About an Hour of Quilting Projects in a Week... a VICTORY!

Last week I told you how hard the recovery has been but that I was excited because it was the day to come off the awful drug and start looking forward to real recovery.  Well, it didn't quite go that way.  With in 36 hours of stopping the drug I was so sick I didn't know what to do.  I wound up calling my doctor in Arkansas who called me 3 times that day to follow me and put me back on the drug again.  I had to take it every day for a few more days, now I'm taking it every other day.  I was very sick and in a lot of pain and needing pain relief drugs that I hadn't taken for a while.  Here's hoping I won't go through that again.  The doctor thinks perhaps I had some kind of viral infection that added to the problem because some of the symptoms I had aren't things they usually see with brain surgery patients.  LOL, leave it to me to come up with something exciting!

I started to have some better times yesterday.  Two fifteen minute windows that I was able to use for working on a quilt!  (How exciting is that?)  The quilt that I've been working on is OLD.  One of the oldest quilts in my UFO pile, a stack and whack that I made in 1997!  I like the floral fabric for the flowers but didn't like the border treatment I put on at the time.  I took the blocks out a few years ago because I had decided I was NEVER going to quilt it as it was.  This week I decided I would do something really easy to get the top finished and be able to decide whether I'll quilt it or ask Melinda to do it.  I think I will use this quilt on my guest best in the future.

The day I got very sick my sister Lauren was visiting from Hong Kong for a week.  It was great to have her here, and very good to have her here that particular day because she helped me do the one errand I really wanted to do on Friday before my symptoms had gotten really bad while I was doing them, we went to Tiny Stitches during Shop Hop so I could find the right green fabric for the sashing in the quilt.  I found it pretty quick, got to say hello to Maetha and Melinda who were of course both working and get out of there in what might have been my quickest visit to Tiny Stitches in my whole life.

Yesterday I managed to cut the fabric into 3.5" strips and start playing with them.  Turns out I didn't have enough fabric, of course.  I was thinking why didn't I cut it to 2.5", or why didn't I buy an extra quarter yard while I was there.  You know how these things go, and please, if you don't know let's just acknowledge your perfection and move on because I make these mistakes, plenty of times.  LOL  Melinda was going to get me another 1/2 yard but she couldn't find the fabric.  I sent her pics but neither really got her to the right bolt.  A friend came to visit me today and I asked her to take me back to Tiny Stitches.  Melinda had asked another friend to look for it today, Mindy is awesome and surely she would have found it without my help but I walked in today and had a piece of the fabric and instead of going to the green section she went to the blue and said "it's here".  Turns out she didn't think the fabric was very green at all and didn't even think to look there.  Such a funny thing how we take in colors, isn't it?  I'm just grateful that she found it and quick as you can think about I was in and out of there and on my way home again.  It was an even quicker trip than Friday's!

 I came home and napped.  I haven't had the opportunity to do more cutting and sewing but I will do it as I can.  I bought a full yard of the fabric so that I could have some to do binding with which will be good, I think, since this green (which looks blue to some people) matches the green in the focus fabric quite well.

I might get to feel March before it's fully past...

It has been an interesting month.  So many of you have been encouraging, both here and in my email and I am incredibly grateful.  I am glad for those who have been able to drop by and visit with me, drop off meals and red socks and mail cards and email.  It is incredible, I will never be able to tell you all how much it made a difference in my healing but I honestly don't know how I would have gotten through March without it.  Thank you very much.

The truth is that this recovery has been much more challenging than I really was ready for.  The surgery went very well and the success was exactly where the doctors had hoped it would be.  I expected that would mean that my healing would go quickly, too.  I was naive.  The drugs I have been taking have been rough.  They specifically try to make the healing happen slowly and completely which I will be very grateful for as my life regathers but it's been challenging in the meantime.  Today is my last day taking the steroids which means (hopefully) one more week of my body saying "why are you changing the dose amount" and then perhaps I can get on with getting better.  That would be awfully nice!

Melinda and I have taken a pic together every year, even this one!

Last week I had a lovely morning with the Mavens.  Every year we go to the Bullock Hall quilt show where many of us hang quilts, but I decided I shouldn't go so everyone else could go and not worry about having to take me home in the middle.  Melinda talked some sense into me and said I was going and she didn't care if she had to drive me home.  I'm so grateful for her love and encouragement and common sense.  We went to the show and had a great time.  Bullock Hall seems to have gotten smaller in the past several years which worked out well for me.  I got to see every quilt which was lovely and then we even stopped for some lunch before coming home.  I promise you I slept for the rest of Monday but it was such a special treat to get to go do something normal!

Also last week I had to move some things in my studio because there was a roof leak that was seeping through the ceiling in there.  It was interesting, my strength lasted for about 15 minutes or so and then I would rest for anywhere from 1 hour to 4 hours.  Even so, over the course of several days I managed to make the room very livable which is great because I hope to start sewing again sometime as my strength improves!  I even found two projects that need some help that I could do while not actually sewing.  While sitting in the kitchen with Melinda and Lynda I managed to unsew a few seams.  Not as much fun as sewing but the first sewing project I've turned to since 2012 started!  I'll load up some pics of them when I get the chance.