Life's a Stitch

I consider my family life as generally one of joy, but hard work. After this year, however, I realize how much weirdness there is especially with health flukes. Yesterday Chuck woke up with a sore knee. By the end of the workday he was in excruciating pain. I took one look at this huge purple knee, thinking flesh eating disease, and told him emphatically that he needed to see a doctor. Amazingly he agreed and visited a local clinic. The dr there advised him to get to the hospital immediately. On the way to the ER he developed a very high fever and uncontrollable shakes. After a four hour socialized mediciney wait he saw another dr who put him on IV antibiotics and enough morphine to keep him happy, sort of. Today he had arthroscopic surgery to clean out the infection and was told it was a good thing he sought timely treatment as there could have been more significant bone damage had he waited. It’s something called septic arthritis. OY! I did get significant knitting done; there’s a positive aspect to everything. The other positive thing is that his hospital roommate, a nice older gentleman having his second knee replacement, was over from a small community a ferry ride away and we arranged for his wife to stay at our house rather than commute while he is in the hospital. She and I shared a bottle of wine tonight and were amazed at how much we had in common; other than husbands hospitalized for their respective knees.

My new project is the shawl for a wonderful woman who was Elina’s substitute mom while away at college. This woman was Elina’s former boyfriend’s aunt, who employed her throughout her college years, had her over on holidays and provided a motherly shoulder to cry on when needed. I’m knitting thoughts of thanks into this project, a triangular garter stitch shawl made from Lang Tonga held together with a solid colour Estelle Watercolour, both in champagne tones.