A Dark Age

This is the first year I can honestly say I wasn’t excited about my birthday. It’s not about my age – I’m 31 this year. It’s not exciting, it isn’t a milestone, and I’m not the sort of person who feels a stigma with getting older. The number of years I’ve lived in no way reflects the quality of my life or my value to society. It’s just that this year, I feel a bit defeated.

I’ve taken to seeing birthdays as a time to assess my my previous goals and to set new ones. I wonder, am I where I wanted to be at this point? Am I on a path to somewhere else I’d like to be? What can I do to get there? Questions like that.

At this point, I’ve definitely achieved some lifetime goals I set long ago. I bought a house before I turned 30 (well, the bank mostly owns it, but I have a decent stake in my house and I get to do whatever I want with it). I work with animals, both wild and domestic. We are at a point where we don’t struggle financially. These are all very good things.

The goal that I have massively failed to achieve is good health. I had the opportunity to live with my maternal grandparents when I was in high school, and I learned then the importance of preventing disease. My grandparents were both victims of heart disease and diabetes. I say “were” because they are both dead. My paternal grandfather also died relatively young due to a lifetime of abusing his body with alcohol and cigarettes. I’m very good at learning from others’ examples, and I took from them that I must take care of myself if I want to have any quality of life as I age.

The catch is, I got sick anyway. I don’t think the lesson I should take is that it doesn’t matter, that I’m going to get sick no matter what I do, so I might as well be reckless. I certainly have taken the lesson that life isn’t fair and sometimes no matter how hard I try, there are some things that are not meant for me. Good health is one of them.

So now I’m trying to learn what my value is now that I am no longer productive. I’m trying to learn to live within some very strict confines of my chronic illness. I’m trying to learn how to overcome my limits and achieve something noteworthy anyway. To tell the truth, this is not an easy task, but I never back down from something because it isn’t easy.

So this year, I plan to set some very lofty goals. I’ll list them, in the order that they come to mind:

1. Stay on top of my health. I’m working long-distance with Dr B, and so long as he’s committed to the task, I will be, too. Before he left I asked if he understood what he was getting into, that I was likely to be sick the rest of my life and that while I may be able to stabilize, it’s unlikely that I will ever be cured. He is aware. I told him that if he did this with me, he was stuck with me for life. I asked if he was sure he really wanted that. He said he was sure, that he is happy to have me in his life. Good man. I feel that if someone else wants to invest that much in me, that the least I could do is put in my best effort.
2. Resume my old life with modifications for the realities of my new condition. I liked traveling before I was sick. I still like knitting. I love my kittens. I love making new friends. I enjoy giving of myself to others. I’m going to resume these things, understanding that I may not be able to do any of them quite as much or intensely as I used to. I will find a way.
3. Let go of my guilt. This might sound odd, but a lot of things I used to consider luxuries have become necessities to me. I have some bit of moral code that says I should not indulge myself when there are others who need things more than me. For example, I feel guilty getting massages on a regular basis when there are people who could use the money I spend there to eat. What I’ve started to realize is that by paying someone to perform this service for me, I am giving them the money they need to eat and a dignified means through which to obtain that money. It is a fair exchange, and getting something good out of it shouldn’t be something I’m ashamed of.
4. Make the fact that I got sick mean something. I’ve done a bit of research into the plight of people with chronic disease. I’ve learned that many of the other people in my boat have the same challenges I do. They are dismissed by doctors, they are made to feel worthless by society, and they just want to feel like they aren’t alone. At this point, I am not so far gone that I can’t do something to raise awareness of this situation. I can write books. Maybe I can do talks about it. I think the talks would be incredibly useful – to show up somewhere and look like I do, like I’m not sick, and tell people about the reality of my situation. Teach them that there are others just like me who they might be judging as lazy or mentally ill, when in reality they have a very real physical problem that just isn’t understood well.

I’m not sure how realistic any of the goals I’ve set are going to be. The important part is that I have goals, reasons to get out of bed in the morning (or afternoon, or evening, as the case may be).

This all sounds like a lot of work. I think I’m going to need a nap.

