Today I’m at 7 weeks post-op. I’m still going to therapy twice a week. Today was the first day that my spouse took the camera (he still comes with me, as I can’t drive yet). Amy, my OT, suggested that I bring my knitting needles with me today so she could watch me knit in order to determine if it was safe to try it yet. Ever thinking of my blog readers, I had John take pictures to document the event. I knew you guys would not want to miss this.

The most fun thing I do in therapy is the corn husk machine. It is filled with ground up corn husks, and is heated. After you stick your arms in it, the fan comes on and blows the corn around your hands while you do exercises. It feels really good, and enables me to do a lot more with my fingers than I can do without it. I think it’s partly the heat, and partly the tactile stimulus of the husks that helps. Here is a picture of me in the machine.

And a closeup of the corn.

After my splint came off at six weeks, I noticed that my hand is extremely hypersensitive. This is partly from having it in a splint for that long, with the resulting sensory deprivation, and I suspect partly from having all the skin peel off my entire hand about a month into this. It’s getting better as I am able to use it more, but the weird sensation in that hand has been very disconcerting. Amy assures me that this is normal and that using it will help.

I’ve started doing manual tasks with my hand. She has told me that it is OK to type, though my hand is very awkward, and I can’t type for long without getting very tired. Here’s the other gadget that I started using this week at OT.

I have to pick up the pegs, turn them over in my hand, and put them back in, while curling my wayward fingers around the peg. It’s harder than it looks. Here’s another view, with Amy supervising and cheerleading.

And now the picture that you have all been waiting for.

I’M KNITTING!!! After carefully watching me knit a whole row, Amy said “Those are just the movements I want you to be working on”. I showed her how I could knit continental style to take the work off my index finger, and she said that she would rather I use that right hand so I start getting some dexterity back. (This is a very good thing, as I am a thrower by nature, not a picker.)

HOORAY!!

I had some serious doubts the past several weeks whether I would ever be posting knitting pictures again on this blog. Here’s a closeup of what I’m making.

The color is actually more amethyst , more like the first picture. I started this before my injury; it will be a simple 1X1 rib scarf.  The yarn is Beaverslide Dry Goods fisherman weight, in a color named Prairie Aster. I intended this to be for the Dulaan project, started by Ryan, of Mossy Cottage Knits. Ryan, this might not get done by the deadline, but it WILL get done and sent eventually! I’m not going to win any speed races any time soon, but I’M KNITTING!! Did I already mention that?

There is another of those book memes going around, and it was sent to me by Justine, of Adventures in Asia. I have indeed had a lot of time on my hands to read since my injury, though I have been doing some medical reading to catch up, so haven’t gotten a lot of novels read. Nonethless, here are the questions and my answers.

Q: You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?

Not sure I would want to be a book at all, in that world. If I had to be, it would be one of the banned/challenged ones. Maybe Darwin’s “Origin of Species”; one of the most revolutionary scientific books of the past few centuries. It amazes me that there are still people who can say with a straight face that they don’t “believe” in evolution. It’s not a religion, it’s a scientific fact. Saying the world is flat doesn’t make it so. My alternate choice would be “A Wrinkle in Time”, by Madeleine L’Engle, one of my favorite books of all time, and also on a variety of banned books lists. It’s a wonder that humans have survived as long as we have, as stupid as we can be at times.

Q: Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Not really. If I had one, it would probably be the swashbuckling Francis Crawford of Lymond, from Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond series. Handsome, brilliant, daring, dangerous. My kind of guy.

Q: The last book you bought is: “Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine”. Oh, you probably meant NON-medical reading. That would be Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s bookbookbook “At Knit’s End”.

Q: The last book you read: “Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell”, by Susanna Clarke.

Q: What are you currently reading? “Snow”, by Orhan Pamuk, and “East of Eden”, by John Steinbeck. And the “Collected Stories of Grace Paley”, by Grace Paley. (And Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine. Pretty exciting reading.)

Q: Five books you would take to a desert island. Most of these I have never read. I’ve read parts of Twain, parts of Trevor, and Tolkien once, but certainly could re-read it. They’re all big books that would last until I was rescued.

1. “Collected Works of Mark Twain”, the unabridged edition
2. “Collected Stories”, William Trevor
3. “Remembrance of Things Past”, by Marcel Proust
4. “Make Way for Lucia, the Complete Lucia”, by E.F. Benson
5. “Lord of the Rings Trilogy”, by J.R.R. Tolkien

Q: Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why?
1. Laurie, of Etherknitter. She also has lots of time on her hands to read after surgery.
2. Cara, of January One. She is a librarian, a reader, and started Knit One Read Too.
3. Wendy, of The Bookish Girl. How could I not, with the name of her blog?

