1. Approximately one year ago today I was in a large city (Memphis) that normally does not get snow, but had lots of snow.
2. This week I have been in a large city (my own Seattle) that normally does not get snow, but had lots and lots and lots of snow.
3. Approximately one year ago I was spending a whole lot of time in the Happy Hour Hospital with my mom who, thankfully, has fully recovered.
4. This week, and again next week, I have been/will be spending a whole lot of time in the Virginia Mason hospital with– well, myself.
5. Approximately one year ago I escaped the Happy Hour Hospital for just an hour or two of relaxation at Yarniverse, still one of my fondest memories.
6. Next week I probably won’t be able to knit for a few days, but I’ll just think about escaping.  To Ireland,  Quebec,  Italy or perhaps rural France.

See any parallels there?

Now as far as names go,  the “Virginia Mason” hospital  doesn’t have quite the ring as the “LeBonheur” (Happy Hour), but I like to think of a bricklayer from one of the southern states as the inspiration  (which is totally false, but these are my little  fantasies).  Perhaps the Mason’s actual name was something perky like Melvin Teaprattle (remember him?).

So people ask me how I’m holding up.  Honestly, except for being a human pincushion for the last couple of weeks and sporting some really marvelous bruises, at first I didn’t feel much different than I did before the apocalyptic appointment.  Then, last Wednesday,  I was asked to report to the 2nd floor of the Buck Pavilion (part of the Virginia Mason complex), and discovered when I did so that I was at the Floyd and Dolores Jones Cancer Institute.  That hit me pretty hard, seeing as I was the patient.

Bit by bit I’m starting to absorb that all this is happening.  But really, I hope it’s all over before I really believe it.

Here’s me being Jamie Lee, lipstick on.  I’m thinking of this as the “Before” picture.  I hope to have the “After” picture all ready by the end of April, with hair, eyebrows and eyelashes still intact.

Throughout the years, this has changed, and women go without makeup, or without lipstick, or with “lip-colored” lipstick which is somehow supposed to be better than real lip color.  I have chosen to live up to some people’s characterization of me as a “charm-school southern belle type” by maintaining my war paint.  This has caused me to be the brunt of jokes at times (always from other women), but it is sort of a signature for me, like a particular type of fragrance might be a signature for someone else.  The fact that I work in a male-dominated field only causes me to adhere more ferociously to my femininity.  At times I will make an appearance at some function where women are prevalent, and one by one I see them slip out to the restroom to apply their own lipstick.

In the past few days, as I rushed out of the house for a myriad of early-morning appointments destined to deliver pain, I was careful to don the lipstick.  Indeed, in an effort to cheer myself up, I had bought a couple of very cheery pink shades that are particularly bright but not garish.  I look in the mirror and I see a person with enough optimism and confidence that she has not forgotten her appearance.  The day I forget my lipstick is the day you should start worrying about me.  I was particularly pleased when my hairstylist, whom I chartered to style my hair after Jamie Lee Curtis, said after she was done, “with this type of hairstyle you can do big lips or big eyes or whatever you want”.

So it was that yesterday I,  my wonderful husband, my JLC hair and my lipstick faced the panel of doctors that will be providing my care for the next few months.  Without exception, they were professional, competent, caring and willing to answer any and all questions.  Questions were few, however, because they gave us such complete and thoughtful  information.  There are still a lot of “it depends” answers to future treatment.  The dependent factor will be the results of the partial mastectomy and sentinel node biopsy that will occur on January 31.

On the right breast, they had to do an MRI-guided biopsy.  This involved the same contraption as the breast MRI, but lasted an hour and  a half.  In addition, a plastic plate was set up perpendicular to my sternum, and then a plastic grid was placed on the other side, and these plates were compressed toward each other.  I was slid into and out of the oven many times while the dye was injected and the suspicious spot was pinpointed.  The radiologist played “Battleship” by locating on the grid the place where she would insert the “introducer”, through which she would then  insert a long needle and take tissue samples.

All this time I was in the Flying Superman position, arms outstretched over my head, lying very, very still.  I amused myself by singing “One little, two little, three little Indians…”– you know the song, right?  But to make me have to focus more, I prescribed that the counting should be done in different languages.  French, Spanish, German, Swedish.  I found that my skills had deteriorated somewhat, but by having to retrieve the right translation, I was sufficiently distracted from the procedure that it eventually ended.  Recovery from this biopsy has been much more arduous that the ultrasound biopsy, but I will refrain from regaling you with the details.