Goal Progress

I’ve spent this week learning what my limitations are despite my improvement in health. I’ve determined that if I have a big thing I want to accomplish, it has to be first thing in the day – that’s when I have the most energy, my supplements have the greatest effect, and I’m not sore (well, more so than the persistent pain) from trying to do things I’m just not ready for. I can accomplish one “big” thing in a day, but my definition of big had to be altered. Now big means going grocery shopping or assembling the shelves I bought yesterday. It used to mean spending all day painting the house or getting to that tiling project I’ve been excited about. Those things now fall into the “too-big-to-do-right-now” category.

I’ve also made a concerted effort to work on the list of goals I outlined a few days ago. I’ll re-list them here for comment.

1. Write a book. I have written part of one chapter. It is by no means a complete chapter, but it has been helpful with ironing out all of my feelings about where I just was and where I am going. 
   
2. Finish all of my knitting and crochet WIPs. I am almost done with the monkey socks. I decided to focus on something that I could easily bring with me to my appointments so I would have more time to put into the task. When I’m home, I’m trying to focus on cleaning my house. The place can get gnarly when you’ve only really been able to make the most basic things happen for half a year.
3. Do a wardrobe purge. This one is done! Michael and I both cleaned out our closets this morning, in fact. I had a surprisingly large amount of clothing to donate and an equally shocking pile of things that were too worn to donate and thus had to be trashed. It feels good to be rid of those things.
4. Blog more often. Well, obviously I am accomplishing this one. I only committed myself to once a week, but I am managing twice. Good for me!
   
5. Spin a skein of yarn. I haven’t really put much consideration into this one yet. I have a partially spun bit of roving from a long time ago that I’m hoping to make into the aforementioned skein. I like that I have a head start on the project. The only catch is that I’m not sure that I will be spinning the same way as before. I feel different, and it may affect how the wheel works for me.
   
6. Sort out my digital pictures. Yeah, this hasn’t even been on my radar. It will happen, since I want to put pictures on my walls. I also want to upload things to Facebook. I think the limiting factor here is that I cannot stay at my desk for too long – it hurts my back.

Ok, so I’m not useless. Not totally, anyway.

In other news – Duck got a job. I adopted him almost two years ago for his unusual temperament – he’s ultra self-confident, cute as all get-out, and patient with people. I had no idea that he would actually be useful. Here’s what happened:

If you follow me on Facebook, you know that I bowl every week in a league. Michael and I didn’t have a pre-organized team, so we were randomly placed with a few guys whom we didn’t know, but who quickly became our friends. The team consisted of a father/son pair (I’ll refer to the father as C and the son as T) and the son’s friend from work, K. This year, K decided not to bowl again, but we gained another teammate, B, whom we also like a lot. The cool thing about the league we are in is that the people  range widely in age. T is in his late 50′s, C is 81, and B is in his 60s or 70s. Michael and I are in our 30s, and there are younger people than us who also bowl. Not unlike the yarn craft community when it comes down to it, except that there are far more men than women in the bowling leagues.

This year, C has been having trouble with his shoulder. After being in pain for months, he finally went to a doctor and got devastating news: he has stage four cancer in his lungs, a rib, his lymph nodes, and his shoulder bone. His wife had also been diagnosed with lung cancer and was given six to nine months to live – that was three years ago.

The last six weeks or so have been exceedingly rough for C. His wife succumbed to the cancer right around the same time he started radiation. His family has come from other parts of the country to take care of him, but it’s a big job. I asked his daughter if I might be able to visit C at home since I hadn’t seen him at bowling in a long time. I thought it might cheer him up to have guests. She thought that would be a nice idea, so I came by on Friday to see how he was doing. When I got in the door, C asked “Did you bring your cats with you?” Had I realized he wanted to see them, of course I would have done so.

I then had a brilliant plan. Duck is a terrible traveler – he actually rolls over on his back when he’s in his carrier and kicks the top of it like a toddler having a temper tantrum all the way to our destination. So I thought maybe Ducky can be an animal assisted therapy cat for a while. He gets the practice making car trips, and C gets the opportunity to snuggle a soft kitty without the responsibility of taking care of it. I might get Buttercup involved, too. She travels just fine, save for the car sickness. Fortunately, C lives only two minutes away (according to my Nav system). Ooh – and maybe I can get to fostering again when we get back from our next business trip, and I can take kittens to C as well! How fun!

