This is who I am

and I’m not just talking about it being almost a full month since I’ve blogged.  This month has been full from a great many areas!

I bought the border, binding, and backing fabric for Son’s Falling Charms quilt.  We were busy in the shop that day so I didn’t get a chance to take a picture.  Since Son’s quilt is predominantly black, including the black batik I bought for the backing, I’m going to use black batting, and that needs to be ordered (waiting for Shop Hop to be over). I’m going to use a separate post to add in/subtract out the fabric I’ve added (ahem) since my last Sunday Stash Report.

I also bought the batting I needed for Caramel Corn.  I think I’m going to love using it.  It’s specially made for tablemats, and runners, meaning it’s narrow, and is very thin.

Prior to my trip Whittle’s Fabrics put their Mourning Grays on sale for $5.00 a yard so I bought several 1/2-yard cuts.  They arrived the day before I left and with everything that’s been going on with me this month, I just opened the package this morning.

1/2yd Mourning Grays & Purples

Then it was off to California to stay with my friend Darla, and get to visit with my friend Melissa.  I left early Thursday morning (9/5) and got there around 3 p.m.  Melissa was able to meet us for dinner that night and it was so good to get some quality hugs from those two!

I had scheduled my trip to fall during the first weekend of the month so I could attend Stitchy Saturday at the needlework shop.  For reasons I can’t remember it was canceled for September and October, so I mentioned to Darla, prior to my arrival, that I wanted to find a quilt shop to visit instead to purchase some fabric for my upcoming Civil War Club quilt.  I brought my The Blue and The Gray book (which I proceeded to leave behind on my bed!  LOL)

I had no idea that Darla and her mom  were quilters.  I had the cutest quilt on my bed.  Darla mapped out a 7-shop Shop Hop for us so Friday morning we got up, went out for a great breakfast and headed out to burn the town down.  A few shops into our Hop I found one that had a copy of my left-behind book and was pleased to see that for once my memory had hung in there long enough for me to get what I needed 😉

One of the shops had closed down (so sad), and one of the shops was a dye-your-own-fabric business (they let us come in and walk around and it was fascinating in a warehouse sort of way), but the other 5 didn’t let me down.  One in particular has several older Jo Morton fabrics and I half-filled a new frequent shopper punch card for Darla with my purchase.  LOL

Here are some snaps:

Most of the shirtings, the browns, and the reds, will be going into my Civil War Club quilt.  The rest is going into my stash 😉

I was so worried prior to my trip that I wouldn’t get to visit with Melissa since she’s on the backside of finishing up her college courses for graduation, and her job has been a little crazy.  She had some down-time Saturday morning so met us for breakfast at IHOP.  I had never been there, and I love breakfast food for any meal of the day.  I ended up ordering a chicken fried steak breakfast since it was getting close to lunch time and figured I would just not be eating again until dinner.  There was so much food and no way was I able to eat it all.  It was very good, though, and I know I ate more than I should have, as witnessed by my WW point tracking!  LOL

Darla had a storage facility that we planned a trip to so she could pick up her Hannah Beeby sampler.  One of our stops the day before was to a fairly new needlework shop and they were having a framing sale so we were hoping to get Hannah over there.  Not long after we left IHOP (I was driving) I began to have a really sharp pain under my left breast.  I can be a drama queen, but I have to tell you I had never hurt this bad, this fast, in my life.  Bam, it was there.  It was hard to breathe, and sweat was running down my face, from the pain.  I ended up sitting in the car while she went into her storage and looked for the sampler (which she couldn’t find!).  I felt if I could just sit and relax for a bit it would go away so asked Melissa if we could follow her to her house  and hang out for a little while and visit before she had to hit the books again.  During the drive to her house, just like that, the pain disappeared!  I even called her and asked where the nearest Starbucks was and she said she knew I must be feeling better if I wanted Starbucks.  😆

At the end of our visit, Melissa brought out fabric, that she had purchased to take her first quilt class, and gave it to me.  Such a beautiful surprise!  I remember when she signed up for it several years ago, but either illness or something from work, kept her from taking it.

Backing, border, and binding

FQs for blocks (pattern is Yellow Brick Road)

Sunday it bothered me again off and on, but nothing major, more just a reminder that it had happened.  Monday morning, we got up and headed to Downtown Disney for chicory (for me) and beignets for breakfast and I left from there to head to Son’s house.