Initial results from the biopsy came in while I was conferring with my surgeon, and they show the area is benign!  This is wonderful news.  Still, both breasts will undergo surgery so that I don’t have to undergo a second surgery to make things match.

Meanwhile, before the biopsy, I was able to ply my dorset singles.  I’m incredibly happy with the crisp bounciness of this 4-ply yarn, which is going to be excellent for texture.  Unfortunately, I didn’t wind it into a ball, and now I will either have to bat my eyelashes fetchingly at my husband and ask him to do it, or wait another couple of days before I am able.  I was aiming at a fingering weight, but it came out more like a DK, I think.  I won’t really know until I’ve swatched it.  From 8.5 ounces of roving I got about 580 yards of 4-ply.

An MRS is a degree one who attends Mississippi University for Women is often said to be earning.   This is possibly because there is a large supply of eligible bachelors at the nearby pilot training base.

An MRI is Magnetic Resonance Imaging, accomplished by a giant tube of magnetism into which a person undergoing scrutiny for various anomalies is slid like a loaf of bread into an oven.  Jackhammer noises ensue, and the body is photographed in slices.  At the same time, a dye creeps into the blood through an IV so that the images will show the monsters the doctors need to see, if they are there.

They were there.

In the breast MRI, a woman is laid face down onto the table, which is similar to a massage table in that it has the face rest, but different  in that it has large holes cut out in the appropriate position for the appendages in question.  (Honestly,  I think real massage tables should have this feature.)

According to the coordinator who phoned me with the results, both breasts “lit up”, indicating that I am the winner of the so-called breast cancer jackpot.  So I will be returning for a targeted ultrasound on Monday, followed either immediately by another needle biopsy, this time on the right, or scheduled for an MRI-assisted biopsy if ultrasound isn’t powerful enough to guide the radiologist.  One wonders why they would even bother with a biopsy at this point, and I intend to ask that very question at the appropriate time.

Meanwhile, my good friend Pamela offered her skills at research, which I happily accepted.  Among other much appreciated information, she provided me with a link to the best site out there for breast cancer:  the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation.  It gives forthright and current information, though the telling is sometimes brutal.  I should not have started reading it right before bedtime the night before my MRI.  I was able to navigate through “newly diagnosed”, “invasive” to get a ton of information, and because of that I was not exactly surprised that I had won the MRI jackpot.  Lobular carcinoma is very difficult to detect, and once it shows up on a mammogram it is probably 8-9 years old and it is very possible it has spread to other areas of the body.  These ares might have been taken care of by the immune system, but since there is no way of knowing, chemotherapy is usually prescribed.  This I was hoping to avoid, but at least I know the reason, if it turns out that I can’t.

I expect that I’ll go “under the knife” within the next 2-3 weeks.

On the fiber arts front, I’ve been spinning away on my little Hansen eSpinner.  I was so in love with the poll dorset yarn from Renaissance Dyeing that I bought 8 ounces of some poll dorset roving to see if I could produce a similar yarn.  I divided the roving into four 2-ounce lengths and spun them onto four separate bobbins.  Right now they are resting, and tomorrow I will ply them and possibly dye them, and they will grow up to be socks!

There is an eSpinner group on Ravelry (of course) and through it I learned of the most marvelous bag to use to tote my spinner around:  a Zuca.  It is the sports bag, which will hold bobbins, lazy kate and fiber, with a cooler bag on top for the actual spinner.  You can actually sit on the metal frame, but I would set the spinner on top instead.  Do you think they’ll let me spin from my hospital bed?

In these imaginary blog posts I was by turn witty, sober, clever, insightful, blunt, whiney and silly.  I don’t know how this real post will turn out, but I thought you should know that those imaginary ones were amazing!

So here’s the thing:  months ago I made an appointment for a physical to be conducted on January 4, 2012.    I was waiting for the first of the year to pass so that my new insurance would kick in.  My main goal was to get something done about my back issues.  The back was behaving badly ever since the weeding marathons of June 2011, and something had to be done.

My doctor, my wonderful doctor, gave me a referral to a physical therapist for the back, a lab order for routine blood work, a referral for a colonoscopy and a referral for a mammogram (things you do at the advanced age of 50ish).