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Every so often I check out the Google search strings that got people to my blog. Here are a few favorites from this week:

“things that could be worse”
“bourbon girl” (my favorite)
“one handed knitting”
“one handed zipping technique”
“internal pictures doctor ass” (I can only imagine what this person was really looking for.)

I’m not making those up.

Celia, from Unraveling, has a mission in life. She is trying to spread the word about the joys of spending a whole day in your jammies. Yesterday was International Pajama Day IV, and I’m proud to say that I participated. I changed into flannel pants and a warm fleecy top and passed the whole day lounging around the house.

Celia did it in much higher style; she’s had several chances to perfect her pajama performance. Check out her blog post from yesterday for her great photos.

I spent the day reading and playing on the computer. In the evening, John cooked me a nice little spring risotto.

Here’s me helping. I’m still not allowed to handle any sharp objects.

And here’s the recipe, as best I can reconstruct it. It’s a modification based on lots of trials and several recipes. Once you figure out how to make a basic recipe, you can add whatever you find that looks good. We got all the fresh ingredients at the Farmers’ Market in Olympia this weekend. If you ever see green garlic in the market, buy it and try it. It looks like big green onions, and has a wonderful flavor. You can use it wherever you would use garlic.

We usually blanch whatever vegetable we’re going to add in the broth, and saute any raw fish or meat bits separately. That way you can add it all at the end and not have to figure out how long each part will take to cook. You can use leftover stuff in this as well. About the only thing we haven’t tried in risotto is Spam, and I suppose you could use that if you were desperate.

Some people frown on cheese in risotto with fish or seafood. I like it, so there.

Spring Risotto with Green Garlic, Asparagus, and Shrimp

2 cups arborio rice
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
Another tablespoon butter
3 stalks green garlic, chopped; use regular garlic if you can’t find this.
Shallots, chopped, about 3 tablespoons (or leeks, if you have them)
1/2 cup white wine
6 1/2 cups broth. We used fish stock that we buy frozen, but you can use chicken or veggie.
Asparagus, cleaned and cut into 2 inch pieces. We used about a dozen or so stalks.
1 cup peas, shelled; fresh or frozen
Handful of chopped Italian flat leaf parsley
3/4 pound shrimp, cleaned and shelled, tails off
Another 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
3/4 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese. Please don’t use that stuff out of a can or the risotto gods will get their revenge eventually.
Salt & pepper

Heat the broth to just simmering and keep it there. Dump in the asparagus and cook for a few minutes to blanch them, take them out with a slotted spoon and set aside. If you’re using fresh peas, blanch those too and set aside. Put the first tablespoon of butter and the oil in a largish pot and saute the onion, garlic, and shallot till soft. In another pan, melt another tablespoon of butter and briefly saute the shrimp, just till they turn from pink to white. Turn off, and set aside.

Add the rice to the pot with the butter, garlic, shallot, and onion, and stir briefly until rice starts to look translucent at the edges. This will just take a few minutes. Add the wine and stir until liquid is almost absorbed. Now start adding your broth to the rice about a cupful at a time, stirring most of the time and watching closely. When most of the liquid from each cup is absorbed into the rice, it’s time to add the next cup of broth. As the rice gets closer to done, add the broth in smaller amounts, and taste the rice off and on to make sure you’re not getting too much liquid. You want it done but not mushy; the rice should still have a firm bite to it when you’re all done. When the rice tastes like it’s just a few minutes from being done, add the asparagus, shrimp, parsley, and peas, and keep stirring and adding more broth in small amounts till the rice is done. You may not have to use all the liquid in the pot.

When the rice tastes done, turn off the heat, add the last tablespoon of butter and the cheese, and stir in. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve. This should easily feed 4 hungry people as a main course, or 6 as a side dish. Leftovers are wonderful: we form patties out of it, about the size of a big burger, and saute in a bit of butter. Yum. I’m off to find lunch.

Or, Kool-Aid is Fun!

Yesterday was the big Kool-Aid dyeing project, courtesy of Kristen. Check out this post for a rundown of what she sent me a couple of weeks ago. I finally got around to making a mess in my kitchen yesterday with this.

Knitty has the instructions here for doing this. Check that out for details; what I’ve written here is just a brief rundown. If you do a Google search for “kool-aid dyeing” you will get other resources as well. John helped me with the photo shoot.

