Apparently I'm not a hermit

G'day all!

Thanks for the concern!  I wish I didn't need it.  I am over being special, though my body isn't yet.

I have been trying to find things to do that do not require lots of breathing or talking.  This is harder than you might expect because after a while I want to be energetic and I want to talk to people.  It turns out I am not a hermit after all.  Actually I never thought I was.


I have been knitting.  I have almost finished the current cardie - only a few ends to weave in now and the buttons to put on.  I am tempted to wash it before I weave in the rest of the ends - I wove them in as I went but I'm not sure if I've woven them in enough if that makes sense.  Goodness, the buttons were a saga but now I know where to find the second closest Joann's.  I had thought there was a closer one but couldn't find it.  (The closest one is a short walk away but alas the closest one only had three of the buttons I wanted, not 11, and of course they come on cards now instead of in tubes unless you buy from the LYS/button shop but they didn't have what I wanted.)  I am halfway through the next top and a new sock for DH is partway through the heel turn.  I may have another top on the needles too and plans for a cowl made out of a lovely silk yarn I bought in Colorado.
 

The phone lied - the sock is brighter than this!

I even bought some beads because I figured if I am going nuts from not enough things to do, stringing beads is soothing and entertaining.  Today at the bead shop I found some pretty special beads and just you wait until you see the stitch-markers I am going to make :-)

A slightly uneven necklace, still pretty.

I have been quilting, or at least piecing two quilt backs, and basting quilts.  I must remember to prewash fabrics if possible because whatever sizing is on the unwashed stuff really disagrees with my hands - my fingers dry out to the point of cracking.

Started this quilt two years ago (!!)
We were in Sydney then.

Many whinings follow, so you'd best go find something else to do.  I'm whining here because I can't whine in real life - my voice just won't let me!  I'd skip the writing and just look at the pretty flowers and other pics.

Sunset!  Ahh....  Feel the serenity!

So I trawled off to the doc's again last Wednesday - had to get DH to make the appointment.  Why? I had no voice.  I also have breathing issues that I closely associate with having no or very little voice.  Something's going on with my larynx/vocal cords.

Beautiful dahlia.

The doc looks at me, I look at her, she says, "What's going on?" I croak, "I dunno but I've got some reflux" and she puts me on an acid blocker, a cheap one, not the fantastic one I had when I was on chemo (which apparently costs $800 here in the States - Oz's pharmaceutical benefits scheme is a wonderful thing).  Reflux can burn the vocal cords and ruin your voice and have some interesting other side effects like give you sinus pain, especially if you have the gaseous sort of reflux rather than the wet sort.  Hmm...  When I read up on the symptoms, umm, yeah, that sounds me.

A bunch of single dahlias

What is really driving me crazy is it's hard to talk to people and I can't exercise.  If I talk much, my voice hurts, what little voice I have.  I can't walk and talk at the same time - I can't get enough breath.  If I walk up stairs, I have to breathe more before I start and breathe more when I end, and I have to breathe carefully.  I can't walk fast cos I can't get enough air into my lungs.  My cough is pathetic and my sneezes are odd too.  If I turn my head, my voice is no louder than a whisper, if that.  Sometimes it doesn't work at all.  If there is any noise, I can't be heard over it.  Until today I couldn't speak a whole sentence longer than about 15 syllables without having to stop and gasp in some more air.

Another magnificent dahlia

I'm practically an invalid but I don't feel ill, I just can't blasted breathe and talk properly.  And I keep forgetting this because I don't feel ill - I have none of the lethargy and crud that keeps you from overdoing things when you are unwell.  So I take off and then realise that all I want to do is breathe!  It is quite terrifying feeling like you can't breathe, and in that state you tend to breathe even more poorly.

My quacker is a lot louder than me.
Currently, anyway.

Not our duck - ours was noisier!

We went on the Ducks on Sunday, which was great fun, but before it people were asking where's so and so gone and they could not hear me telling them they'd gone to the bog.  I was so frustrated with everyone asking the same question and me jumping up and down, fairly much literally, unable to get them to hear me.  Maybe I should've resorted to ManLab's universal language and mimed pulling my pants down and squatting...  And I can't sing along or shout or anything.  People think I am rude because I am not talking - it is not that I don't want to talk to them but I can't.  And then they think it is catching.  DH hasn't got it so far.  I think it is just me being special.

Skipley Spot, bred by a local enthusiast.

Not being able to communicate rapidly is driving me bonkers.  Writing is too slow, people have moved on by the time I've written something down.  I need to make a couple of appointments but my accent is already hard enough to understand on the phone (at least for various Americans, Aussies understand me just fine) without me being hoarse.

Flowers at the beach

I am so over being special.

I never knew how much I relied on my voice.

Gah.

Sunset under Aurora Bridge

BTW, my hands have healed up nicely - I still have a bandaid (actually a waterproof Nexcare dressing) on the right one but it is looking good.  The bruise on my poor knee is fading but it still has a very tender spot.  I'm starting to think I was lucky not to fracture the knee cap.

Tide's coming in!

Anyway I am improving - I can now get out whole sentences without needing to puff for air, though I still can't laugh properly - I sound like I'm Muttley crossed with hiccuping.  My voice is less hoarse today though it still breaks like a teenage boy's but it is working better.  I can now walk faster than a granny on a zimmer frame and if I need to I can run a short, very short, distance.  I saw the chiro today and he did lots of work on relaxing my neck and shoulders, and my exercises all focussed on breathing correctly.  He suggested that I riled up my sympathetic nervous system when I took a dive and we already know I am a sensitive blasted petal.  There are days, many days, when I wish I was normal but let's face it, I'm not!

Still hooked on sunsets...

So things are getting better, slowly.  Next on my list of things to make is a couple of rice-filled heat packs now that I have some prewashed fabric to make them with.  I think they will be grand for various muscle tightnesses and for sinus pain - did you know that one particular set of muscles in the back of your neck can refer pain to your sinuses?  I have known this for ages because it is a muscle group that every chiro I've ever seen likes to get into and my poor cheek (maxillary) sinus whines like an unhappy dog when they do so.

Home grown!  Yum!

Overall, things are puttering along and starting to get back to normal.  I hope.

I might return with real actual crafting at some point!  Not just a couple of pics...

anon!