The week so far

Last week, Dr Winkler said that he was going to add Revlimid to my treatment regimen. Monday I got a phone call from Mindy at Diplomat Pharmacy. She said that they had put the Revlimid through my insurance and that my co-pay would be $2000. WHAT!? So she will present it to the Chronic Disease Fund, and if accepted my co-pay would be $25. I said I could afford that. She took some financial information from me, and said they would be calling both Dr Winkler and me. Tuesday, Dr W asked if I had received the medicine yet. I said that I hadn't, but told him about the phone call the previous day. He called in Donna Marie who handles such things for him. She had a fax that she had received the previous day with the same information I had just reported. The Pharmacy called again today. I've been approved for assistance from the Chronic Disease Fund, so they will UPS the capsules for Monday delivery (I told her I will be out much of the day on Friday). She then transferred me to Celgene, the manufacturer of both Revlimid and Thalomid to take a survey. It's the same as I was taking for Thalomid. Revlimid is a cousin of Thalomid. It has not been tested on humans for birth defects, but it has caused birth defects in animals. Once again, I promise not to get pregnant.

The Celgene representative asked if I had any Thalomid left over and I said that I did. She asked if she should send a return authorization. That will be good. I'll be glad to get it out of the house.

Knitting:

As Dr W walked into the exam room yesterday, I was saying, "Oh, shit!" He asked what was wrong, and I replied that I has just dropped some stitches off the end of the knitting needle. Then I held up my work and asked if he thought a man who works on the barges on the river would wear a scarf that color - fuschia! He said that he might, which was not the answer I expected. But then he added, "But he might get teased a lot." That's more like it. I said I guess that had better become a shawl rather than a seaman's scarf.

After I got my Velcade, Zometa, etc, I went to Market Square Coffee. I got a sandwich at Kirchoff's next door and a cup of coffee. I sat there and ate lunch and knitted for an hour or so. One of my knitting friends owns the coffee shop, but she wasn't there. When I saw her at the knitting guild meeting later she said that Tuesday is her day off. Then I went to Kohl's, Lowes, WalMart and Home Depot. All I bought was three packages of herb seeds - tarragon, parsley, and basil. I called the yarn shop from Kohl's parking lot and asked if the knitting guild was meeting at 7 pm. Maureen said it was, so I decided to find a place to sit and knit after I had finished my other errands.

I really enjoyed the meeting. It was a great bunch of women (about a dozen), some of whom I hadn't seen for a while. I mentioned the charity knitting group we're trying to start at Grace Church, and Stephanie asked if we'd like to join the small group at First Presbyterian. I think that might work well. I plan to tell Libby (our rector) about it when I see her on Friday.

Yard work:

When I woke up during the night, I thought it was raining, but the bird bath was dry this morning, so I guess it was just the wind that I heard. I was glad if that, because I was able to mow. I finished the second round of mowing and started the third - two and a half tankfulls of gas. I was only going to do two sessions, but that put me in the middle of the fenced-in area and I didn't want to leave it that way. Now it will be Saturday before I can do more because of other things scheduled for tomorrow and Friday. Maybe t won't grow too much taller by then.

The roof is done!

Here's some of the crew this morning. They arrived a little after eight this morning and left about 6 pm - long day, but I guess they wanted to get it finished as badly as I wanted them to finish.

Knitting:

My niece is expecting her second child within a month, so I figured it was time to knit a baby blanket. The baby is a boy and will be named Liam. I made a blanket with nine squares, four spelling out his name and five with sun, moon, star, tree and heart motifs. This picture is of the back (note that the L is backwards) and the one below is the front.

I started it on Saturday. Today when I was finishing it, I kept thinking of some of the words in Rite II, Eucharistic Prayer C in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, which is the one we used at church yesterday: "At your command all things came to be: the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses, and this fragile earth, our island home."

The star, tree and heart motifs are from one of my stitch dictionaries, but the other things are from my own charts.

Jill, you asked about the green shawl in one of my recent posts. That is an Elizabeth Zimmerman Pie Are Square shawl. The pattern is in her book Knitting Around. It is more a method than a pattern. I have made several of them, because it is so easy to remember. You can do it in garter stitch if you just feel like knitting (with a few yarn overs thrown in), or you can put in lace stitches if you want more of a challenge.

Shingles - the non-medical kind

Carmen called me about 7 this morning. I was still in bed. For her it was about 8 and she was on her way to work. During the conversation, she asked if we'd been getting the rain they have and how my roof was holding up to it. Yes, we've had a lot of rain, but since the roofer had covered the bare spot on the roof it hasn't leaked. She reminded me again that Bobby would love to come out and do the job for me. He's been working in construction, including roofing, for three years or so. I told her it's easier for me to let the local guy, who knows the area, do it. About two hours later, I heard vehicles in the driveway. Usually they're for next door, but I looked out anyway. There were two trucks, one of which bore a load of shingles. They used a conveyor belt to get them up to the roof and that truck went back to the building supplier. Then another big truck came and backed up to the house to collect the old shingles, etc. The crew worked for several hours and will be back tomorrow if it doesn't rain. At least they finished the area that had lost the most shingles, and didn't leave any area bare in case it does rain.

