Yesterday was the last day of summer. Wow, how did that happen? I woke up, headed out to the garden to drink my latte, and there is was. The first changed leaf on the maple tree. It’s so hot outside I can hardly believe it, but the cooler weather of fall is on the way. Really, eventually it will get here.
There it is! Fall’s first leaf.
Time to think about warmer clothes and shawls. Alexand has been driving me nuts with her posts about her Drachenfels (by Melanie Berg) knitting journey. It is just beautiful. Check out her post about knitting on the go here. There is just no way around it… I am suffering from Drachenfels envy in the worst way. Fall is here. I have finished all my other knitting projects. No more excuses. Time to get started on my own Drachenfels effort.
One of the best things about Ravelry is that you can poke around and check out the projects other knitters have made of any particular pattern. I found a project (by fineknits, one of the test knitters), that was done in three colors and a highlight color. Perfect!
Here are my yarns. I will knit the body of the shawl using the two greys with the plum as the contrast color in the middle. The black will be used as a highlight color in the knitting and for the bindoff. All of these are Anzula Squishy and the cashmere in the yarn make them feel great. Here are the project notes at Ravelry.
Saturday night I visited one of my sons and cast on while watching him play Destiny after dinner. It was kind of fun watching him destroy alien creatures using a sword of fire (it’s a Destiny thing…) while I started on a shawl called Drachenfels. There were even some creatures in the game that were kind of dragon-like. It’s a sign!
Here’s how far I had gotten by Monday night. The yarn that I am using is a lighter weight than called for in the pattern so I am using smaller needles (size 4 instead of size 6). I’m thinking that I can extend the pattern if I need to enlarge the shawl.and here is the close-up of the scale stripe pattern. This is the darker of the two grey yarns. I’m saving the lighter one for later on in the shawl where there will be more plum. The yarn is extremely soft and, well, squishy. (See what I did there?) This shawl should be a joy to wear.
Did you see the cat hair in the middle of the picture? No matter how careful I am everything that I knit has CAT HAIR ON IT!!!
Yellow Boy: your point would be?
OK, I’m over the little cat-hair related rant. The shawl is starting out great and I’m really excited to finally be knitting it. The weather is still nice even though the leaves are changing so I plan on doing as much outdoor knitting as I can.
Last night I knitted like crazy and got my Reyna shawl (by Noora Laivola) finished. I wet blocked it overnight (hoping that sleeping kitties won’t notice it…) and this morning I took it outside to the garden swing to finish it up while I was watering the lawn. Of course my cat MacKenzie couldn’t resist helping out.
Oops! I didn’t realize he was hanging out under the swing… At least he’s predictable in that he never missed an opportunity to chomp!Here it is rescued from the cat. Isn’t it a fun mix of garter stitch and mesh? Here are my project notes on Ravelry.
This shawl was a fast and easy project, but I learned a lot of new things while working on it and it led to some new insights. After all, while I love to knit, I really am more driven to play with new yarns, patterns and ideas more than I need a new shawl (or pair of socks for that matter). Every new project is an opportunity to learn something new!
I first selected this pattern because I had a skein of wickedly soft and colorful yarn in my stash. I knew that the colors would go with everything in my wardrobe, but there were so many of them in the skein that I needed a way to show them off without nasty pooling or something that looked muddy.
This is Zen Yarn Garden’s Serenity 20 in the colorway Confetti. See what I mean about the colors? I knew that garter stitch plays well with multicolored yarn, and I was hoping that the mesh would break the colors up a little more and help each one shine. Mission accomplished! The yarn looks really different in the two sections of the shawl and the colors each stand out.
There are YO stitches to each side of the center stitch in the garter section. Hard to see aren’t they? That’s because they are hidden by knitting in the back loop of the YO on the wrong side row. Who knew? By hiding the YO stitches the garter stripe stands out better between the mesh segments.