The first time I saw the ocean as I was driving down the coast I started crying and immediately thought to myself that I had made a huge mistake in moving to Arizona.  I love the ocean.  If we ever win the lottery we’ll be buying a cottage there.

It was so good to see Son and get a squeeze hug from him.  He looks so good and I can tell he’s been doing very well.  We headed downtown to eat on the beach (fish and chips) and it was nice to sit and talk with him and walk along the pier and watch the surfers and sea gulls, and of course the people!  We decided to just head back to his house and visit (we had originally planned to go to the movies) and I encouraged him to do his laundry since I knew Monday was his only day off.  It was fun just sitting there and listening to everything that’s been going on with him and his future plans.

After his roommate got home from work Son decided he was taking us out to dinner at a place his friends had been raving about one of the appetizers.  We headed over to my hotel to get me checked in, the boys brought my suitcase up, and we hung out there for a few minutes to make sure the A/C was going to work properly.   I have eaten at the steak house a few times and knew the rest of the food was good, too, so I had only a couple of bites of the appetizer (which really was delicious) and had a petite prime rib, baked potato and salad for dinner.  Not a ton of food plus I didn’t eat everything on my plate, but about 1/2 an hour after we were back at his house I started to feel ill again.  This time it was a gradual build up.  I was leaving really early the next morning so left Son’s around 8:30 and immediately went to bed.  My pain work me up a couple of times, but again never as severe as it was the first time, and it was gone the next morning.

Tuesday morning I got up at 5:30, showered, checked out of my room, hit the local Starbucks I used to go to all the time, topped off my car with gas, sent Son a text, called Mister and hit the road.  It was way too early for breakfast and I didn’t feel hungry at all.  I’ve traveled this route enough times to know where the rest stops and safe to stop places are, plus it gives me a good routine to stretch my legs.  I was home before 2 p.m and even beat Mister home from his classes.

I was tired when I got up Wednesday morning so skipped Bag Ladies, but had to go to a pre-Shop Hop meeting at work that evening to learn how to do our demonstration.  Thursday I worked, Saturday we had dinner out with Annette and family.  Prior to that I had been texting her about my stomach issues and she suggested I try something like Pepcid AC.  I thought it was working but after a couple of days it stopped and I continued to have flair ups, but only after evening meal. Sunday I went to Sampler Sunday at Attic.

Tuesday the 17th I worked and managed to get the borders cut for Son’s quilt (I need to buy a wider ruler!) and fabric bought for future-DILs quilt

24FQ of various Bonnie & Camille fabrics

Thursday (19th) as I was leaving for work I noticed water on the garage floor and the driveway.  I called Mister, who had left an hour prior to that and he hadn’t noticed anything.  Some time during that hour the hot water heater had decided to commit suicide.  Mister ended up coming home and calling a repair person who was able to meet him after his other class so he only had to miss one.  I stressed off and on all afternoon about what was going on but because he was in class (and I didn’t know this) I couldn’t reach him.  We were busy getting the shop ready for Friday’s Shop Hop opening.  I had a regular lunch and had a few slices of apple and almost immediately the pain started building. I thought maybe it was heartburn because of the stress of home and work, but I decided I might want to go to the doctor.  It proceeded to get worse as the day went on, but I stayed an hour after closing to help out, then headed home.  The Minick & Simpson MidWinter Reds pre-cuts came in the day before so I got to bring home a FQ Bundle that I had requested.  It’s going to be turned into a scrappy Irish Chain for me using a pattern in Bonnie Hunter’s Adventures With Leaders and Enders book.

Minick & Simpson Midwinter Reds FQ Bundle

That night we had dinner around 6:30 and I went to bed at 8:30 and as the night progressed it got so bad that I was panting trying to breathe and pacing every 30 minutes to an hour trying to get it to stop plus had thrown up.  When Mister got up to feed the dogs Friday morning at 6 I asked him to come back upstairs while I showered and then asked him to take me to the ER.