I had never had a mammogram before.  I was smug in the knowledge that I had no family history of breast cancer, no lumps or bumps, and I had breastfed all my babies, at least for a few weeks.  Smug, I say.  So, while I was already at the clinic, I scheduled one.  They got me in immediately.

Three mammograms, two ultrasounds and one biopsy later, it was Friday.  I waited until Tuesday for the results, and got them.

Smug was wiped off my silly face.

2.25 and 2.75 mm are not commonly stocked in stores in the U.S.  My mad dash to one of the local yarn stores saw me bringing home what I thought was 2.25, only it turned out to be 2.5 because I had assumed that the next highest size after 2.0 would be 2.25 and I was, sadly, mistaken.

So began my hunt for 2.25 mm needles.  These were to be used to knit ganseys, so they needed to be strong and either a) circular 24″ or 32″ or b) doublepointed, and long.   Over the course of a week I had found and ordered:

1. Two 2.25 mm 32″ Addi Turbo circulars from a seller on Ebay.
2. Two 2.25 mm 32″ Chiao Goo circulars from a seller on Ebay
3. Four sets of five 16″ double-pointed steel needles from Frangipani in Great Britain, one of which was 2.25 mm.
4. One case of 11 sets, 5 each of 14″ steel double-pointed needles from a Chinese seller on Ebay, one set of which was 2.25 — for $0.99.  That’s right– 99 cents.
5. Two cases of 14 sets, 5 each, of 16″ steel double-pointed needles from a different Chinese seller on Ebay, one set of which was 2.25 mm — for about $28 for each set.
6. As an honorable mention, I enquired at Signature Needles as to whether they could provide 16″ double-points.  They replied in the affirmative, but said they would cost about $250.00 per set.

I knew I was taking a gamble on the Chinese needles.  I knew that what seemed too good to be true probably was.  And I was so right.  Both sets of needles from China are utterly useless.

They cannot possibly be steel, and even if you are not telekinetic they will bend if you look at them.  The only positive thing I can say is that at least the red “velvet” case will be nice to hold future sets of real steel needles.

The needles from Frangipani were real steel needles.  They are sharp, have a nice heft to them and remain straight when stared at.  I don’t have a picture here because it would not serve any purpose– they look the same as the Chinese needles, but they are the genuine article!  However, I am still awaiting the knitting belt I ordered from the Shetland Islands a few weeks ago, and without that I can’t use them.

The Addi turbos were ho-hum.  The annoying thing about them was the cable, which kept kinking up.  I know, I know– I should run some hot water over them and they will be tamed, but I do not keep hot water in my knitting spot and do not believe that circular needles should have to be treated in order to behave.

So I eyed the Chiao Goos a bit warily.  They have a bend at the end of each tip that I thought would be annoying, but their red cable lay nicely in my lap as I cast on.  The needle material is smooth and slick, and the points are nice.  I have decided that these are my most favorite needle for knitting at a small gauge.  Yes, they are Chinese too, but made with a quality not even comparable to the cheap ones from Ebay.  They are the ones that I am using for Cape Cod.

Speaking of Cape Cod, it is like popcorn.  I just can’t seem to put it down and it grows very slowly but surely.  I am almost to the end of my first skein of Renaissance Poll Dorset, and I am still utterly in love with this yarn.

On the Saturday before Christmas, I decided that since a) I needed new socks and b) I had sock yarn I should c) knit a pair of socks before New Years.  Amazingly enough, I did it.  I used Cat Bordhi’s book New Pathways for Sock Knitting and the Riverbed architecture and they fit so perfectly that I immediately cast on for another pair.

2012 may turn out to be the year for socks and spinning, for I’ve also got Fortuna out and started her spinning again with a silk/merino blend purchased from The Artful Ewe at Madrona two years ago.

I was reminiscing that in 2008, our power went out on Christmas Eve, just as I was about to make osso bucco, and we ended up going out to eat at a restaurant not far away.

Today’s power outage seems like the closing parentheses for the time period that began with the prior outage and this.  It is fitting in many ways, and ironic as well.

Now, about that recovery.  Hi, my name is Sheila and I’ve been on a low-carb diet since July…

I was going to be strong on Christmas Eve.  I had determined to resist temptation, destined to dine only on Things Having No Carbohydrates, except for the Exception:  a couple of glasses of fine Brunello di Montalcino.