I also noticed a difference in the mesh. Normally K2tog stitches slant to the right. In the mesh section of the shawl the K2tog creates a slant that goes to the left. Check it out!
See the left slant? This was knit by [yo, K2tog] stitches that repeated every other row (all stitches purled on the wrong side).The right slanting mesh was created by the opposite type of decrease stitch: [yo, ssk] repeated across the row. Once again the stitches on the wrong side were purled. The designer balanced the direction of the mesh slant around the center stitch of the shawl. Cool! As I was knitting along I realized that my ball of yarn was starting the shrink a little faster than I wanted it to. Yikes! How can I be sure to use as much as possible while leaving enough for the last three garter rows and then the BO? Well, this is when a yarn warrior really digs in and takes control.
Look at what Noora gave us in the pattern! Wow, isn’t this a nice idea. In fact, it made me think that all patterns should be organized as a table with the rows, stitch count, the pattern, weight of the yarn and a place to make tally marks. I mean, why does the entire thing have to be written out? See how I started tracking how much my ball of yarn weighed every 4 rows? I decided to switch to the last 4 rows as soon as I had only 8 grams left. (8 rows of the mesh section were skipped)This is how many grams of yarn I had left over after binding off.
See, it isn’t about the final object (OK, it is a little). It’s about being a YARN WARRIOR!! Capture the learning and master the craft. Be at one with the cashmere and bond with your fellow knitters.
I love this time of the year. It is cool overnight and then heats right up during the day. The leaves of the trees are just starting to turn and there are birds flocking in their branches. Something is happening with the light: it is bright, but coming in at a lower angle that is the first hint of the southern winter sun to come. Mostly my garden is done blooming and this is when I decide which plants I want to save and bring inside for the winter.
One thing is for sure. The indoor plants this year will be pink bloomers. I did plant some other colors. I was rocking the orange and yellow in June, but those guys have quit for the year. There was a lot of lavender and purple for awhile, but now there is mostly pink.
I have four pots of flowers blooming on my deck by the lounger. The one that is doing the best is that pink daisy. Hmm… I’ve never kept a plant like this inside over the winter. I wonder how it will do?This lantana is actually three years old. It hangs out with the orchids by a window under a grow light all winter. The leaves drop when it goes back outside in the spring, but it always recovers. It sure is blooming now, so it’s coming back inside for another winter. Look how cheerful it is! Perfect for the gloomy days to come.I also have four of these pink lantana plants in pots in my front yard. I’m torn about trying to save all of them. It doesn’t make sense to spend a ton of money for grow lights, but they sure are nice plants… I really miss the greenhouse that I used to have connected to my classroom in situations like this.This geranium is coming to live in my bedroom over the winter for sure. The plant is actually 5 years old and had grown leggy and over 3 feet tall while living inside. I took it back out this year, laid the long branches across the table and let nature take its course. The old leaves all bleached and died in the sun while the plant sprouted lots of new leaves down low on the stems; I cut all the long upper stems off and this is what was left. It started blooming late last month and really looks healthy now.Out of curiosity I dipped sections of the cut-back stems in rooting hormone to see if I could start some cuttings. It worked!! Gosh, I really need that greenhouse again. I guess I’ll check the price of grow lights that I can add to the shelves in the craft room. These plants will look great along the front walk next spring.Even the pink roses are outdoing themselves. My orange roses haven’t a bloom anywhere on them. These Home Run roses, however…
I also have a pot of tea roses that will move indoors. Guess what color they are? Everything that is coming inside is pink. Not exactly the color that I had planned for my winter-time flowers, but these are the ones that will be making the big move. It is just too hard to let the garden go over the winter; I always cling to as much as I can for those months of snow shoveling and gloomy afternoons.
Wait what am I talking about? Winter is the months of spinning yarn, knitting like crazy and baking yummy breads and indoor blooms. Instead of knitting outside in my garden I will be working among my garden plants inside.
