Scar

Had my stitches removed this morning and it ain't pretty. There is still some swelling from the surgery.
Most of the pain has abated, but the dizziness has not lessened since the surgery. If I am still dizzy by Monday, I may have to go to physical therapy to help retrain my eyes and ears to work together in maintaining my balance. In the meantime, I am just taking it easy and not putting myself in situations where I could fall or be in an accident (meaning just stay home and no driving or operating heavy machinery).

No, I haven't been sitting around eating bon-bons and watching the soaps. The antibiotics I am on makes everything taste sooo off, so my appetite hasn't been all that great. And, I detest soaps (how banal can they get?!?). I did manage to knit a pair of socks for a friend, even though it was quite an adventure to get the needles through the correct loops when the room is spinning. I finished my report on Aran and Fair Isle Knitting Traditions, and am now doing research for my fiber report. I even wrote and drew down some ideas for my hat and sweater submissions to TKGA. Yea, I am one of those people who can't sit around and do nothing, and being engaged takes my mind off the discomfort on the right side of my head.

This is it for now. Will keep you posted.

The Morning after Surgery

I just had my CI surgery yesterday afternoon, in which they attached an electrode array to my auditory nerve on the right side of my head, along with inserting an internal processor under the skin. I am in a lot of pain right now, and popping pain-pills like candy. The doctor says surgery went very smoothly. Me, I just feel like I earned a KBM (kicked by mule) medal.
Despite my frightful looks, like I came out of a war zone, this surgery is very routine and commonly done on small children with profound deafness. That may be so, but to be honest I wouldn't allow my children (if I had any) to get implanted considering the pain involved. And if they insisted, I would just say, "Wait until you are 18 when you can make that descision and deal with the consequences as an adult". Hopefully when they activate the implant a month from now, I will forget all this in the excitement.

Oh yea, the night before my surgery I did have a nightmare. I dreamt that Kevin O'Conner, along with the rest of "This Old House" crew were in the OR doing the surgery. I almost woke up screaming when Tom Silva was just about to have a go on my head with a power drill. Never went back to sleep after that, I just spend the rest of the morning calming my frazzled nerves with knitting. Now, don't get me wrong ~ I love "This Old House" and I think Kevin O'Conner is a dreamboat, but my absolute wet dream would be to have him and the rest of the gang building me a brand new kitchen with all the whistles and bells.

This is just to let you all know that I am still alive and kicking.

Hair Chopped!

The surgery to be implanted with a cochlear device is about a week away. So I got down to brass tacks and paid a visit to my friend's salon to have my chair chopped. With the side of my head swollen and extremely tender for a month post-op, taking care of all that hair seems like a painful chore. I figered it would be easier to just chop it and start over. My friend, Raven, separated the hair into several strands and cut them off so that they may be donated to Locks of Love. I went from this............

to this!

It is a huge change. For a week afterwards, people didn't even recognize me. Even had comments that I look a decade younger without my hair. It took some getting used to.

With only a week to go before my surgery, I've been scrambling to get as much done as I can on my Level III TKGA Masterknitter assignments. All 18 swatches have been knitted, blocked and labled. I finished all the questions, the knitting patterns for my swatches and two book reviews. I still have two magazine reviews to write up, a fiber report, and a report on traditional knitting styles. Really, I'd like to get as much of the written stuff out of the way before I go under the knife. I will probably only be able to do one magazine review since I only subsribe to one knitting magazine (Cast On). Yesterday I had to subscribe to another knitting magazine, Wool Gathering, so that I have something to write about. Not sure when my first magazine of my new subsription will arrive, but most likely after my surgery. The traditional knitting paper is iffy since it will be long. I wrote up about 30 pages of notes during my research, so will have to do some weeding and organizing before writing. The fiber report I haven't even started on! I'll tell you this, if you don't like to write then you may want to do something other than getting your Masterknitter certification. I think I've already written materials enough for two books since starting on this almost a year ago. I do enjoy writing, don't get me wrong, but it is hard getting the writting in when I got so much going on. I just keep plugging whenever I have a bit of free time.

Once the writting is out of the way, then I have to design a hat and sweater, one in Fair Isle and the other Aran. I am planning on designing the hat in Fair Isle, since it is a smaller project and Fair Isle is not my strong knitting talent. I have a pretty good idea what I want to do with the Aran sweater, and that I will keep a secret until the garment is done. I really don't want to give anything away, but let's say that I will be tipping my hat to the past while adding my own signiture "Rowan" flair.

That's all in a nutshell. Think warm thoughts, and keep on knitting through all challenges.