospital for a craniotomy, get prepped, wait for four hours semi-sleeping in between nurse visits and PA system interruptions on a cot with your anxious husband (yep, we both fit on one cot), only to be visited by an equally bleary-eyed assistant physician who tells you that two emergencies that morning plus a family emergency for the doctor have come up, everything's cancelled and surgery will be "sometime next week, we don't have the date," F*CK is exactly the word that comes to mind.
I feel horrible for the emergency cases. "Neurological emergency" is not a phrase anyone wants to hear. However, the ripple effect is causing an enormous amount of stress right now. Dude, I can't even spin...every nerve in my body appears to have grown a new one to handle the overflow. My hair has developed nerves. (It knows what's coming, no doubt.)
I have a longstanding tradition, which only surfaces as a tradition when I notice after I've done it that I keep doing it, of buying Ikea furniture and putting it together in the middle of the night before a particularly stressful event. This time, it was a desk for Twinkletoes and a humongous bookshelf for the kitchen. And I only put one little tiny dent in the side of the bookcase, which is better than my usual track record of utterly misinterpreting those little hallucinatory cartoon guys that are supposed to wordlessly show you how to put these damned things together. And one of the screws that came with the kit was severely bent.
Did you know that even if your screw is bent, you can still build the bookcase? Words to live by.
Still, here's hoping the surgeon straightens out his screws for next week, eh? Otherwise, he's going to owe my official planetary shit magnet a new basement.
July 12, 2006 1:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (72) | Print
My disbelief suspenders have snapped.
Otherwise, I would have made good
on my threat to knit my formerly secret
(ah, who were we kidding, she was never secret...)
pal a bikini out of this stuff.
A long time ago, Big Geek Beth gave me teal Fun Fur as part of my secret pal gift. If you know me, you know this was the Worst Possible Combo In The World to purchase for me. So I completely understood when it landed in my mailbox with the post-it note equivalent of an evil grin. I mean, what were the odds that the exact hideous teal that I hate would not only exist in Fun Fur, but would appear in the form of one lonely skein, sitting in her local yarn shop, completely forcing itself into her shopping bag?
(Note: this is not an invitation to start sending me stuff that you would normally have the good sense to either keep to yourself or burn. Beth gets away with it once and only once, and that's because I love her. And yes, I still love her. I will, however, get her back someday. Handspun Dorset union suit, anyone?)
Anyway, she gets out of having to wear a Fun Fur bikini (and you know I would have demanded photos of this) because a certain seven year old started walking around with the skein stuck on her hand, growling "Je suis un moooooonnnnstre!!!" ("I am a moooooonster!!!") Then same seven year old decided that if I could knit a sock, surely I could knit this stuff into a sock puppet.
Have you ever turned a heel in Fun Fur?
No? Then you have more sense than me.
Look, even Le Monstre extends his fuzzy tongue in horror...
So, pattern (cough, cough) specifics for Le Monstre, because some similarly insane person brave soul will surely ask how I did this:
Materials:
Fun Fur in a colour you hate.
Addis (yes, Addis. Turbos, specifically. Keep reading for my logic on this one.). Use a middling size, small enough to not give you holes but big enough to get the job done As Fast As Humanly Possible. Oh, and Cassie? I mini-swatched just to cover my ass on the hole thing. Nyah. Listen, you don't want to spend more than a few hours of your life knitting a sock out of Fun Fur, do you? I thought not. Speed is key. And it would suck to spend hours making fabric that fingers go through. Also, longer than a few hours, and you might have to throw it across the room. Turbos. Middlin' size. Trust me.
(Okay, I threw it across the room anyway. Why? Not because it's Fun Fur. No, it's because I made a mistake turning the heel. Not that anyone else could see the mistake—hello, Fun Fur? Can anyone see anything with this stuff?—but it BOTHERED me. Sue me.)
Gauge:
You're joking, right? Jaysus, I hope so, because Dude. It's a hand puppet. Get real. As long as little fingers don't poke through the fabric, who the hell cares how many stitches you have to the inch? Have a glass of wine and calm down. Gauge Schmauge. Buy a t-shirt from Cara and you'll feel better.
