Refusing To Give In

I'm determined to show some knitting this post and not have a post just about my latest problems. No doubt you're as sick of hearing about it as I am of being ill! So briefly here we go - I reacted to the scented? air purifier and ended up on steroids in the end anyway. Couple of days later I had breathing problems again and my nose was blocked. So back on antihistamines and nasal spray. Made it to work on Tuesday, coughed all morning, should have left work early. Didn't. Big mistake. By the time I left the glands in my neck were swollen and throbbing and I got home in a terrible state. Back to the docs on Weds and left with another additional inhaler, sick note for my asthma and the news that I now also had a viral infection. That would explain the swollen glands then! Downside to steroids is they lower your resistance to infection.....

But I'm determined not to get more miserable as it just hinders your recovery and am just resting in bed and doing nothing. Apart from a little knitting, playing on my Nintendo DS and of course going on the internet. Things kind of hit a peak on Weds, not a great surprise after everything, and I wasn't happy to wake up in the afternoon to find an email from work asking if I could come in to finish the payments. I realised my health was far more important than work and to keep struggling through when I wasn't right is just making me worse and worse. So I'm not worrying about work anymore.

As I'm still waiting to hear from the Bristol Homeopathic Hospital and realistically may not get an appointment till next year as the referral letter hasn't been done yet. Thanks to the new computer systems at the doctors. So I've booked in for allergy testing with a local homeopath for the time being. She knows I've been referred and frankly, I can't wait and do nothing. I've gotten some books on homeopathy to read up and learn a bit more about it. As my first aid kit consists of aromatherapy oils rather than creams or lotions it makes a whole bunch of sense to me.

My recent hospital visit for my anaemia was fine and the very well spoken jolly doctor I saw looked through my files and said humourously, is there any part of you normal? I thought about it and replied my heart. He's happy for my doctor to continue blood tests and monitoring of B12 levels so thats quite handy not having to go to hospital for that.

You know when things start to wrong, then everything kinda follows? Well.....we ordered a new Animal Dyson vacuum and it arrived and DH was happily putting it all together whilst I was resting. He tried it, it wasn't working properly. So we rang them and they're sending replacement bits. Poor DH, he was so excited ;)

And then I was knitting my blanket with my lovely new Harmony's when the wooden tip came off!! And don't mean the cable unwound either. So blanket is on hold and KnitPicks are sending a replacement to my US pal (sorry!) They were really quick getting back to me and apologised for the defective needle. Thats great customer service for you. So thats it for the blanket for the time being as they're OOS till the end of Oct......and it was doing so well. I only had 2 skeins left to go. It will be a lovely big blanket though not exciting to photo which is why I haven't for a while. I love my new Harmony's so much I did a bad thing and changed from my Denise circs to the lovely Harmony Options. Bad because they're not exactly the same size as Denise are US sizes and Harmony proper metric ones. But as its a blanket I'm not too worried. The difference was amazing. The stitches flew along instead of dragging and it was so much easier to knit.

I'd even got the hang of screwing them tightly enough so they don't loosen. I also wish I'd asked my lovely US pal to get me the larger additional sizes too. Seeing as some of the sizes are OOS already, I'm worried their arrival at Get Knitted might be delayed you see....... and I'm not going back to the Denise circs now!

I also had to throw away the stinky plastic case that the Harmony's came in as that gave me a headache straight away and instead ordered a lovely needle case from Pavi Yarns instead. Which I've just been told is sold out. Would have been nice to have been told earlier, as I ordered it a week ago. Oh well, never mind. I'm sure I'll find something else.

So back to the promised knitting. Here's a pic of the sleeve on my Crochet Trimmed Hoodie. I finally managed to start tackling the crochet edging a few weeks ago before I got ill and found it a real challenge. A total learning curve for me as I've no idea what I'm doing not having done many of the stitches before and its all a bit of trial and error. It does look lovely though, but takes forever and needs a lot of concentration, which is just beyond me right now.

Here's a close up of the edging so you can see it in full. I'm rather pleased with it myself. Good job the photo doesn't show the edges as they flare out....but hopefully that can be sorted when I sew it up. If not, flared sleeves look lovely anyway ;) I do wonder how long the front and back will take, seeing as how long just doing the sleeve took......

Last Saturday DH drove me to Get Knitted to get me out where I did a little yarn therapy which was just what I needed. Isn't the Malabrigo gorgeous? Just had to have it. And I changed some Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock Yarn for the Sea Wool in a similar shade as the LL has nylon and with all the recent troubles have decided its not worth the risk. I can usually get away with nylon in sock yarn but never in normal yarn without risking an asthma attack. So all sock wool with nylon will shortly be disappearing from my stash...... I much prefer sock yarn without it anyway so no loss there. DH also drove me to my favourite Fresh & Wild Store where I got a new pretty organic lipstick which I love. Shame the retail therapy boost didn't last longer but it was lovely while it did :)

If you haven't seen this video of the outrageous dancing cockatoo you MUST. The end bit just cracks me up. Honestly, I laughed so much and had to watch it again. After I'd seen it, it appeared on Cute Overload as well. Gotta be the best video ever.

And you gotta see this too. Wonder if Thunder would let me knit him one? I think not.......but boy that made me smile.

Lastly, a big thank you for the lovely messages. You have no idea how much they really help when you're feeling lousy ;) And take care too, all I seem to hear at the moment is bloggers being ill or suffering allergies or allergic reactions. It's all very odd.....