Some Knititng

The return of the Chorea, of course, means even less knitting than usual, as the weakness and soreness it causes aren't friendly for knitting.

Luckily, as of today the progesterone levels in my body seem to have dropped sufficiently and I am tired, but feeling better. Thank you to everyone who has offered support/ advise. I'm a strange case, that is for sure. You see, I would love to use a non-hormonal form of b/c, but that isn't an option, unfortunately, as I have (suspected) endometriosis and need some level of hormones to control that. Before I got pregnant that wasn't a problem, but now my body seems to have become overly sensitive to even low levels of progesterone, so it's tricky. We need to find a way to get me a high enough dose to control my periods, but low enough that it won't trigger the chorea.
So, after a giving my body a few days to recover, the next step is to try a Nuva Ring to see if a localized dose will hopefully NOT result in the stuff also effecting my brain.

Now, isn't that way more than you ever wanted to know about another person's reproductive health (or lack thereof.)

Well, to make up for it, here is a WIP photo of the socks I am working on.



They are the Slip-Stitch Cable Socks from The Little Box of Socks. (ravelry) I took this yarn with me to Utah and then looked through the Queen's voluminous sock pattern library for a pattern that I thought would go well with the colorway. (BTW- it's STR-lightweight, a rare gem- purchased at OFFF.)
This is the first time I have ever knit two socks at the same time on magic loop. I've knit two sleeves this way before, and just thought they dragged when done together, but I have been suffering, as-of-late, from some Second Sock Syndrome problems, so I decided that I would have to force myself to knit them at the same time. It actually isn't too bad. They are smaller than sleeves and have the heel to break it up, so they are going pretty fast (well, taking into consideration that I haven't really been able to knit for a week or so.)
I'm happy with them.

Tragedy

It is a sad sad sad day


When a hand knit baby sweater accidentally gets thrown in with the wash.

and FELTS!!!

And then, if that weren't bad enough, the Duke picks it up and mocks me about it. He wouldn't even let me take a picture of him pretending to cry over the mini felted sweater. (You will just have to create a mental picture.) He has no knitting empathy.

The only silver lining is that I have enough of this same yarn to knit the same sweater again if I want, and, it was only going to fit for another month or so. I will just have to knit a bigger one.


In other news, I have been doing a little bit of quilting. I saw this fabric at Esther's and I HAD to make Little Sir (our little owlet) a quilt out of it. I have the square pieced together. The sashing and the back will be out of the green dots and the binding out of the brown stripes, cut on the bias.

Don't worry, I'm not picking up a new hobby. I have no intention of even quilting it. As soon as I have the sashing sewn on it will go in the mail to The Queen and she is going to take it to her local quilting shop to have it quilted.

But really, isn't it adorable? It helps to make me feel a bit better about the sad felted sweater.

Nada Nada Lemonada

I'm this close to loosing my sanity. The only thing that is keeping me out "Bellevue" (and I don't mean the city my fellow Northwesterners) are my wonderful wonderful friends and family. I think I will perform a study that will demostrate that time actually goes by much more quickly when you are in good company.

I don't have the mental capacity to blog right now, so go ahead and click on over to the Princess' blog to see the most adorable baby in the world.

Silence and Silk

So, I've been pretty quiet for a person who is supposedly feeling better, don't you think. Oh that would be due to the insult that science added to the injury nature has all ready inflicted on me. Yes, the drugs worked, for two nights, and after that. . . like I said insult to injury.

Yesterday's appointment with the neurologist ended in frustration. The Duke and I are now faced with a decision to make, and none of the options are good. The details are too depressing (and perhaps too personal for once) so instead, a little distraction to lighten all of our moods

SILK!

While I was in Utah the Queen and I took a silk spinning class. It was facinating. I had no idea that silk came in so many forms. My favorite by far was the silk hankies or bells.


Here is what the hankie that I bought looked like.


You pull a layer at a time from the hankie.


Then create a hole in the middle of that thin layer. You make that hole bigger until you have a silk 'doughnut' and finally break the loop in one place so that silk now looks like a very delicate (which it is not) and spiderweb-like roving.


You would not belive (well you can if you've spun sikk before, but I never had) how fine you can spin this stuff, or how tough it is. You actually have to pull with some force to draft it.


And the end result. . . who wouldn't love this.


About 250 yards, 2 plyed, from one once of silk- yes it is very much a lace weight. I have no idea what I am going to do with it, maybe nothing other than look at it and let it make me happy.

Yes, I may have a new addictive problem on my hands. At least the Duke can rest assured that it won't take full effect until sometime after the alien arrives.

Update

Thank you all who left comments and emailed me. It really does help knowing that there are friends out there thinking of us and praying for us.

