WEEK 11

 

Yuppers, it's Sunday again and time for my weekly update about my crafting and also my life.  Let's talk crafting first.

I finally dragged my RCR sock out and worked on it!

I put a whole 3 rows on it LOL.  I took this with me to Adoration Thursday evening.  I only had about 20 minutes to work on it after I completed my readings and prayers.  During the week, I really do not have any interest in working on it.  That is sad, isn't it.

I did work a bit on my cross stitch.

I started the next area of the pattern page I am working on.  It was nice to be working with a different color than what the last section was.  Yet, I do believe, looking at the chart, I will be heading back to those color again shortly.

Other than those two items the only thing I worked on was the puzzle and there really isn't much more to see on that...........yet.  I work on it while hubby watches football on Sunday and Monday.

That sums up my crafting.  I am going to cast on a new item this week.  It will be a repeat of one I have done before but with a totally different type of yarn.  I have visions in my head of how wonderful it will be.  Let's hope my vision is not a bad dream. LOL

Life has been about the same.  Jaxon is still in the hospital getting treatments for her necrosis.  The wound is healing well and she may get released the beginning of this week.  The Drs want her to go home and will have in home health come and take care of the wound vac for the parents.  The Dr's feel she will heal better at home and run a smaller risk of infection there.

Josh is still stable and getting ready to head back to Seattle for a little while.  It is his happy place and Stacie likes him to have as much happiness as he can.  He has just completed his last round of chemo.  And by last round, I mean his absolute last round.  They do not have any protocols for anything past this.  Most patients with this type of GBM do not live past this time period!  Well, maybe they should be coming up with something, right?  It seems more and more GBM patients are starting to have a longer survival rate with all the new drugs they have started using when the patient is first diagnosed.  Josh was able to use one of those clinical trial drugs and it seems to have done quite well for him.  The idea of just sitting and waiting to see what happens is not exactly my idea of fun.

As for me...........I ended up back in the ER on Tuesday for my afib.  After 5 hours it finally got under control and I was released to go home with an increase in my medications.  The increase seems to be agreeing with me as my blood pressure is the best it has been in years as is my heart rate!  The day after my ER visit hubby and I went to a baseball game and walked quite a bit.  I had no problem and felt the best I had in years!  Now, I just need to make sure I am doing some cardio everyday to keep things going in the right direction.

Hubby has said, for years, that Enrique is 'my' dog.  And for many years I was the only one he really wanted to be with.  Well, look at this.

This is becoming more of the norm now.  This all started to happen after I spent the night in the hospital in June.  Hubby is not thrilled with this turn of events.  That little dog is like a personal heater!  When it is over 100F outside, there is no need for a heater inside. LOL

Speaking of outside temps.............We will be below 100F starting tomorrow!  I\Our night time temps will be in the high 60's to low 70's! I am so excited.  This means there will be outdoor activities again.

Here is your chuckle for the week.

Until Next Time.....................................Happy Crafting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WEEK 10

 

Every time I use the above photo for my blog post, I can hear Otis Redding singing "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay".  And it will be on repeat for several hours after I finish posting.  Well, if that doesn't scream my age, nothing does LOL.  

So, crafting this week was a bit better than last week.  Take a gander.

To The Point shawl was finished up in the wee hours of Friday morning.  This is number 42.  I have 2 more colors of this yarn (knit picks brava).  If I decide to make more of these shawls, when those colors are used, I will need to acquire more yarn!  Gasp!!!  When I do acquire more, I will return to Caron Simply Soft yarn.  It glides through my fingers smoothly and is much softer than any other acrylic I have used.  It also drapes perfectly for this shawl.  I know many people refuse to use it and call it naughty names.  Yet, for this project, it is 100% perfect.  

I finally got a few hours to work on my cross stitch.  Darn near have this little section completed and then will keep on moving to the next 300 stitch area.  My dream is to spend my spare time today working on this.  

