Not Good

Hello:

By the photo of the lemon tree, you can see I am still in Southern California. 

The news about my brother is not good.  It is hard to write this, but, as I have shared a bit about what is going on, I will do my best.

One of the horrible things about ALS is that you lose your ability to breathe.  The diaphragm is a muscle, and since ALS attacks the motor neurons, the nerves that move your muscles, eventually, it stops working and you can not breathe.  There is a new, experimental procedure where they use a device like a heart pacemaker to help with this.  Instead of shocking the heart muscle, the device shocks the diaphragm, causing it to contract and force air into the lungs.  The device stays outside the body, with electrodes going into the body to the diaphragm muscle. For this to work, the diaphragm must be still at least partially functioning.  See, when the muscles stop working, they atrophy (waste away).  When they tested my brother for this, it was inconclusive, but his breathing was still above the level they use to decide who can have the operation.

What happened is, when they implanted the wires, and tested the device, they discovered that his diaphragm had already stopped working.  How could this be?  He was still breathing fairly well.  How could he breathe without using his diaphragm? It seems that he has been using his chest muscles to breathe.  He was in such incredible shape, he had been a marathoner, tri-athlete, and often rode his bike to work.  Only someone with super strong core could do something like this.

We are all devastated at the failure of the surgery.  It was certainly not a cure, but, it could have given him 6 months to a year more of breathing.  He is no worse off than he was before the surgery.  It is just that hope has gone.

Peace,
f1bercat

Friends with Tools

Hello!

Life

Life is definitely dominating right now.  One of my brother's best friends from high school came with his brother and installed a lift to carry Mark from the living room/bedroom he has been using to the main part of the house.

Mark's house is split into 3 levels:  The entryway opens to a living room, dining room and kitchen.  From this level you can also access the part of the back yard where there is a patio and barbecue.  From the living room you can go up stairs to the bedrooms or down a half flight of stairs to what once was a family room.  This lower level has a bathroom and the laundry room, also, as well as a door to the garage and access to the lower part of the back yard.  Can you tell the house is on a hill?  To get to the front door from outside there are stairs.  All of these stairs are a nightmare for someone in a wheelchair.

So the lower part of the house has slowly been fixed up to be Mark's room.  He has his computer for work, his hospital bed, a small refrigerator, table, a TV, chairs for visitors, etc.  He can get to the bathroom and outside through the garage.  One lucky thing is that it is open to the kitchen by a half wall, so Mark is included in the family while they cook, eat, and so on, but he was still not WITH them.

NOT ANY MORE

Enter Pete and Joe.  Friends with tools, building knowledge and experience, and a generosity of spirit that can't be matched.

They brought Mark a special lift,

 cut the half-wall,

 installed everything, and we ate dinner together as a family.

A family with GREAT friends.

Knitting

I have made so much progress on my Echo Flower Shawl.  I started the shawl about a million years ago, ok, April 6th.  The Beginning Lace Knitters Group in Ravelry did it as a KAL, but I was busy with other things, so I started mine way after they had finished.  I have worked on it pretty much every month, but super slowly.  I am finished with all of the main repeats and and working on the first border pattern section.  And, I am almost finished with it.  I am on row 13 of 15.  There is one more chart, the Edge Chart, with 8 rows and then it is just soaking and blocking.  As this shawl is for my mom, though I am tempted to keep it and make her a sweater instead, it would be amazing if I could finish it before I have to drive back up to Washington next week.  Where would I block it, though?

The big thing for me in this border section is the Nupps.  Yep, nupps (rhymes with soups)!  Made my first ever.

before purling back

3 completed nupps

I am very slow with the purling back, and a few times I have missed loops and had to "fix" things.  I haven't tinked or frogged back, and my lifeline is at the beginning of the whole border section (which makes me nervous).  Three more rows.  I can do it.

Stay safe and well.
Yours,
f1bercat
shaping the planet with nupps.

Mark and his daughter "ride" the lift.

FO Tuesday

Hello!