I had in fact been extremely dedicated to my low-carb lifestyle since the Thanksgiving weekend:  fewer than 20 carbs per day, no alchohol, practically no caffeine (we start the day with a pot of 1/4 caff-3/4 decaf and I drink one cup), no sugar, no rice, no bread, no flour, no grains, no legumes, no pasta, etc. etc. etc.

So my Christmas treat was to be the wine.  This didn’t sound bad.  After all, we were having a beautiful prime rib and a nice salad.  Even though two of the kids were with us and Brian was to make his usual pie and we would serve yams, still I felt it would be easy to resist the carbs.

But I hadn’t counted on my stepmother who, though not present, sent presents from Tennesse:  an entire box filled with homemade fudge (two kinds), chocolate covered cherries, coconut bonbons, white chocolate pretzels, and other sugary delights.

The Box of Evil sat on my countertop for five minutes after it arrived, and then disappeared.  Brian was being good to me, hiding the Forbidden Fruit so that I could resist.  And it worked.

Until yesterday.

Yesterday, Christmas Eve, was the day we were doing our big dinner.  The decorations were up, the lights were glowing from the tree under which pretty presents glistened with shiny ribbons.  Pandora’s Christmas mix was playing on the flat screen, and the smell of pies baking and roast roasting was just too much. Tiny little messages stuck to tiny little arrows were shot by an unknown presence,  barraging my gray matter.  It’s Christmas! they said.  Eat fudge!  It’s tradition!  Don’t ignore tradition!

I ignored tradition for a little while longer, and then I found the candy.  I claimed it was for the kids and for Brian.   I arranged a small amount of  it temptingly upon a festive Christmas platter.  I admired it.  I walked away.  I came back.   I cut the fudge into small pieces.  I left the area.

Like a magnet, that tray of goodies kept pulling me back.  I tried a couple of crumbles from the edge of the fudge.  mmmm.  good.  I ate half a piece of peanut butter fudge.  I thought it might taste like Reese’s if  I added half a piece of chocolate fudge.  And Daddy (who is no longer with us) loved those coconut candies– I really should have one in his memory.  But that was all.  I could quit anytime.

Soon dinner was ready.  There should be hymns of praise written and sung for that prime rib.  It was delectable, and with it we had horseradish sauce I had made all the way from raw horseradish.  I wasn’t supposed to have the yams, but it was Christmas, right?  I had one.  By the time the meal was over I had had a million times my carb allowance, so while we were clearing the table I had a chocolate covered cherry.  And a wee bit more fudge.

We opened presents; we watched a movie.  Then, after all the previous indulgence, what was one slice of pie?  With ice cream?

And since one of my gifts was a beautiful bottle of Lagavulin, I had to have a wee dram of that, right?

Yes, dear readers, I am still alive.  I was about to burst by the time I went to bed. But I am now back on the Plan.  I can look that plate of Evil right in its fudgy cherry eyes and say NO.

Because I’m going to serve it to all my friends who are coming to knit and spin with me on Wednesday.  Hee hee.

Because I did not have access to the original yarn, and did not know of a suitable substitute, I did not ever knit the sweater.  Over the years since Ravelry has come into existence, I periodically look at the implementations of the Cape Cod design as knit by other people, but nobody’s choice of yarn has ever struck me as perfect.  I therefore refrained from adopting any of those yarns.

In the last month or so, largely inspired by Gordon, I contracted a serious case of Gansey Fever, and so began once again my hunt for the perfect yarn for Cape Cod.

The characteristics of this yarn, in my opinion, would be that it is soft in appearance and feel, but not so soft that it stretches into nothing as it loops around the needle; that it is tightly twisted so that it shows great stitch definition,  but not so tight that it is harsh; that the color complements the design and is not overbearing.

One day it all came together, my perfect yarn:  Renaissance Dyeing 4-ply Poll Dorset.  The color is called Pastel, reminiscent of wispy clouds across a pale blue sky.  It knits at the perfect gauge on a 2.25 mm needle, and is everything I ever dreamed.  It has the bounce and softness characteristic of this breed of sheep, and I am infatuated with it.

In this picture you can see the bottoms of the shells and the beginnings of the horseshoe cables above the welt, see the sharp relief of the purls against the knits, and if you could also experience its softness against your skin you would agree that this yarn is perfect for Cape Cod.

