Over, Under, Sideways, Down

Musical quote!  Yes, the title comes from the title of a song by the Yardbirds, that legendary group that launched three of Rock’s most legendary guitarists, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, and Eric Clapton.

Pretty perfect title for what my life has been like these past three weeks.  My mom finally got fed up with the VA jacking me around about my abdominal hernia surgery (their final word was if you want us to pay for it, you get it done in our hospital that’s 125 miles away in another city, and, since your 93 year old mom doesn’t drive on the highway, you have to ride there and back three hours each way on our rattle trap bus with no shocks to and from the local clinic where your mom can drop you off and pick you up).  She told me to call our friend who works for a local cancer center and get a recommendation for a surgeon, whom I saw 29 August.  I saw my cardiologist for surgical clearance last Thursday.   I’m scheduled for hernia surgery the 12th (Wednesday), my mom’s going to pay for whatever Medicare doesn’t pay for the surgeon, and whatever Medicare doesn’t pay for everything else comes out of my grocery budget for the next 15 years or so. . . Thank you for your service.

As for my knee, I FINALLY got the MRI results and I have a torn medial meniscus, a Baker’s cyst and bone spurs.  Wonder why my knee hurts?  I’m having better luck with that.  My local treatment requisition went through BEFORE they hired a new orthopod at the VA hospital, so I get to have the consult with a local orthopod. Hopefully, that will mean that he/she will do the surgery that I obviously need, and that it will be done here also.   The irony of it is that I could have driven back from that surgery, since it’s my left knee and my car has an automatic transmission . . . . Not so after abdominal surgery. . .

In the knitting news . . . .  My knitting motto is, if you don’t feel it, frog it.  I wasn’t feeling this shawl, my modified cable edged shawl pattern, so I frogged it.  The whole thing.   I tried starting the Hulda Scarflet with that yarn, intending to let it grow into a shawl, but I wasn’t feeling that either.  I think I’m going to be making a new pattern for a point-up triangular shawl with a knit as you go edging, but not til after Wednesday.  Too much to do between now and then, like washing a load of clothes and a load of bed linens so I’ll have a nice clean bed when I come home from surgery.  Monday, I’ve got to go check in for surgery, get my blood work done, find out where “there” is and when I need to be there Wednesday, etc.

In the meantime, I think I’ll use the writing of that new pattern as a carrot to dangle in front of myself to get me to finish hats and their matching cowls that I need to finish — 5 hats, 4 cowls, in fact, — that I need to get a move on because, as I’ve already noted, winter cometh, ya’ll.

Stay tuned.  Life is about to get interesting again.  I’ve been eating iron-rich foods here lately, because my cardiologist won’t let me stop taking clopidogrel for the surgery (because of my stents).  However, the surgeon did agree that he would still do the surgery even if I couldn’t stop the clopidogrel (it only ups the surgical risk by 2%).  He’ll just have to be extra meticulous with his hemostasis . . . .

That’s all I’ve got for now.  I’ll leave you with my earworm for the past month or so . . .