First I washed the yarn in mild soap and water, then rinsed and left it to soak in water while I was getting everything else ready. Kristen was nice enough to put the yarn in two separate skeins and tie them for me. I decided to do one color rather than a handpainted look.  After a little experimenting on bits of yarn, I chose Strawberry.

I actually added a bit of red food coloring, as I had a very vibrant strawberry in mind. You can use the dyes that are made for cake decorating as well, and these come in a wider variety of colors.

After you get the yarn in the Kool-Aid, you either put it in the microwave or on the stove and heat not quite to the boiling point, stirring a couple of times to make sure all the yarn is under the water.

Take it out of the microwave and let it cool, again stirring a few times. Wash again in mild soapy water, rinse, and dry. Be careful not to manhandle the yarn too much, or to shock it with different temperatures of water, or you will have a big felted wet strawberry.

Here is the finished yarn, ready to knit when my fingers start to cooperate.

You might notice something missing in this photo. Yes, the splint is gone, as of yesterday. I got a good report card from both my OT and my surgeon, and am now starting to work on range of motion and strengthening in earnest.

I also received some lovely gifts in the mail from my sister Diane today. You can tell that a warped sense of humor obviously runs in our family. The glasses are plastic, of course, to prevent further injury the next time we head off over the hills to the neighbors’ house to share wine.

And a closeup of the authentic crown:

Yes, that’s Riley licking her butt in the background. I didn’t notice it until it was up here, and I’m not doing it over. At least I have a puppy picture, so I won’t get kicked out of the Purling Puppy Webring.

As Laurie from Etherknitter pointed out in her post today, health complaints tend to have a short half-life. While my tendon saga is no doubt endlessly fascinating to some of you, even I am getting sick of hearing about it. But I can’t knit, so what to write about? (And John has this insane idea that I shouldn’t buy yet more yarn that I am unable to knit. He has a point.)

And yes, I have tried to knit. Amy the OT, if by some chance you’ve found my blog, this would be the time to take a break and get a cup of coffee. You don’t want to know, trust me. I very carefully picked up my needles and gave it a try. I guess I needed to prove to myself that I could do it. And I couldn’t, of course. My muscles are way too weak, the tendons feel a little iffy when I try it, and I don’t have the fine motor control. Hell, I don’t even have gross motor control. Yet.

I’ve made very good use of my Ipod during this time. Which brings me to the subject of this post. Our local paper ran an article over the weekend about our president and what’s on his Ipod. (Originally published in the New York Times). I was rather impressed at his techological savvy until I got to the part that said he only has 250 songs on his 40 gigabyte player, and he has an aide that loads it up for him. And one of his songs is “My Sharona”. When I got to that part, any lingering respect I might have had for the man was shot down. I don’t necessarily think that his George Jones is a bad choice; I’m a traditional country music fan myself, though my taste runs more towards Hank Williams, Hank Snow, and Lefty Frizzell. Conway Twitty singing “It’s Only Make Believe”.  Floyd Cramer playing “Last Date”. And Vern Gosdin, the greatest country singer of all time. Makes me want to break out the bourbon just thinking about it.

So, what is on my Ipod? For starters, I have 5421 songs currently loaded. And 25 audio books. And the latest broadcast of Car Talk, one of the funniest shows on public radio. My musical taste would best be described as insanely eclectic. There is almost always music going on at our house. We have an extensive CD collection, though these days we mostly listen to Rhapsody; with our computer wired to the stereo we can listen to almost anything we want, anytime. And they have to put the CDs back in the cases, not me. We also listen to Folk Alley and KPIG.

About 1500 of those Ipod tunes are bluegrass or Appalachian style music, stretching over a wide range of bluegrass styles. About 600 are country or cowboy music (Wylie & The Wild West, Ian Tyson, Tom Russell). There are a couple hundred songs in the pop/rock/classic rock/oldies categories. There are 350 or so folk songs,about 180 blues tunes, a couple hundred jazz and swing tunes, another couple hundred or so songs by Texas artists…Robert Earl Keen, Lyle Lovett, Townes Van Zandt, Freddy Fender, Guy Clark, Jimmie Dale Gilmore. (Texas is about the only state that has its own music.) There is some Cajun and zydeco music, about 30 of my favorite classical pieces, and 5 or 6 opera albums. Though they’re not loaded yet, I have the complete Beethoven string quartets (7 CD’s worth) on deck to load next time I sync the thing. I have a few Hawaiian tunes (the other state with its own music), by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole. No Ipod is complete without Sousa tunes, and I have 15 of them. Try it on the treadmill before you laugh. There are a dozen polka tunes (don’t ask, I grew up in North Dakota and was raised on Lawrence Welk and Myron Floren). I have 31 songs categorized as “surf”, by Dick Dale, the Hellecasters, and the Aqua Velvets. Listen to the Aqua Velvets’ “Smoking Panatelas on the Blue Mediterranean Sea”, from their “Nomad” album for a taste of what they’re like. And then there are a bunch of miscellaneous tracks that are hard to classify in any one genre.