Ah, the puzzle.  I was at a total stand still with this puzzle, last week.  Yet, yesterday, I sat down with it and picked a feature to try and work.  I was able to piece some of the middle section together but now am at a stand still again.  This one is a bit harder than I thought.  It will be pretty when completed though.  If I get bored of my xs, I will work on this.

I still have my Rose City Roller sock on the needles.  It is sitting right next to me giving me a side eyed look.  I think about picking it up and putting some rows on it and then decide not to.  It is more of my 'take along' project when I head up to the hospital to see Jaxon.

Speaking of Jaxon, she is doing remarkably well.  She has had 2 surgeries and should be doing the third one tomorrow.  The first was to debride the area of necrosis, remove the hematoma, place the wound vac and let the healing begin.  Her second one was another minor debridement, reapplying the wound vac, putting in some growth stimulating powder, removing some sutures on other areas of her leg and letting the healing continue.  She is up and walking without much assistance.  The surgeons are happy with what they saw when they cleaned out the wound.  There is good pink tissue and uninjured muscles all around it.  YAY!

They did find a small brain bleed when doing an MRI of her head.  It is quite small and they are not concerned about it at this time.  She is not exhibiting any symptoms other than periodical headaches.  But then, she has always had those, even before the accident.

We still don't know how much longer she will be in the hospital.  She had a good discussion with her main surgeon and expressed the fact she did not want to go home with a wound vac attached to her.  Can't say as I blame her for that.  Even though Josie's mom does wound vacs daily at her work, Jaxon would rather not need to have Aunt Stacie coming by every couple of day to deal with it.

The other medical news is Josh.  He had another MRI this past week.  His radiation necrosis is dissipating YAY!  But, he has a 'glowing spot' that has grown a wee bitt since his MRI a month ago.  They will be keeping an eye on that area to see how fast it grows and whether  or not a biopsy or surgery should be considered.  At this time they are calling him 'stable'.  He is at his 18 month marker since symptoms appeared and one year since his diagnosis.  We are all aware his cancer is terminal.  We also know what the median survival rate is and we take each day with him as a gift.  Don't let a day go by you do not tell your loved ones you love them.  And say the words!  I LOVE YOU!  Hearing those three words each day are the highlight of my day.

I want to thank everyone of you for all the kind words, prayers, positive thoughts and just understanding.  This past year has not been easy but we are managing.  Life is not always pretty, as most of you know.  But, if you try hard enough, you can always find a reason to smile.  And with that being said.............................

How about some humor.............................

Until Next Time.......................Happy Crafting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WEEK 9

 

Hey guys!  This post will be more personal than crafting.  So, if you don't want to hear about how life here is going, just read the first part of the post and then move right along with your life.

CRAFTING

There was not a lot of crafting done this week.  Case in point

I got one row done on my sock.  Pathetic, right?

The shawl saw the most progress.  Yet, it is still not completed.

I finished another color of floss in this little section.  

Got a puzzle started and then I stalled out.

That is all for crafting.  If you do not want to continue, that is fine.  But I need to put down on 'paper' my thoughts and feelings from this past week.  After all, this is my blog and I get to make the rules.

LIFE DAY BY DAY

MONDAY - I spent quite a bit of time on the phone calling my secondary insurance company as well as the hospital billing department.  The hospital said I owed them money and yet my insurance company had sent them a check 6 weeks ago.  Since I had the check number and date it was sent, the hospital said they could now find out what happened with the payment.  Amazing!  I did manage to get 2 loads of laundry completed.  Got my sourdough fed and put into a clean jar.  'Dotty' is so active and is making great tasting food items for us.

Tuesday - This was my errand day.  Picked up my meds from the pharmacy, dropped off an Amazon return and then headed out to visit Jaxon in the rehab facility.  I was able to witness her physical therapy.  She has improved so much in just 2 weeks time.  She is walking with the assistance of a 4 prong cane and is able to get in and out of bed and in and out of a chair without assistance.  Great improvement.

Wednesday - Hubby had a Dr appointment and then we went to Sam's club and Costco.  We got a new TV for our living room from Sam's.  Our old one had a large dark spot in the middle of the screen as well as some distortion on the bottom of it.  It is so nice to be able to see the whole picture on the screen now.  And it was half price!  I finally found a new comforter for our bed at Costco.  The current one is pretty well used up with stitching coming out all over.  