Gosh, I really like this time of year. Maybe I can get a deal on the grow lights. 🙂
I am knitting and crafting like crazy. Actually I’m enjoying the balmy weather of summer’s end and I’m a little nuts because I just can’t seem to get everything done. The flowers on my deck are at their best. The crickets are chirping. The temperature outside is just about perfect and I am spending my time clicking knitting needles and feeling a little less than my normal cheerful self (more about that below). Still I am making progress and the setting is just about perfect. This afternoon I decided to set up the laptop on my backyard deck and let you all know what I’ve been up to. Here it is.
My sister’s birthday was the 5th of September. I bought her a card a couple of weeks ago and I sat down and got these bowls done in plenty of time to send to her. Here the are!
A set of fabric bowls. Bet she never saw this coming! She does sew a lot and I thought that she might find these useful in her crafting area or maybe on her desk. I found the pattern online at Quilter in Motion.I just love the fabric! This is a Laurel Burch pattern that I found last year.
I still haven’t mailed them off to my sister. They are now days overdue but I do have an excuse (OK, it’s pathetic, but still… It’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!). My rheumatologist started me on a new medication for my systemic sclerosis (scleroderma) called CellCept, and it just doesn’t like me. Every part of my digestive system hurts!! Boo! Today I got up and decided that I am done with heartburn (not to mention middle of the night barfing) and e-mailed my doc to ask for something else from the land of pharmacological wonders. This morning I didn’t take my pill and this afternoon I plan to make the trip to the post office. Hang on sis! They really are coming…
Now the knitting makes sense, doesn’t it. No matter how upset my digestive system is I still manage to eat (yogurt is my friend) and knit. Lots of knitting has been going on. I dug in this last week and worked like crazy on the mitts that I am designing for Alta Vida Alpacas for Alpaca Farm Days which happens later on this month. They plan to sell kits of yarn with the pattern to visitors to the farm. I’ve been trying to make simple patterns that show off the yarn. Here’s what I’ve come up with:
This yarn is sportweight, 50% cotton (which gives it some slubs and texture), 25% wool and 25% alpaca (yum!). The yarn knits up great, feels light on your hands but is also soft, comfy and warm. I wanted them to look easy to knit (hello… trying to sell some kits here!!) but appealing. Please lay on the feedback people!
Like those colors? This is Colorado (AKA Broncos Country) and the football season starts this coming week. Yeah Broncos!! The thumb on the stripped mitt is a little different from the usual shape that I favor and I’m still thinking of knitting a stripped version with slower increases. The thumb on the solid mitts is more like what I like to knit and wear. It fits your hand with no pull across the hand and the ribbing on the top of the thumb is loose enough to allow you to wear the mitts over gloves. (Reynaud’s makes you think about things like that!) Be honest here: does that stripped thumb look goofy? Should I change it?
Beads! This is the same yarn in a version with some fun and glitz. The picot CO was new to me. Here’s the link to an online tutorial that does it the same way that I did. 🙂
So the knitting continues. I want to make the mate for the beaded mitt before the end of the week, and then will do a pair of stripped mitts with a more gradual thumb increase in blue and off-white. Next I have to write the patterns, but I’ve kept lots (and lots!) of notes while I knitted so I am feeling pretty positive about that next step.
Finally, I’m making some steady progress on the only knitting project that is just for me. Check out the Reyna shawl that is finally getting towards the end of it’s knitting journey.
I’m finally on the last section of mesh lace. I’m pretty nervous about the size of the ball of yarn; it’s clear that there isn’t enough to finish the shawl as the pattern is written. I’m weighing that ball fairly often so I can figure out when I need to stop knitting lace and switch over to the last garter rows and the BO. I’m giving myself about 7 grams to get the job done. Here’s a close-up of the pattern. I learned some new things as I knitted this shawl. The YO’s in the garter section are hidden by knitting in the back loops on the wrong side rows. Who knew that was a thing? I’m liking how it looks, however, Here are my project notes on Ravelry.