Still with me? Okay, here we go. Cast on a bunch of stitches (a bunch is rather like a handful in cooking...enough to do the job...) using your most unfavourite colour of Fun Fur. How much is enough? Enough to go around your fist, which will clench uncontrollably while you're knitting this stuff anyway, so you'll have your measuring device handy at all times. Connect your stitches to knit circularly using magic loop. Question your sanity frequently about the complexity of magic loop combined with the hideousness of what you're about to make. But Dude. It's a monster. It's supposed to be hideous. Oh, and fast, too. Did I mention fast? Magic loop. Trust me.
Knit until you have a tube twice the length of your average wrist warmer. (You're going to turn a heel here, which, inverted, will become the mouth, so knit from the bottom of where a wrist warmer would start, up to the top of that little place just below the whitened knuckles of your handy dandy measuring device. That's where the hideous monster scream comes from. So to speak.)
Now, turn the heel. How? I have no freaking idea. Turn it any way you like. You can't see how it's done in Fun Fur anyway, so who's going to know if it's a Dutch heel, a flap, reinforced (oh, please...reinforced Fun Fur...just shoot me now...) or shortrows? Not me, surely. Goodness knows it took me an hour to figure out I'd made a mistake, and then...well...nevermind.
Knit until what would normally be a foot has reached the top of your measuring device (the heretofore mentioned clenched fist, which should be good and tight right about now, eh?). Decrease evenly until you have a few stitches left and your fist, which is starting to hurt at this point, is covered. Release the fist. Not unlike the proverbial head-banging-against-wall, you'll feel so much better when you stop clenching. Make i-cord and groan a lot, because now your hand probably hurts like hell, and have you ever made Fun Fur i-cord? The Fun in Fun Fur is now officially gone, Daddy, gone. (Extra points to whomever knows the musical reference for that one...I'm betting on High Energy Jenny, personally....)
You thought it was over, didn't you? Nope, sorry, chickadee. Now, you have to make a bobble. Yes, a bobble. It's an alien monster, says kid, so it needs a bobble on the antenna. Hokay.
Silently swear you will never make another freaking bobble in your life, even if it's in GOOD yarn, and tie a good, solid knot in the end of that baby, because ends are a pain in the ass to weave in under normal circumstances. A sock monster in Fun Fur? Not Normal Circumstances. Then if you're still lucid (although this works far better if you're no longer in the lucidity vicinity, if you get my drift), get some fuzzy crap that might do for making eyes, brows, and mouth, and go nuts with the embroidery. Or use buttons. I couldn't find a decent googly-eyed button to save my life around here so I made hairy eyeballs (good for cursing, which I was doing a lot of, I have to admit). And then I drank copious amounts of red wine to further suspend my disbelief that I'd even got this far, and forget I ever embroidered anything using fuzzy yarn on Fun Fur, expecting it to look remotely like it was intended to look.
You know what? The kid loves it anyway, even if it did not meet up with my incredibly high finishing standards.
I am aware of the oxymoronic possiblities here. Shut up.
In the ever-unfolding drama of my health, I still do not have an exact date for surgery. My work, my child's summer, my husband's vacation, and my ability to not burst into tears at nothing at all have all been royally screwed by this inability to do what was supposedly planned to the minute and completely pre-scheduled a year ago. Namely, to set a freaking date to open my head. But I am assured that the actually cutting will happen next week. Sometime next week. Some day. Soon. Certainement. Fucking hell.
Which gives me enough time to see France in the World Cup final. Today, Les Bleus did the job in the semifinals. Not well, but they did it. Portugal played very, very well, and it was sheer luck that they did not score against France, who seemed to be playing in their sleep and won on a penalty shot.
We publicly rejoiced. Ahem. Not that way....
I realise that the above photo gives the impression that I'm about to indulge in a form of celebration I don't normally share with the world. In reality, I'm merely lifting my husband above my head. You see, he weighs less than me (scary but true), and someone had to take the crowd photos of us blocking Rue St. Denis for seven or so blocks with post-game revelry. He tried to lift me first. Choked. So I lifted him. Clearly, I don't choke easily (shut up, Franklin), because here he is, up in the air, and I'm even dancing him around.
Someone in Montréal has a video of me dancing around holding my husband above my head. I'd love to see this.
But I'll settle for seeing a win on Sunday,
though I think I already won here, don't you?
Next week, head will open and aneurysm will be clamped. I bought a black scarf with skulls all over it to cover the damage. I plan to scare the crap out of everyone. Wish me luck.
July 5, 2006 11:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (73) | Print