Maybe George needs to borrow my Ipod for awhile. I think I like my song selection better than his. It might broaden his horizons considerably.

My tendons passed, that is. Thursday I had the tendons tested, which was a hell of an excitement, let me tell you. I actually had a dream about it the night before. In my dream I had taken my splint off to show somebody how it worked, then couldn’t get it back on correctly. I showed up at my “test” and Amy was none too happy with me. Any of you who have been through “higher education” would probably recognize this as a variant of the dream where you realize that the final is today and you forgot to go to class all semester.

The actual test took about ten seconds, then I was on my way to doing active exercises. This has been a rather distressing few days. I’ve lost a lot more power and range of motion in my hand and wrist than I would have thought possible in a month. I need to keep reminding myself that I’m not supposed to be at full strength for another two months.

The real surprise was that my splint was revised yet again. Amy replaced the tape that straps it to my wrist with velcro straps so I can TAKE IT OFF to do exercises, and to wash my hand to get the gunk off. Hooray! In case you think this less than thrilling, let me just say that a lot of gunk builds up when you can’t wash your hand for a month. I’m exfoliating the skin off my whole hand and leaving my DNA all over the house. Guess I can’t commit any crimes for awhile; Gil on CSI would identify me in a minute.

I got a great surprise package in the mail this week from Kristen. Check out her blog here. Here is a picture.

Though I can’t knit, she figured I could manage Kool-Aid dyeing. There is a ball of Patons wool, which she skeined and tied for me so it’s ready to go. She included the Kool-Aid as well as gloves; a regular one for my regular hand, and a plastic bag to go over the splint. There are treats as well: chocolate for me, a knit catnip mouse for the cats, and a cookie for Riley. Here’s Willie’s verdict. He’s been trying to kill that mouse ever since he got it.

And Riley’s thoughts on the matter:

The chocolate is long gone, so no pictures. Thanks Kristen!

One more tip for any of you who unexpectedly find yourself unable to wash your own hair for three months. I got a little tired of looking like Phyllis Diller after the first week and went to my salon for a shampoo and style. It was wonderful, but a little spendy to do very often. John called his barber to see what they charge. The barber that owns the shop is a woman, and she charges $8 for a wash and dry. So I’m splurging and going every week.

Only 9 more to go. This week has been about maintaining my sense of humor. The first two weeks I was all gung ho, with an “I can lick this” attitude. I think the reality hit this week. I’m better now, but at the beginning of this week I wasn’t a happy camper about any part of this experience. Then to add insult to injury, I was in my surgeon’s office yesterday morning. He looked at my hand and said “you’re missing one of the stones from your ring”. This would be my wedding ring he was referring to, and neither I or John had noticed it. The ring has one larger diamond in the center with a smaller one on each side, and it was one of the smaller ones that was gone.

I managed to keep it together until we got to the car and then burst into tears, crying all the way home. I figured we’d look all over and never find it. I reached down to unhook the seat belt, and whacked my hand yet again on the center console, as I have been doing every time because it’s so f-ing awkward to do the seat belt with your left hand. Just for the heck of it I looked down between the seats to see if by some miracle it was there, and it WAS. So now the ring is at the jeweler’s to get fixed, and I’ve got three weeks of this under my belt, and I feel much better, thank you.

After this week, if all is going well with the tendons, I get to start doing what Amy my OT calls “baby bird” exercises. It apparently goes something like this: I passively move my fingers into my palm, then let them go and pretend like I’m holding a baby bird. I have to hold tight enough to cradle the bird in my hand, but not hard enough to squish it. I’ve never been so excited to start an exercise program in my life. Not this week though. That would be next week, if all goes well. This week is still another of the boring passive-range-of-motion-exercises weeks.

I can’t thank all of you enough for the kind words of support. Ryan, of Mossy Cottage Knits, and Margene, of Zeneedle, think I’m an inspiration. And Dorothy of Missouri Star fame sent me this after I whined about having trouble holding paperback books open.

Very cool. And it works amazingly well! Thanks, Dorothy! This might mean no more books lobbed across the room in frustration.