That’s the week. I’ve been reading a lot too, but I think that should wait for another post. And the flowers that I’ve got blooming on my deck are so fabulous they are crying for a post of their own…
It’s been a while since my last post. It has been really busy: more doctor appointments, a new drug (CellCept) to adjust to, and an infection that just refuses to die no matter how many antibiotics I swallow. I’m working hard at knitting up mitts and writing patterns for Alpaca Farm Days. The garden is suffering in the heat and cries to be watered. I’m way behind on my book reading. The cats are shedding in the heat and coating the house with hair. Then there was Yarn Along the Rockies…
What is Yarn Along the Rockies you ask?
Just the biggest event of the knitting calendar year in this part of the world! We are talking about a yarn tour with a tote bag, a passport, free goodies and patterns. A chance to meet new friends, crawl along with old ones, and visit unique yarn stores with unknown, hidden but possibly fabulous treasures. If ever there was a time to learn how to use the GPS function of your cell phone, this was it!
The event is held over 9 days and involves 23 yarn shops up and down the front range of Colorado. One shop is up in the mountains. There are people who manage to complete the tour in the first weekend by driving like maniacs and dashing in and out of stores without really looking at the goodies. Whatever. I am not one of those folk. I wanted to savor the tour, discover new yarns and patterns, make new friends, and locate some great stores. I split the tour into 4 different sections and drove a different section each day. Here’s how Yarn Along the Rockies works:
Every participant of the tour carries a passport with them. Each yarn store stamps the passport when you arrive in their shop. Most of the stores had a free pattern for a knitted project and several also gifted us with goodies like stamps, stitch markers, and coupons. At the end of the tour the passport is left with the last store to enter it into the drawing for the five grand prizes. (Baskets with hundreds of dollars of yarns and notions!!)Almost every person on the crawl had one of these canvas tote bags. Each shop gave us a button to put on the bag to record our progress. Cool! A lot of us bought things and stuffed them into the bags while we worked our way along the tour. Even more cool!!You also received stitch markers at each 6th shop. The green marker was for completing the tour. If all this wasn’t enough incentive to lure knitters onto the tour there were also drawings for gift baskets stuffed with yarn, patterns and goodies at each individual shop.
You can see how I got pulled into this. This isn’t a yarn crawl, it’s an adventure!! I tried to make a shopping plan for myself; I took patterns for future projects with me and decided on a shopping budget. Whatever. Sometimes it is best to just surrender to the experience. Here is what I ended up with.
I found this Serenity by Zen Yarn Garden at Mew Mew’s Yarn Shop. This is DK weight cashmere/merino yarn that is just begging to become winter fingerless mitts. Can’t you just feel the cashmere through the computer screen? This yarn feels wonderful!! I feel better about winter already. 🙂I could not walk out of Fancy Tiger Crafts without some of this Shelter by Brooklyn Tweed. I’m going to knit a winter sweater for myself that will be warm and wonderfully comfy. I decided on the Daelyn Pullover for my pattern.The cute pattern for Tea Time MItts was a free one at Needleworks by Holly Berry if you bought the silk/wool blend yarn. Of course I bought it!My last stop on the tour was Shuttles, Spindles and Skeins in Boulder, Colorado where I found a big display of MJ Yarns. The display was enough to stop me in my tracks. This stuff is Opulent Fingering yarn. Cashmere, check! Nylon, check! Happy feet this winter, check! This put me over my budget, but I’m talking about my (poor, blue colored, Raynaud’s suffering) feet here, people! Socks happen!!
So that was the tour. 9 days. 23 shops. 2 tanks of gas and a shopping budget blown to bits.
What more could any shopping knitter hope for? Oh yeah. The drawing for the grand prize is tomorrow. What will I do with all that yarn if I win?