The rest of the shawls

Here are the fronts and backs of two other shawls, plus the detail of the orangey one.


Today I'm mourning the loss of a knitting needle. It's one of a set of five which I use for socks. Since I only use four of them at a time, I can still use the set, but one of them (not the lost one) has a rough spot on one end. They are my favorite set for socks - eight inches long, 2.5 mm in diameter, Rhodo-Cristal Nacre, plastic with a metal core (Pony Pearl makes them now, but their tips are not pointy enough to suit me). I was working on the heel flap yesterday, so was only using three needles - the fourth was in the zip-lock bag and the one with the rough spot was at home. When they called me into the lab to draw blood, I picked up my purse which had the knitting project in it. The others waiting told me that I had dropped my yarn, so I had to pick it up. The needle must have jumped out as well, but no one noticed it. I called Dana at the Art Guild first this morning, because I knew she wouldn't think my question odd. She didn't find the needle there, so I called the hospital. The woman I talked to didn't sound like she thought my question odd either. However, no such item has been found.

My daughter is not going to like this paragraph. She doesn't like the fact that I live next to the town water tower. She's afraid it's going to topple over and wash me away. This spring when I have been mowing near the tower, I have felt drops of water on my head. The new water department guy (son-in-law of the old one) confirmed to me a couple of days ago that there was a leak. They are fixing it today. Well, I guess Carmen will like hearing that it's being repaired.

More Shawls

When Alyssa and Lexi were here on Sunday, I had them model some of the shawls I've knit recently. Lexi particularly liked the orangey one. It can completely cover her. I used a stitch pattern with a small amount of openwork in it, and am pleased with the way it turned out. I took a close-up to show the detail, but Blogger isn't letting me upload any more pictures tonight. Maybe it will cooperate tomorrow.


Shingles:

It's still with me. For the most part I'm OK during the day, but some nights have been miserable. I now apply hydrocortizone cream to my chin and right cheek before I go to bed and take two Tylenol (it works better than the pain reliever Dr Pat prescribed). Yesterday, about 9:15 a.m., my chin was suddenly burning and the pain in my jaw brought tears to my eyes. I have a pretty high tolerance for pain, so that was unusual. It only lasted for a minute or so, but it was horrible.

Today I had to go to the hospital at Mayfield to have blood drawn to see if I need to adjust my coumadin dosage (I don't, but they want to check it again next week.) After that I went to the Art Guild and talked to Dana (the director) for a while. I hadn't seen her for several weeks, so I was catching her up on my medical problems. That same burning of skin and intense pain in the jaw happened again. Is this going to be a daily thing?

What's blooming now?

Yesterday I picked Lexi up from school and brought her to my house. I then gave her the camera and told her to walk around the yard and take pictures of plants that are blooming. Here's what she found:
Not really blooming, but hosta in two spots - north end of house and north side of shed.
Pinks - south side of shed.
Money plant/silver dollar plant - beside front porch. She's looking forward to the seed pods on these.
Iris - beside driveway. There are more of these purple ones in other places as well as a couple of other varieties that haven't bloomed yet.

Today I finally finished the first round of mowing - now I need to start the second round. I like having the space around me that I do, but I wish it would mow itself!

A most frustrating week!

My computer has not been cooperating with me at all! I don't know if I have all the problems solved yet, but at least I can get online, and I managed to send two messages in Hotmail.

I also had a reaction to some of the medication Dr Pat had prescribed for the shingles. Last Monday, before I left the oncologist's office, I used the ladies room. As I was washing my hands, I looked in the mirror above the sink and noticed that there was a little swelling to the right of my chin that had not been there earlier. I brought it to the attention of the nurses, who called the doctor to look at it. They gave me a couple of capsules of Benedryl and told me to use warm, moist compresses on it. There was little or no change on Tuesday and Wednesday, but by the time I got up Thursday morning the whole cheek was swollen. I discovered that I did have some Benedryl, so I started taking it at regular intervals. I also reread the information sheets from the pharmacy. On the one for the Lanacaine patches, whose purpose is to control itching, I had previously missed the direction NOT to use it if the skin is broken. I had a miserable night Thursday! I continued the Benedryl, but needed more of it. I didn't want to go into a store looking the way I did, so I had Alyssa buy it for me and I drove to her house to pick it up. Today there is only a small amount of swelling left, so I did some grocery shopping after my oncology appointment. I took a picture of myself on Thursday, and showed it to the nurses today. I also told them what I had figured out about the cause.

The roofer came on Tuesday afternoon and nailed up some of the shingles I had saved. I have not had any leaking since then, but I'm still putting the dishpan on the couch every night and when it rains during the day. I really do not want my 'knitting nest' to get wet.

It's early, but I think I'll crawl in bed and read. I'm in the middle of a novel, but I got a book today that I'm going to read instead. It's titled Knit with Courage, Live with Hope and was written by Annie Modesitt, who is a well-known knitting teacher, knitwear designer and writer. I'm particularly interested in this book of hers because it is a memoir of the year 2007 during which her husband was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. I have read some of her blog posts from that time, but wanted to have the book as well.