Tag: Alpine Bloom

Hannah and the CoalBear: Another Busy Caturday

Hi. I’m Mateo.

I’m the CoalBear!

We have been doing so much stuff this week. The Mother of Cats has been winterizing the house and we have been helping her out with every single task! She put insulation on all of the windows (it’s some type of funky plastic film that Hannah and I think is just amazing to play with…) and foam stripping around the doors. She fixed the toilet. She took the car to get its oil changed (and she didn’t take us!) and took all of the presents that have been coming in boxes to the house out to be mailed off for Christmas presents. Whew! Just exhausting, right?

The Mother of Cats also cleaned up the sewing room… Hannah helped with that too!

When the Mother of Cats has been sitting down these days she mostly is knitting. Some of the stuff that we made with her got mailed away this week and it is a secret, but here is what we can show you.

Now there are two Alpine Bloom hats. One of the Alpine Blooms got mailed away to a cousin, and the Mother of Cats knitted a new hat that will be for her to wear. They can be twins!! The hat that the Mother of Cats made for herself is a little smaller, and it fits her head better. Hannah still likes to use it as a pillow, but the Mother of Cats said NO and put it away. No fun, that Mother of Cats. She also has been busy knitting on her new sweater, and we have both been sleeping on her legs while she works; I’m hoping to chase some yarn while she isn’t looking, and Hannah is secretly hoping to get in a chomp or two, but so far, we haven’t had that many chances to have close encounters with wool fun.

The sweater is called La Prairie which the Mother of Cats thinks is funny since we live on the edge of the prairie. That’s why we have bunnies, and coyotes, and there is an owl that hoots out back almost every night. We don’t like the owl much… we never get to go out on the catio when the Mother of Cats hears the owl.

There are three more colors of yarn to be used in this La Prairie, but so far, the Mother of Cats hasn’t taken them out of the bin because of … chomps. Seriously, I just want to roll the balls of yarn around, but she won’t let me do that either.

Hey, the laser light toy just turned on. I have to go chase it… Laters!!

This is the CoalBear, signing off.

Notes from the Mother of Cats:

I knitted the new Alpine Bloom hat with the same yarn but went down a needle size to get a slightly smaller hat. The finished product is about 1-2 inches less in circumference and fits better. The new, more tightly knit fabric didn’t block out quite as nicely, but I’m happy with the hat. I’m planning on trying another one with fingering yarn (because, why not, right?) just to see how it comes out since the stitch count and needle sizes for the hat is the same as another hat that fits me well (Barley Light) and maybe it will work great, right?

Won’t this look nice as an Alpine Bloom hat?

The Scleroderma Chronicles: Be a Rose.

So, I got a little testy in one of my Facebook support groups for systemic sclerosis this morning. A member of the group kind of disparaged me and another person for not being positive enough. It was “you need to refuse to let scleroderma define you” in response to the first person sadly saying that she missed her old life, and me giving her an online hug with the comment that if only a positive attitude was enough…

In my defense I had just experienced a Kaiser employee visibly reacting to my lack of wrinkles. As in, wow, that’s great! Like not having wrinkles makes this all worth it.

I lost another 4 pounds at my last check-in, which is concerning, but the nurse was thrilled for me. Me, I was a little teary at the continued loss.

Um, people… do you think that you might be a little shallow here?

I was out on the deck/catio with the cats drinking my morning latte when I hit this emotional wall, and after I had fired off the somewhat testy response, I spent some time in the garden. There were my roses, blooming like the utter champs that they are.

This is my Princess Alexandra of Kent rose.

This rose is looking great this year. Never before has the plant been able to hold up the blooms without the weight pulling the stems over. The problem is our semi-arid climate with hard winters; the plant grows back from the roots every year and it doesn’t have time to put in enough supportive tissue to hold up the blooms. This year, with all the rain and cool weather that we have had, the plant was able to put in enough of this tissue to do the job. The tissue that I’m talking about, a type of ground tissue, is called sclerenchyma. If you’re ever snapped a celery stalk in half and pulled out the strings, you were pulling out sclerenchyma tissue. This tissue is made of dry, hardened cells in the stem of the rose and I suspect that the “scler” part of the word is of the same origin as scleroderma. Look at that. The hardened cells are doing something good for this rose!

In me, not so much. Things have been a little difficult as my poor heart and lungs are not benefiting from the hardening and thickening going on in the cells and tissues of those organs. All of my tendons are seriously pissed off at the moment. Edema has become a problem, and it is becoming increasing clear that I need to stay on oxygen 24/7.

That’s my arm with the imprint of a quilt in it, in case you didn’t immediately recognize it… Edema is kind of a tip off that my heart is struggling and that’s new. The weight loss is also related to my heart/lungs because if oxygen isn’t getting down to my cells like it should, they can’t use energy efficiently, and then, you know, weight loss occurs. The tendon issue is scleroderma actively attacking them and gradually hardening them to bone. Bad scleroderma, bad!!

But look at how great these roses look!

So, what did I say in my testy response? Reality bites. Some of us have progressed to the point where we have to admit that no amount of positive thinking will allow us to attend that family function that we were invited to, or to visit the annual Wool Market in the mountains, or to even walk to the mailbox. To suggest that we could do things if we just had a more positive attitude is hurtful and not supportive. No matter how much you want to believe otherwise, scleroderma does define me and everyone else who is dealing with it. Courage requires us to face down the monster and to accept the reality of our disease. How we choose to function within that framework is up to us.

I may no longer be as mobile as I once was, and the life that I used to have is now mostly gone, but I choose to continue to bloom in place.

Like a rose.

Updates/Notes from the ScleroFront:

  • Do you like to wear linen? Those fibers are from the water tubes (xylem) in the flax plant, and made of sclerenchyma.
  • The bunny-murdering neighbor put her house up for sale!!
  • My Alpine Bloom sweater is coming right along!