Hey everyone. I’ll have a big giveaway!! Keep your fingers crossed for me. 🙂
Cool weather with thunderstorms arrived this week and I headed out to the back yard to finish up the garden swing. I had crocheted the largest part of the seat a couple of weeks ago and gotten it sewn onto the frame of the swing; a good start but still not usable. What I needed to do now was to remove the seat from the rest of the chair so that I could crochet side panels to attach the seat onto the sides of the frame. I attacked the bolts with my handy little tool kit and got the part holding the seat off and onto the lawn where I could work on it in the shade.
As soon as I got that seat off the rest of the chair frame Mr. Helpful moved right in.The help just kept on coming as I crocheted side panels to attached the seat to the sides of the frame. I used my foot to put tension on the twine while I worked which put the working materials too close to MacKenzie the chomper.
Even with all the help and a break for a thunderstorm I got the side panels crocheted and sewn onto the frame after a couple of mornings. Today after lunch I reattached the seat to the swinging frame and then I was back in lawn chair business.
Here’s the completed seat with the sides attached to the frame. A little on the ugly side, but functional.Yeah! The swing is done and the cushions are back on it; I pulled the ties for each cushion through the crocheted mesh and then knotted them in the back. My outdoor knitting spot has been restored.
I’m still not completely happy with the tension on the seat of the swing so I’m going to use it for a couple of days and then will take in a tuck or two on the seat fabric to make it more taunt. Still, things are looking up; I am back outside for my morning latte. Happy, happy day!
August! This is my favorite part of summer. The flowers are blooming like crazy, the monsoon is cranking moisture up to Colorado for afternoon showers, and the hummingbirds and butterflies are cruising through the backyard every morning. The cats and I have been outside too for knitting and bug chasing.
I finished my August socks while sitting out in the garden this morning. Since the cats have been hanging out with me the entire time I was knitting these socks I thought MacKenzie might enjoy posing with them.
MacKenzie is my good boy. Usually if I just slowly ease my knitted items into his personal space he’s OK with things. Today that back foot came right up…He flashed his “this is completely unauthorized and you are now in trouble” look,and there was a chomp. Luckily he wasn’t very serious in his protest and I was able to extract the socks (and my foot) without any damage. Don’t you just love cats? It would have been nice if he had given a little warning noise first, but no, he had to go right to the claws and teeth!
OK. Message received. Having been denied assistance by the cat most likely to cooperate I decided to pose the socks on one of the garden tables. (I know; very boring but no teeth!!) Look at how great the Seafoam Stitch shows off the yarn!!
I decided to stop the seafoam pattern at the top of the foot because I usually wear socks inside of lace-up shoes or boots during the winter. I lightly steamed the seafoam portion of the sock with my steam iron to set the stitches which really calmed the knitting down.The stockinette fits my fat little foot better too. I’m really happy with the way these came out.
These socks are the Galvez Socks by Debbie Haymark. The pattern is in my copy of Lace One-Skein Wonders edited by Judith Durant. Here are the project notes on Ravelry.
Gosh, I finished those fast. There’s lots of August left before I need to think about socks again. I promised a friend to help out during Alpaca Farm Days next month. I feel an urge to knit lots of little fingerless mitts (out of alpaca of course!!) to show off (and sell!) to visitors to the farm… 🙂
I am on drug holiday from methotrexate (the drug that was given to me to treat my systemic sclerosis) right now and I feel great. I have energy, my joints and muscles are happy, and there isn’t even a hint of dizziness. OK, my ribs are still sore and I have to be careful moving around, but still… Wow! It’s been more than a year since I’ve felt this good. It is now obvious that, even though there were side effects and some of them forced me to quit methotrexate, it was working. My goodness it made a difference. I am gardening, cleaning house, cooking up a storm, and rocking the knitting. Happy, happy, happy.