It’s a good thing for me, too. I don’t have a lot of energy, but I can certainly knit and talk to C at his house. I understand what he’s going through better than most, given that I’ve been incapacitated for a long time, too. Maybe we can help each other out of our respective rough patches. I think this will be good.

Actually Doing Something for a Change

I am happy to report that I have actually gotten started on my goals. I haven’t even needed the motivation of finishing a small task to work on the big ones. The most obvious is that I am making good on my goal to post more often. This is something that has to be sustained, but still, I’m actually putting up another post – it’s step one of many. I also started on a chapter in the book I wanted to write. I’ve gotten an idea for the direction of the title as well – something to do with living in fog. Finally, I’ve started working in earnest on finishing my yarn craft WIPs.

I realized as I was working on the knitting that I haven’t posted a current list of what I’m working on in a while. It’s going to be painful, I fear, but here goes  (you can click to enlarge the pictures):

1. Everyday Tweed. I realized I was getting low on warm clothing, which is an inexcusable situation for a knitter. I wanted to find a pattern that would be relatively simple, so if I liked it I could use it for more sweaters in different yarns. This one is all knitting, and mostly simple, but I had so much trouble with the yarn. I bought what should have been enough for the whole thing, but it turns out that despite the matching labels, the dye lots on all of the skeins were not the same. I’m trying some fancy color work tricks to hide this subtle but noticeable difference.
2. Monkey Socks.  I tried several patterns for this particular yarn – I am completely intrigued by Flat Feet yarn. They take sock blanks (basically, small machine knitted rectangles of sock yarn) and dye them in creative patterns and such. I liked the colors in this one, but I hated the way it knit up. After trying and ripping back several attempts, I finally found that the monkey pattern removes some of the ugly from the yarn, and I am happy once again. I’ve already finished one of the socks.
3. Robert’s Boot Socks. Its been a long time since my brother Robert asked for these socks. I started working on them a bit when he came to visit for Christmas. I realized that part of the problem, besides the fact that Serra and Duck destroyed my first attempt, is that it’s hard for me to make socks without the person for whom I am making them present. I want to be sure they fit before I put all that effort into making two of them. Once I get one that fits, the second should come quickly. The yarn is worsted weight, and it’s not like he’s a big guy or anything.
4. Beaded Deep Space. I deliberately left this in a crumpled up state for the photograph. While I want to show it off somewhat, I want the finished product to be a genuine surprise for the recipient.  I’m using a modified version of the Cheshire Cat Stole with the Deep Space yarn I fell madly in love with a long time ago. I wanted to give it to a friend when I finished. She still doesn’t know I am making it for her, so she isn’t missing it. Maybe that’s the problem – I don’t have the push I need to work on it.
5. Crochet Noro Socks. Honestly, I’m not in love with these. I made one because a crocheter at the shop I used to teach at asked if I could teach a class on crochet socks. I made the first sock, but the no one, not even the person who requested the class, signed up. I’m considering just using the yarn for knit socks sometime in the future, an making the crocheted sock into a cat toy or stocking or something.
6. Cat Couch. I started this in August 2008. I want to make something nice for the cats, and I know they’ll love it. I just can’t seem to manage to keep my focus on it. I think it just doesn’t help that the yarn doesn’t really grab me. It’s an inexpensive acrylic I bought because it was on sale and I know anything that I give the cats will eventually be destroyed. It’s ok that it will be destroyed because it means the cats loved it, but I think the finite nature of its existence when I’ve finished it kind of discourages me.
7. Colorado Gloves. I had forgotten until I looked on my Ravelry queue why I put these down – I had developed a little carpal tunnel and I just couldn’t knit for awhile. I want to finish them, but the problem with things I’ve designed myself is that if I can’t remember where I was, I can’t just look at a pattern. What’s more, I have no idea where I left this one. I’ll have do some looking in my craft room in the upcoming week.
8. Hemp Shopping Bag. Eventually, I want to finish this, but there is no urgency because I have plenty of store bought ones. The bags from Safeway don’t hold up well, but the ones I got at Whole Foods do hold up well (plus, if they ever do break, Whole Foods will replace them for free). Again, something I designed myself.
9. Spiral Rug. This one should be easy to finish. It’s all garter stitch, I get to change yarns often (it holds my interest), and there isn’t that much left to do. It’s when I get to the part where I have to sew it up that I will be struggling. I so hate sewing.
10. Beach Skirt. This is the one I dreamed about not long before I got really sick. I need to finish it soon if I want it to fit my niece. I did, at least, make it larger than I thought she would need it to be since I anticipated her growing more before I finished it (see, thinking ahead).
11. Gwendolyn. No, the picture isn’t fuzzy – the yarn is. I had a lot of this pink angora yarn in my cabinet for awhile, but I had no idea what I was going to do with it. At some point I decided to make a shawl of some sort, but then I discovered the lace pattern took more focus than I had. Ah, well. It’ll come back.
12. Ryan’s Afghan. My friend Ryan asked me to make him a warm afghan out of acrylic yarn. He had no real idea of what it should look like, he just wanted to have something for the chilly San Francisco weather. I started it, but I never even got so far as to put it in my Ravelry queue. Mostly, this is an exercise in crochet intarsia. I wanted to try something new, and what better way to use up smaller balls of yarn?
13. An exercise in Mitered Squares. This isn’t exactly a project. I was fooling around with making mitered squares, and trying to see how I would join them up to make something. I have no idea what that something is, mind you, but I just wanted to try. I was using up some yarn that I only had in small quantities. I will probably give this to Duck when I’ve finished learning what I want to know.
14. Knitting Guild Master’s Project. I ordered the curriculum while I was still working at the yarn shop. Somewhere between my acquisition of Duck, working, laying the hardwood floors, and getting sick after all of that, I just never really worked on it. This one differs from the Crochet Guild Master’s Project in that they give you as long as you want to finish it. You just have to ask for the updated version of the test every year. Mine has been in this plastic bag for about a year and a half. <ugh>