We have a small 35-private room hospital by us and because it’s so small it didn’t take very long to have a nurse check me in and a doctor see me.  She immediately put me on oxygen and started a drip of morphine for the pain.  After asking a few questions about prior surgeries, how long I’d been in pain, etc., she said “If we send you home today…” and I immediately accepted that it was something serious.  Over the course of the morning and into early afternoon she was in and out of my room encouraging me to have as much pain relief as I needed and talking to me about her various suspicions.  I had originally gone back by myself but sometime during all that she brought Mister back so I sort of turned off my brain at that point and she began to talk mostly to Mister about what was going on.  Even with the morphine they were pumping into me I still had pain, but I had stopped panting to breathe.  She sent me down for a CT Scan, that confirmed I had a very infected gallbladder (which got me a huge dose of penicillin in my drip) that was 3x the size it should have been and inside was a golf-ball sized stone.  She consulted with the surgeon who had an ultrasound made (which I got to see) and the next thing I knew I was being wheeled down the hall to be prepped for surgery.

With the exception of the surgeon – who needs to practice on his bedside manners – every single person in that hospital treated me like a princess from the time I got there to the time I left.  I spent a good long time talking to Jeremy the anesthesiologist guy about my allergies and how I can go about being tested for confirmation.  At one point I had 3 people pulling and tugging on me and said “Stop!” and they did.  I explained to them that they were all coming at me at once and sort of freaking me out.  They apologized and took turns explaining what they were doing/needed to do to get me into surgery and it helped tremendously.  I was so thankful that they listened to me since I felt like I was going into a panic attack.  After surgery not a single person came in to see me that didn’t stay for a bit and chat, including the sweet lady who delivered my breakfast the next morning because she wanted to be sure that I liked what I ordered, and Hugo who cleaned my room from top to bottom.  The two nurses I had (one male, one female) were extremely good and their support staff great as well.

So it’s been a week.  Yesterday I ventured out to sit in the car while Mister dropped off something at the PO, sat in Staples and waited to turn 3 quilt books in to have them spiral bound, went to the shop to get my Shop Hop Passport stamped 😉 and visit with my coworkers (it was so nice to see their faces), and then out to lunch.  I needed a 2-hour nap when I got home but it was fantastic to be out of the house and get to talk to people again.  After a couple of really rough days I’m feeling so much better and started cutting my pain meds back to 1/2 dose yesterday.  Other than a quick sit yesterday this is the first day I’ve been back in my craft room and it feels nice to play with the fabric.

My nails look like crap from all the tape that’s been on them. I discovered shaving my legs is a contortion sport – yeah, I should have waited, since I ended up sitting on the side of the tub for 15 minutes afterward trying to get my legs to stop shaking so I could stand. I’m covered in bruises from the 4 different IVs and a blood draw, I have 2 2-3″ incisions, and 2 punctures from the laparoscopic part of the surgery and 1 puncture from the drain I had to have because of all the infection (which fortunately they removed before I left the hospital).  I am a hot mess, but I can finally hold a thought longer than a second and I’m not shaking all the time.  I’m just about over the what-ifs, since the surgeon told Mister after surgery that it was very infected and I’m lucky it didn’t burst during my trip, or worse, on the 6-hr drive back by myself through the desert.

The upside.  It’s gone and I don’t have to worry about it bothering me again.  I left the hospital on a low-fat diet,  and am down 8+ pounds from Monday (I was up 4#s from all the IV drips, etc. on Monday).  LOL  Mister has been the best male nurse, woke me up when I needed to take my meds, cooked, went to the grocery store, kept up with the laundry for the most part and fussed at me for trying to do too much too soon.  Jasper has been my other good male nurse plastering himself to my side in bed at night and not moving once. Harley has thought I smelt funny though and not had much to do with me.  The hard part of that is I can’t pick up anything heavier than 10 pounds which means I haven’t been able to pick them up and hold them and of course it hurts for them to sit in my lap anyway.  Plus it was near impossible to get up and down from the couch until a couple of days ago.  I’ve watched more TV that I can’t remember over the past week, but hopefully that’s over.  I’m supposed to be able to start driving again on Monday and then the next Tuesday is my follow-up surgeon appointment and hopefully he’ll be telling me I can go back to work.

I’m ready to sew again!  Especially after fondling my fabrics this morning for their photo shoots.  Oh and I may have bought 3 new quilt books but I’ll save them to share another day.

My nurse is calling and it’s time for lunch and my medicine 😉