In the middle of upbeat gardening yesterday I remember that it is also August. Time to cast on the New Year Resolution socks for the month. I dug through the sock books again, found a happy looking pattern and hit the yarn stash to search for a cheerful yarn dyed with long color sequences. Here’s what I came up with. Say hello to the August Socks:
Isn’t this the happiest yarn you have seen all week? Agave Fingering by Becoming Art Yarn in the colorway “Cherry Tart”.Doesn’t this pattern show off the yarn well? This stitch is called Seafoam Stitch, and the sock is Galvez Socks by Debbie Haymark. The pattern is in my copy of Lace One-Skein Wonders edited by Judith Durant. Here are the project notes on Ravelry.
As much as I like the seafoam stitch I think that I won’t continue it down the top of the foot of the sock. I will be wearing these socks inside of shoes all winter and I’m wanting the socks to be really warm and long wearing. If the colors pool badly in the foot it won’t matter that much to me at that point. With cute tops like these, nothing can happen in the foot that will spoil things. 🙂
When I dug through the stash I also found this yarn that I bought on a whim but still hadn’t knitted up because it is really busy in the colors. I’ve been waiting for the right pattern.
This is Zen Yarn Garden’s Serenity 20 in the colorway Confetti. This yarn feels so great it makes me long for winter. There are a lot of colors in this yarn. How to show them off while breaking them up a little at the same time?Solution: Reyna Shawl by Noora Naivola. The pattern has a lot of garter stitch and sections of mesh lace that should highlight and then breakup some of the colors in the yarn. The edging and center stitch is a little different to me, but it is nice to learn new things, right? Further down the shawl there will be a lot more lace and the yarn will look different. I can’t wait to see what happens when I get to that part of the project. Here are my notes on Ravelry.
These two projects have kept me pretty busy but I have also been out in the garden. I sewed on the garden chair a little more and started attaching the sides to the frame. It is stretching out just right but the midpoint is refusing to slide on the frame; it still hasn’t expanded to the correct proportion. I soaked the stiff area with the hose this afternoon and left it to think about what it was doing for awhile. Let’s hope that does the trick as I’m afraid to tug on it too hard because my ribs are still sore.
I’ve sewn the fabric around the bar at the back of the seat, and am now crocheting the sides to the frame. the seat is now stretched to the correct tautness and feels great to sit on. I’m not too focused on the appearance as I have cute seat cushions that will be on top of this seat. Can’t wait!! I should be in the garden swing reading by next week.
I’m on drug holiday until I see the rheumatologist on the 20th. Let’s hope that I stay symptom free until then because I am totally focused on happy right now.
My exceptionally annoying rib pain has improved (love those pain killers!) and I have gotten a lot of knitting done this week. The July socks are finished!
The Lacy Cable socks (by Veronik Avery) fit well and the MJ Yarns Opulent Fingering is soft and cushy. The pattern was a little hard for me to memorize, but by the second sock I was doing much better and knitting faster. The twisted garter stitch heels were really slow to knit. I’m hoping that they wear well. The toes are normal garter; the decreases are worked in the knit row so they are hidden. Here are my project notes on Ravelry.
The other progress that I’ve been making is with the new seat for the garden swing. I got the crocheting finished last week and headed right outside to get it sewn onto the frame of the garden chair.
I’m just tying the crocheted seat to the frame right now to kind of stretch it into place. I’m working out an idea for a permanent crocheted attachment to the side frames. I also need to sew the tube that covers the bar at the bottom of the chair back. MacKenzie is not waiting for me to finish. He’s ready to sleep in his swing again now. Yep. I need to get that bottom stretched tighter, huh.
It is a little smaller than I wanted it to be but it is growing in size as I get it stretched to the frame. I’m still thinking about how to attached it to the sides; in my mind I have an idea of how to crochet the attachment. I have a few more days to think about this because my ribs are still too sore to take on the task right now.
I do need to get the chair done soon. Look at what I’m missing by not being able to read outside in the garden.
It has been two months since I started the drug methotrexate for my systemic sclerosis (scleroderma). I put off starting the drug for a few months as I was concerned about potential side effects (well, for one thing, it increases the chance that I will develop cancer. Since I’m now at high risk for lymphoma that kind of gave me some pause…), but struggling with fatigue and other annoying symptoms I finally made the call to my rheumatologist and started on the drug.