Thursday - A fairly quiet day for a change.  I got menus for the week made as well as a grocery list.  Hubby cleaned half of the house while I did that.  I went and viewed a house that Josh and Stacie were interested in.  It was very cute and the remodel on the inside was nice.  The outside needed some work done to make it worth what they are asking for it.  Gosh, houses are so expensive now.  I got a call late asking me to go to the rehab with Tiffany, in the morning.  Seems they took off Jaxon's bandages and things are not looking good.

I was going to post the photo on here but decided y'all may not have the stomach for seeing it.  Therefore I will spare you the visual.

Friday - Went to the rehab by 9am.  Took a look at Jaxon's leg and knew we had issues.  The wound nurse came in and took photos and then left to call the ortho surgeon.  When she came back we were informed, Jaxon was being transferred to the hospital for evaluation and possible admission.  Thirty minutes later, Jaxon was on a transport and Jay, Tiff and myself piled into our cars and went to meet her at the hospital.  Once there, she was seen by an ER Dr and was informed her ortho had asked a trauma wound specialist to come and see her.  The specialist came in and was straight forward with us.  The large wound on her leg had necrosis and was in need of surgery NOW!  She had a CT scan taken of the wound area and determined there was a hematoma under the wound that was causing the necrosis and if not removed would eventually cause sepsis.

Jaxon went into surgery around 10pm and was in recovery about 90 minutes later.  The surgeon was please and was able to totally clean out all the nasty stuff and saw good healthy tissue around the area she cleaned out.  Jaxon' wound area is now the diameter of a cantaloupe.  She has a wound vac attached to it to keep any more nasty stuff from happening.  Jaxon has been up and walking to keep the blood supply active in the area.  The wound that got nasty is where her femur broke through the skin when she was hit by the motorcycle.  The Surgeon also informed us, Jaxon will probably be in the hospital for 2-3 weeks and will require more surgeries in that time as well as dressing changes (under sedation).

This was a long and very emotional day for all of us.  Jaxon has been a trooper through all of this.  Even though she is not happy with what is happening at the moment, she realizes there is not really much of a choice of what needs to be done if she wants to keep her leg or her life.

Saturday - Hubby and I did our early morning food pick up for the food bank.  Hubby had a meeting at church shortly after that.  While he was gone, I got all the laundry caught up.  Jay and Tiff dropped by to pick up a loaf of sourdough I had made for them as well as a couple of books of Jaxon's that got left in my car.  Hubby and I went to Mass in the evening and then enjoyed a good home cooked meal.  By 8:30pm I was so tired I went to bed.

This morning - I slept hard last night and didn't wake up until 6:30am.  I needed that sleep.  Then around 7:30am I got  a text from Jay stating Jaxon's boyfriend, who was the one riding the motorcycle that hit her, had died last night!  

I can not even begin to express my feelings about this.  The fact, this is the first thing Jaxon saw on her phone this morning just rips my heart out.  His mother was the one that let Jaxon know.  How devastated his family must be.  The fact, he was in a medical induced coma since the accident and they never really got to talk to him for the past 2 weeks. How hard it must be to know you won't have that chance again.  Also, there were so many people were watching when this accident happened.  What must be going through their hearts and minds.  

My mind is reeling with all sorts of thoughts.  I was preparing for different news this week.  Josh has another MRI this week to see what is going on with his brain cancer (glioblastoma).  We just hit the one year mark with his diagnosis.  Yes, we do see him having some issues with walking, memory, emotions, strength etc.  All signs of progression of the disease. 

If it were not for my faith, I think I would be curled up in a corner, rocking back and forth and crying.  But, I put my trust in my Lord and Savior.  He is my rock!  Even though I do not like what is happening, I still trust in Him.  He keeps me out of that proverbial corner. 

That is all I have for today.

Until Next Time.........................Happy Crafting!!!!!!!!!!!!!