I’m trying to see the theme with the projects I’ve left for a long time. For the most part, it appears I reached a stumbling block and gave up. A lot of my problem is that I haven’t really had the focus to get serious about knitting for the last seven months. I honestly believe that my desire to get to this has something to do with my body finally but slowly healing. It seems my illness totally warped my personality. Normally, I view a road block as an opportunity to learn something, and I rise to the challenge readily. Since I got sick, I just got frustrated with everything and I started giving up.  I’ve had a few good hours in most days since I last posted. I’ve been working closely with my doctors, tweaking the supplements as things change. I think I’ll get there, both with the health and this list. Right now, I think I need to go lie down.

Setting Goals

Check this out – I’m posting again within a few days my last post. I don’t know what to think about this – maybe I’m getting some of that ambition back? It would be nice.

I’ll start with a short health update: I haven’t been able to experiment with the magic combination of supplements because, unfortunately, I got a cold. I can’t help but feel my physical response to getting a cold is exaggerated. I mean, for most people, they get a little stuffy, maybe a little tired, but they can function. When I get even a small cold, it just wipes me out. I forced myself to have a good time with my gaming group yesterday because I have so few interactions anymore with real people who aren’t doctors. Since I last posted, I also managed to do some research on nitric oxide, and I learned something hilarious – the supplement I’m taking seems to be the herbal equivalent of Viagra! No, the doctor isn’t crazy for prescribing that to me. Viagra was originally developed to help people with heart problems, basically by modulating the nitric oxide pathways in the body, thereby opening up blood vessels. The reason we know Viagra as a drug for erectile dysfunction is that the pharmaceutical companies found this to be a more profitable way to market the drug.

Today, I’m going to get back to the original topic of my blog, to some degree. I’ve been feeling that since I’m kind of trapped in my house, sentenced to doing low energy activities, I should use that for some practical purpose. I just hate feeling like I’m doing nothing, like I’m useless. I’ve got some goals related to knitting and outside activities, so I thought I’d share them, to make me more accountable. Here they are, more or less in the order I manage to think of them:

1. Write a book. I have no idea whether this book is just for me, for only close friends, or for the world, but I want to write a book on what it is like to live with a long-term, mysterious and invisible illness. I won’t know for whom I am writing the book until I’ve finished it because it is kind of personal, and I just don’t know what I want to share and with whom.
2. Finish all of my knitting and crochet WIPs. This has failed in the past, largely because I see something new I like, and I just toss the old stuff aside like dirty laundry. I know that by denying myself the freedom to cast on something new I only manage to trigger a rebellion and I suddenly feel a burning need to cast on a ton of new projects, so I’m going to set guidelines like, “I have to finish three projects already in progress before I cast on a new one.” Of course, then the new one will soon become one of these old projects, so I am really just making the problem worse by adding to it, but at least I am taking a few steps forward as well. And who knows, maybe being trapped into this disciplined yarn crafting might just be the trigger my body needs to get better. I will gladly discard my newly instated rule if I have energy and can do other things that don’t involve sitting down. It would be a reward, in a sense. If I don’t get better, seeing that pile of half-finished projects get smaller would be a different kind of reward.
3. Do a wardrobe purge. This is a smaller project than the others, probably something that will take a day or two, but it’s something I really need to do. I’ve lived in parts of the country that have had relatively consistent weather since I was fifteen years old. First it was Hawai’i, then Florida, then San Francisco (I am using the city here rather than the state because SF really is different than the rest of California in general. They get seasons everywhere else in the Bay Area, but not so much in SF. Southern California has a consistent climate, too, but it’s warm, whereas SF is cold. Even in the summer.). Now I have to have clothes for multiple seasons, and some of them are worn out, some don’t fit anymore (due to weight loss), and some I just don’t like. The volume of clothing I need has become comparatively greater than before. I need to get rid of what I don’t wear, then supplement the areas of my wardrobe that are lacking. The latter part will be harder, since I really don’t have the energy for shopping trips that involve trying on clothes. The goal, though, is just to get rid of stuff. The replacing will come later.
4. Blog more often. This goal is a little vague, but I want to aim for once a week right now. I won’t get too hard on myself if I only manage every other week, though. I think that it might help me achieve my goals if I write down the progress I’ve made. Sometimes I feel like I’ve done nothing until I’ve made an accounting of it. Right now, I need to see that I’m not entirely useless for my self-esteem. I have none left after all this being sick business.
5. Spin a skein of yarn. Also a small goal, but I just haven’t spun anything in a long time, and I really want to. I got a lot of fiber for Christmas (Amazon.com allows you to add things from other websites to your wish list now, so I went to Etsy and added the pretty things I saw), my fiber storage is overflowing, and, well, it’s a way to get new yarn without having to go shopping for it. Plus, spinning is a very mild form of exercise (see how your calves feel the day after spinning for a few hours), and I really want to try to get exercise. I miss simply moving around.
6. Sort out my digital pictures. This is a medium-term project. I have hundreds, maybe thousands of pictures on my hard drives, and I want to do something with them. I’ll probably put quite a few on Facebook, I’ll print some to hang on my walls, maybe I’ll showcase pictures of kittens I had before I started keeping this blog… the idea is that I don’t know what the point is in having all these pictures if they are to remain unseen in a hard drive.

So, I’ve listed goals of varying time commitment and difficulty. I think that I might start with a smaller goal (like spinning a skein of yarn or the wardrobe purge) sooner so that I can get the accomplishment momentum going. The book, WIPs, pictures and blogging will be things that sort of happen in the background, perhaps concurrently, or perhaps I will focus on one of them at some point just to have the achievement. I will make regular updates about them, just to keep me on track.

There are more goals I have in mind, but making them something I have to commit to right now would simply be setting myself up for failure. There are things I want to do like finishing the painting in the house (there is still a lot of wall space left unpainted) and getting back to fostering, but my health limits those. It’s downright dangerous for me to get on a ladder, for example, because all it takes is one black-out and I’ve fallen and broken my neck. Of course, my over-arching goal is to get healthy, but I don’t think I have much control over that. Control that I haven’t already exerted, I mean. I go to the doctors regularly, and I take my supplements regularly, no matter how nasty they are (and let me tell you, some are quite powerful). I’m planning to see a new specialist in Los Angeles for a diagnostic procedure called non-cognitive biofeedback. Admittedly, this one seems a little… out there… but I’m at the point where I’m thinking anything is worth a shot. I cannot go on like this anymore.

So, for now, I’m focusing on what I can do. Modest goals.