The first month was a little hard; nausea, headache, more fatigue, and what I called the dizzy-wobblies. My hair started falling out. By the second month, however, I began to notice that my muscles had stopped hurting. I had more energy. The edema in extremities was definitely much better. I was out of the house and doing much more. Hey, this is improvement. Go methotrexate! I was ready to make the pom-poms and sign up for the cheer squad.
Then more downsides began to emerge in the second month. I started to notice that my knees really hurt the day after I took the methotrexate pills. As always, I checked the Internet to see if anyone else had noticed this. Yep. It’s a thing. I decided to baby my knees a couple days a week and to keep on with the drug. Then my back started to hurt, I noticed a rash on my arms the same day that my knees hurt, and itching became a thing. My ribs started up with shooting pains. The pain spread to the entire right side of my lower ribs, I struggled to breathe and it was hard to raise my arm. Yikes!! The pain was so widespread it didn’t seem reasonable that it was just a cracked rib…
Here I am with the IV tapped off so I could make the trip to the CAT Scan machine.
That’s how I ended up at the acute diagnostic center run by Kaiser for we after-hours folk that don’t want to go to the ER. (The ER has sick people. When you are on immuno-suppressants you avoid sick people like the plague!) The nurse was nice. The doctor was great. The words “possible blood clot in your lung” and “we want a CAT scan right away” were said. I would have been more upset if they hadn’t also just said “we’re giving you morphine to get this pain under control”. I would have hugged that nurse if I could lift my arm.
Then she blew it. As she stuck me with the needle to start the IV she said, “I once worked with someone who had scleroderma so I’ve heard of it before. Such an interesting disease. She did develop heart problems though, which was sad since she was so young.” Great. This is sort of like a Chinese curse: May you have an interesting disease. I grumped about her comment to my son who was there with me. “Well, you have to admit, it is kind of interesting,” he said.
Aside: It is an interesting disease. One of the great ironies of my life is that I have a degree in molecular biology and once worked in a rheumatology research lab on a scleroderma project. My boss Dr. Angeline Douvas and I at that time used the auto-antibodies from scleroderma patients to capture and identify the protein SCL-70 (topoisomerase). We spent a lot of time speculating about what was going on in these patient’s genes and why that was manifesting itself the way it was in their clinical symptoms. We were suspicious that it might be triggered by a virus. Here’s the paper: I’m the second author. Angie would find my diagnosis to be so interesting but she passed away in 2000 before I became sick. Yep, it is all so interesting. Anti-centromere antibodies! What the heck is going on here?! This is an important disease that should be researched not just for a cure to help people who have it, but to also gain essential understandings about cells and genes that can be used in the treatment of many other diseases. As it turns out there is a bill in congress right now concerning scleroderma and fibrosis research and you can contact your congressperson using this link.
Still, I found the nurse’s interested detachment from my personal situation to be somewhat appalling. Still in pain I was wheeled off for the CAT scan, and then waited for my chat with the doctor. NOT a blood clot. NOT my liver. They could see old breaks in my ribs (thank you osteopenia) but NOT a current one. It turned out that it was inflammation of the cartilage in my ribcage, a condition called costochondritis. It’s a scleroderma thing, just another bump in the road when you are dealing with a complex medical condition. Fabulous. The Internet tells me that it usually resolves within a year. OMG! A year??!!! That’s a lot of pain killers! Oh wait; that’s a lot of knitting! Best to look on the bright side.
The next morning my rheumatologist’s office called to let me know I should stop taking the methotrexate. Farewell, methotrexate. It was nice getting to know you but you didn’t play nice with my cartilage. I now have an appointment with my rheumatologist on the 20th and he will discuss my new drug options with me then. I’m sad to let methotrexate go, but so glad that there are other drugs out there waiting for me to try them out.
Just another day in the life of an interesting disease.
Yarn, Books & Roses 