Monday, July 16, 2007

Miter Migraines?

Woohoo! I've sewn up the last square. I was actually starting to enjoy the mattress stitch. Those centers are tricky, though. Did my best. That's all I can do.

Here are all six big squares. I won't sew them together until I knit all my miters and decide on the color layout. I'm worried, though. I had two - not one, but two - migraine headaches this weekend. Complete with the funky vision and flashing zigzag lights. Bad ones with the helmet headache that just won't quit, even though I took the prescription stuff. And when I look at this picture, it bothers me. The jags of color are bothering me. Should I have made the colored stripes in my miters line up? Were my migraines triggered by the colors? The patterns remind me of some of those optical illusion pictures that are usually in black and white. Will this blanket give me headaches? I'm worried!And oh . . . look at the backs. They're bad. Tons of ends to weave. Maybe the thought of that is what triggered the migraines.
I'm hope hope hoping that my Baby Surprise Jacket pattern will be in my mailbox tomorrow. I keep looking at pictures of the finished jacket and I can't wait to start it. As soon as the pattern is in my hands, I'm running to the yarn shop to pick out some fun yarn. I love having good things to look forward to. (That sentence bothers me. Not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition. Ooh - reminds me of a funny I found. A quote from Sir Winston Churchill: "From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.")

Anyway, something good to which I will look forward: I'm keeping fingers crossed for good news. Cross them with me, will you? I went for a bone scan today. I've had a dull ache in my left shoulder - clavicle - for a few weeks. As a person who's been treated for breast cancer, I'm advised to report any symptoms that last for more than a week to my doctor. I reported. She sent me for this test. Probably nothing - probably muscular. Just being safe. Breast cancer, when it recurs, can often show up in the bones. Scary for me - but absolutely crazy when I think about the fact that I had chemo, radiation, and Herceptin - 18 months of treatment. How could any little cancer cell still have been lurking? Not possible. To be safe, I had the scan. After the scan, the tech came in and said the radiologist wanted two additional films. Deep breath. Okay. Two more scans. The tech came back. The radiologist wanted x-rays of my clavicle and my ribs. I was scared. Shaking hands and wobbly legs. I asked the tech if the dr. wanted the x-rays because of something seen on the scans. "Just being thorough," she said in a sing-songy voice that she hadn't used before. Crap. I went for the x-rays. "Take a deep breath and hold it. Hold still." Impossible when my teeth were chattering and legs were shaking. One x-ray of the clavicle. One x-ray of the ribs. Wait. X-ray tech came back. The radiologist wanted another film of the ribs. At that point I was ready to throw up on the tech's shoes. I made it through the last breath-holding request, got dressed and was sent on my way with the promise that my dr. would have results in 24-48 hours.

I sat in my car in the parking lot, called my mother, and cried. I'm sure that it's just the medical professionals being thorough, but they have no idea what goes through the patient's mind. They don't realize how much they scare the crap out of a person who has already been given bad news once, and is terrified of getting bad news again.

I called my doctor's office and begged them to try to get results today. They tried, but were unable to. (There's another preposition at the end of a sentence.) The nurse told me that since I'd had a bone scan before radiation, my first scan's results will look very different from this one. She said that radiation does something that makes areas look cloudy on a scan, and they're probably being very careful when comparing this scan to the first one to be sure they don't miss anything. I felt a little better, but I'll feel much better when I hear the doctor say, "It's all good. You're fine. No worries."

Not looking for anyone to feel bad for me. I know I'll be okay. Just keep some fingers crossed - or toes. Don't cross your eyes, though. They'll get stuck that way.

4 comments:

acambras said...

I will keep my fingers crossed that you get good news (and quick results). But no, I won't cross my eyes (although after looking at all those miters, my eyes might cross on their own!) ;-)

Re: those zigzag lights -- I've had those before. No pain, but just the zigzag lights, as though they should contain the words POW! and BAM! My doctor told me it was an ocular migraine. It went away after about an hour, but the couple of times I've had it, it's been freaky.

Re: ending sentences with prepositions -- Thursday night, remind me to tell you my Harvard joke. :-)

Hope you're having a good week (despite the radiology woes) -- talk to you soon.

Anne

mad knitter said...

Keeping my fingers and toes crossed for you! I'm sorry you had to go through that, and I'm so glad that the doc's office was able to clarify a bit for you. Update if you can, cause I won't be there this Thursday, and I will be on pins and needles along with you. Us Kellys/Kelleys have to stick together!

And Anne, don't forget you have to tell *me* your Harvard joke next week when I'm back!!!

costumechick said...

Needles crossed for you here too. We SnBers worry about our own! Thourough is good, but they do have a way of scaring the crapout of you.
Hope to see you Thursday!

Nan said...

I will admit, I am leaving a comment here, just because of that wild looking project, it made me think maybe one of my lenses had popped out of my reading glasses and I was just seeing things, I didn't read the post, only the title, so I hope my comment isn't out of place, I did see the other comments mention something about a health issue, but I hope all that turned out OK, I don't have time to read everything, but I just wanted to say right now, I just loved the mitered squares, they are cool.

I think this is the first time I have been to your blog and left a comment, but I read a lot of blogs so it might not be, anyway, I am bookmarking yours and will be back when I have more time.