Knitting

I finished my Capricious Cowl.  Yay!  The pattern and yarn were from the 2012 Puget Sound LYS Tour, and this makes the 4th project I have finished with yarn bought during that wonderful weekend.  See!  I was INVESTING, not just spending.  This whole project came from Churchmouse Yarn and Teas on Bainbridge Island.  That was our last stop on the Tour.  We took a ferry from Seattle, ate lunch there, and celebrated our successfully visiting all 24 stops with a glass of champagne offered by the wonderful people at Churchmouse.  The 2 projects they featured were both cowls, one for knit and one for crochet.  I was tempted to buy yarn for both! but made myself just get the beautiful Rowan Kidsilk Haze for the knitted cowl.

It was a super simple knit.  The only tricky parts were the beginning and the ending.  It starts with a Provisional Cast on.

At the end, you take off the locking stitchmarker, and "unzip" the crocheted chain, picking up stitches as you go.

Once I had unzipped the whole string (I only had to cut twice), and picked up all of the live stitches, the fun began.  KITCHENER!

You start by purling the front stitch and knitting the back stitch, but leaving both on the needles.

Then you start the pattern:

Front needle, Knit slip off, Purl stay on, pull yarn through:

Back needle, Purl slip off, Knit stay on, pull yarn through:

So it is Knit Slip off Purl, Purl Slip off Knit.
Knit Slip off Purl, Purl Slip off Knit.
Knit Slip off Purl, Purl Slip off Knit.
175 times.
EEEK!

But when you finish, it is a lovely seam, pretty much invisible.

Life

All is pretty quiet this week at my brother's house.  The exciting news for us is happening in New York State at Cooperstown.  My nephew, Nino's, baseball team is there this week for a 12 year old tournament.  It is both a happy and sad experience to watch my brother through all of this.

Four years ago, Mark was in Cooperstown at the tournament as the coach of his oldest son, Mo's, team.  Since he had also been Nino's coach all of these years, he was fully expecting to join Nino when Nino was old enough for this once in a lifetime experience.  Well, the ALS has put an end to Mark's attending the tournament in person, but through many texts, and phone calls from the other coaches, and of course Nino, and live streaming of one of Nino's games, we are doing our best to be with the team in New York.

Nino has hit 2 homeruns so far, and his team is 5-0 with one more game to play in the Round Robin Tournament, before the big tournament begins.  Go Nino!

Stay safe and well.
Yours,
f1bercat
Shaping the planet with a reversible cowl.

Bad Blogger

Hi there,

I'm sorry I have been such a bad blogger lately.  The truth is, I am down in Southern California helping out at my brother's house for possibly the whole month of August.  We started with a great week of most of the cousins getting together for a "staycation,"  that is a vacation where you stay at home.  My 3 youngest kids, Moogie, Himes, and Pookie, are with me.  For us it is not a staycation as we traveled down, but for the cousins who live in So. Cal., this is very different from what they are used to.

The sad truth is that my  brother was diagnosed with ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease last year, and he needed some help this month as his wife is in another state for military training.  They have 3 kids, and well, I didn't want my brother to be home without an adult at night as he is basically a quadriplegic now.  He is in great spirits, but has crummy internet (perhaps he has other things on his mind...), so getting on to post is a pain.

As I will likely be here a while, I need to figure out how to post, especially photos which take forever to download.

I have finished the 3 projects/entries I had planned for the Ravellenic Games,

Red Hot Lewk Sweater for WIP's Wrestling

Moon Squares for Modular Relay

Yoga Socks of Glory for Sock Put

and am working sporadically on the 4th, a reversible cowl.

I am not sure if I will finish it, as I am pretty busy right now.  But things should slow down next week, and I hope to get in more knitting.

Honestly, if you knew how long it took to put those photos on this page... well, it is very slow.

Anyway, I still plan to blog regularly while I am down here.  I hope to find a knitting group to crash.  And I really miss my Eastside Stitchers!  (as well as my darling husband, the Doc).

However, I did get to see my nephew, Nino, hit 2 homeruns last Sunday.

 So, internet aside, I am having a wonderful time with my brother's kids.  And it is great to get to spend time with my brother, and help him this way.

Stay safe and well.

Yours,
f1bercat
shaping the planet with 3. count them 3! Medals of glory from the 2012 Ravellenic Games.