Change of subject:  I told you about Stonewall in my last post, and here he is to greet and to wish you, with his operatic meow, a very Merry Christmas!

Time snowballs recklessly and refuses to slow down, hence my recent sojourn away from the blog.  But life is good (knock on wood), very very good.

In August I accepted a job with Expedia as a data developer, and I love working there.  The enticement to join up (aside from the compensation package) was the chance to learn noSQL technologies and to apply them.  There’s always that fear that you will get a job and then your expectations will be unmet, but that fear was totally unfounded.  I have added Java to my arsenal of programming languages, and am quickly catching on to Cassandra and MongoDB, to be followed shortly by Neo4J, Hadoop and CouchDB as well as some homegrown in-memory data stores.  What fun!

The whole downtown Bellevue scene where Expedia is located is vibrant and alive, with everything within walking distance– except a yarn store.  But that could be a good thing.

Besides my work-related technology ramp-ups, I’ve also begun working with Objective-C and IOS on my very first Mac– a Mac Book Air.  The impetus behind this seeming madness was my iPad.  I love my iPad and take it with me everywhere.  I want to write some apps for it, ergo I needed a Mac.  It’s like switching to stripes after a lifetime of wearing polka dots, but not in a bad way.  Along the way I’ve also dipped my toes into Ruby, learned the Microsoft Entity Framework and Microsoft MVC.  So I’m spreading the love around.  I have to admit, though, that free professional grade open source software makes a whole lot of sense.

On the fiber front, I have completed and worn a couple of my Nihon Vogue sweaters, and when I have time I will post photos.  Currently on the needles is a V-neck cardigan for my beloved.

In October we lost our sweet Thor to kidney failure.  He was only three years old, and we miss him very much.  Fearing that Loki would be lost without a feline companion, we adopted a gray tabby kitten who had been found in an attic, starving.  How he got there and why will never be known, but the guys who lived there were allergic to cats.  After keeping him for a month and trying to locate his owners, they finally posted an ad on Craigslist at just the right time.  After an initial period of fighting with Loki, he has settled in well.  We named him Stonewall for his fierceness in battle and his comedic way of plopping down on his back when we approach him.

The winter solstice is only one week away, and the days will begin to grow longer again.  Life is good.

Okay, Alvin, you’re a bit early, but I understand your confusion.  I just finished Brian’s new Christmas stocking, the gorgeous Forest pattern by Judy’s Colors, which I purchased from Knit Purl about a month ago.  Actually, I purchased seven kits for different designs, one for each person in the family likely to be here at Christmas (and significant others).  Not that they will all actually be here, but at least I will be prepared in case they are.  Or at least that’s the Plan.  One down and six to go!

The stocking has not yet been steam pressed, and the loop has not been added for hanging, but I am tickled with it.  The yarn, Rauma Finullgarn, is wonderful to work with, and the pattern is extremely well written.

I announce also the completion of Taygete, another well-written pattern from Romi, just barely on the blocking wires.  I am going to enjoy wearing this little shawlette as a scarf with my winter coat.

This is a queen-sized mattress, so you can see that the shawl is quite wide.

Another person who rides my bus is my boss.  That’s cool, because then we can walk to the TBB together (if it’s not a Bus Buddy day) and plan our work.  Then he goes to wait in the long line at the espresso stand in the lobby of the TBB, and I go on up to my office.  I save my coffee drink for after lunch, when I take my yellow porcelain ersatz-paper cup down to that same great espresso stand (where there is no longer a line) and convince the barista that I don’t want a breve, I want a heavy-cream latte.  Perhaps,   according to the Coffee Wiki, I should order a “Vienna”.  But slowly and surely the baristas are recognizing me and my order.

Meanwhile, during my daily knitting time, I have made progress on Taygete.  I am almost finished with the lace portion.

Lastly, a photo of my new-to-me drafting desk, a Craigslist find inspired by my knitting friend Amy, whose organizational skills I am trying to emulate (but fall pathetically short).  It came with a Vemco drafting machine, which I confess to having no clue how to use, but it looks so cool I set it up anyway.  I’ve ordered metric “scales” which are the clear plastic rulers that you see on top of the paper, and also a vinyl “cover” which is transparent and will cover the whole drafting surface.  The desk is 72″ wide, so there is plenty of room to have two or three drawings available at the same time.