We go the results of the MRI today, everything looks normal. No tumors, no structural abnormalities. The lab tests for the more rare things the doctor wanted to check for were not back yet, but he feels confident that there isn't an underlying disease.

He prescribed a drug used for neurological pain to see if it will stop the thrashing and hopefully I will be able to sleep. I'll let y'all know if it works AFTER I WAKE UP!!! Keep your fingers crossed for us.

And thank you again for your friendships and supportive words.

Difficult Days

Hello Friends,

Please excuse my continued absence from my blog. The Duke, the alien, and I are making our way through some difficult days.

Three weeks ago I presented with some kind of strange symptoms, my legs were jerking back and forth keeping me from getting good sleep. We originally thought it was probably a bad electrolyte imbalance and acted accordingly. The movements continued to get stronger despite carefully following my doctor (and ever vigilant pharmacist-husband's) suggestions. On Tuesday, after I had gone over 36 hours without sleep, the Duke called my doctor and asked for a same day appointment. He carefully examined my legs and asked about the movements. He said he had never seen anything like this and referred me to a neurologist.

On Wed. I went to see the neurologist. After a very thorough and most unusual exam he diagnosed me with a pregnancy related disorder called Chorea Gravidarum. The reason my OB had never seen it is because it is very rare, only reported in 1 per every 139,000 pregnancies.

Lucky me. Maybe I should think about buying a lottery ticket.

It isn't dangerous to me or to the baby unless the condition leads to dehydration, malnutrition, disturbed sleep, or injury. It should go away no later than two weeks after I deliver. We are hoping it goes away sooner. It is treatable, but the treatment is potentially harmful to the baby, so naturally, they prefer to not treat it if the patient can tolerate it.

Again, lucky me.

In the mean time I was instructed that it would not be near a painful if I didn't try to resist the movements. That is easier said than done, especially when it moved into my lower back and arms. It is true it isn't as painful, but it is very distressing to have you body move violently without you telling it too.

Also, as Chorea is a symptom of several diseases (it is a syndrome, not a disease) I am now being subjected to a battery of tests for a list of scary sounding illnesses. Chorea has been known to show up randomly in pregnancy with no apparent underlying cause. That is what we are hoping for, and what my family and medical history suggest. The neurologist just, naturally, wants to rule out anything else.

So this morning I went for an MRI of my brain. They asked me if I am claustrophobic. I told them no, as I have never felt fear of small spaces before. I was wrong. Let me suggest that if you ever need to have an MRI, don't open you eyes, not even for a quick peek. That machine is very large looking from the outside, and so you would think that the inside would be at least half that big. That's what I thought anyway. No, it's very very very small. The wall is just inches from your face. Just keep you eyes closed and let your brain believe that the cylinder you are in is much bigger than it actually is.

The MRI was also very distressing to the poor alien. Both the doctor and the technician assured me repeatedly that the MRI was not dangerous to the baby (they didn't use any dye.) The technician, however, told me that he (baby) would likely react during the scans because they are very loud (I had headphones on.) He was right. The poor little alien must have been scared out of his wits. I have never felt the little guy kick so hard and he kept it up nearly the entire time. I felt so bad for him and I couldn't even comfort him by patting my belly, as you have to hold still during the scans. Poor little alien.

Tomorrow we go in for blood draws three and four. Monday we will see the neurologist to get the results of everything.

You can see that knitting, spinning, and blogging have been moved a few rungs down on my priority ladder for the time being, so blog posts may be more scarce for a while. Hopefully I'll be back sooner rather than latter.

In the mean time, if you can spare a happy thought, a little extra karma, or some good juju, we wouldn't mind if you sent it our way.

Lessons I Seem to Never Learn

I'm sick
It's lame
I tried the denial thing.
It made it worse.

Here are a few of the lessons that I never seem to learn about being sick. Maybe if I type them out they will stick in my brain better.

1. It's not allergies, not in the middle of the winter, just take the zinc, JUST DO IT.
2. You no longer have the mutantly strong immune system of your youth.
3. Don't try to "work through it." Rest is the only thing that is going to get you better.
4. Don't take Sudafed after 3:00pm. It may say that it wears off in 4-6 hours, but at least for you, its side effects (hyperness) do not.
5. Don't let the Tylenol wear off.
6. Don't go to the gym, walk the dogs, or push through a yoga workout. You'll regret it.
7. Don't knit on size US1 needles. It will make your head, shoulders, neck, arms, ect. hurt more.
8. Drink tea, drink lots and lots and lots of tea.
9. Eat, even though you don't want to.
10. Do not comment to your husband how happy you are that you have managed to stay well for three months straight (the bugs can hear you, they will make short work of such mockery.)