Debriefing

I certainly can not believe that it’s been two months since my last post. Time has travelled at lightning speed around here. Here I am all the same. I spent quite a bit of my time in the hospital trying to get my head straight. I am still going to my ECT treatments weekly. The upside was that for a while I really was feeling a bit better. The downside is that last week that high turned into quite a low and I may have to be hospitalized again. That has yet to be determined.

Another downside is that I’ve had some severe memory loss, (maybe that’s why time seems to go by so quickly, I just can’t remember it). My phone number eludes me. I repeat the same question over and over because I simply can’t remember asking the first time around. I forget the names of movies, (which is fairly traumatic since I’m a total movie buff and I used to be so sharp), and books. I imagine this is what Alzheimer’s feels like only I’m aware that I am losing my memories.

But here I am, all the same. So what has been going on?

Sundara Collection: Burnt Caramel

After saving all of my pennies I finally got a new Blythe. Her name is Peyton and she’s a Sunshine Holiday.

Once or twice I’ve picked up my Pfeiffer Falls, (from last Winter’s Interweave Knits), and knit a few rows.

Scout is still as cute as can be. She’s just a bit smarter than before.

What else?

* Dalton is very ill I’m afraid. He’s lost a considerable amount of weight. When he hunches over to drink water or eat his kibble you can see that he’s turning into a bag of bones which is completely abnormal for my Fatty McFat Fat cat. Oh how I ♥ him.

* Jem turned 11 yesterday. Eleven. I have a tween on my hands.

* Shawn’s hours have been cut so now he has Fridays off. Financially it’s hurt us, but I have to admit that it’s nice to have him around more often. He’s been a great help during my ECT treatments.

* I am trying to get back on track with my swaps but I tell you, when you lose your memory it’s hard to remember why someone sent you a package in the first place! Slowly I’m getting my *hit together though.

* While I was in the hospital I was able to see an orthopedist. They did X-rays and a DEXA Scan, (which is to rule out osteoporosis). My DEXA Scan came out fine, however, my X-rays did not. I broke my ankle when I was sixteen and then again when I was 22. My foot was not set correctly and I had an array of  problems after the second fracture. The X-rays show that there is still a fracture. I’ve been told that I could have surgery to reset it but I am going to wait until after summer. No reason to be sitting in a cast in this nasty weather. The weather’s gotten so bad that I broke out in a heat rast under my arms! I think that’s enough discomfort for one season.

* Shawn and I have been dieting for the past three weeks. Even though I eat healthier than he does he’s lost more weight than I have. It doesn’t help that the previous medications I took all had weight gain as a “risk”. But we are doing fairly well. I’m very proud that he’s been sticking to it.

That’s all I can really think of for now. Not much in the sense of knitting or crafting. I am going to be dedicating this Fourth of July weekend to getting all of my sewing and knit projects out of the way. It’s time to start fresh!

Til then.

In One Moment

… you can write a grocery list.

… you can download five songs onto iTunes.

… you can forgive someone.

… you can change your clothes three times, shoes twice.

… you can eat a cup of Tiramisu from Porto’s.

… you can walk to the mailbox and remember the smells of spring mixed in with the scent of night.

… you can imagine what a skein of yarn may become.

… you can finish a knit sweater that’s been awaiting a good wash and warm blocking.

… you can tell three people and one cat “good night”.

… you can collect all the cups and trash around the house.

… you can make extensive plans for the next couple of weeks. *

February Lady Sweater

Dream In Color Classy: Chinatown Apples

Needles: 7’s

Mods: I was working with three lighter skeins and two darker ones so I worked the darker skeins into the yoke and bands. Ended up with about a 1/2 skein. Knit only two button holes, (still looking for the perfect buttons).

* I will be away from this space for at least two weeks. My Dr. has decided I’m a good candidate for ECT and I will be staying at Cedars-Sinai while participating in their inpatient treatment. While I know this is a very controversial treatment I also know that this is something I must do. Prozac, Lithium, Wellbutrin, Celexa, Klonopin, Ativan, Depakote, Seroquel, Geodon, Effexor, Abilify, Navane, Zoloft, Paxil, Remeron… I have tried them all. This is truly my last option. And with the research I have done, there is one thing I have now.

Hope.

Take care of yourselves until I get back. And thank you, for giving me hope.

Little Orphan Annie

She won’t be an orphan much longer.

colorful

Everything seems to come together when there’s a splash of color going on. I don’t know how to explain it other than there is no black and there is no white. And while some people believe there are thousands of shades of gray I like to think that there is no gray either. There is just a spectrum of color. Each color has it’s meaning. Each color has a story to tell.

being bipolar

Some of you know of the illness that defines me at time. Bipolar Disorder. Dealing with depression, in any form, is a constant struggle. It can be an explainable chemical imbalance treated with antidepressants. Or it can be completely unexplainable and treated with a number of medications and therapy.

Bipolar disorder means depression and mania.

Bipolar disorder means OCD.

Bipolar disorder means insomnia and fatigue.

Bipolar disorder means Lithium.

Bipolar disorder means self mutilation.

Bipolar disorder means mood swings.

Bipolar disorder means psychiatric evaluations and therapy.

Bipolar disorder means medications.

Bipolar disorder means blood tests.

Bipolar disorder means hospitalization.

Hospitalization is a difficult thing for people to deal with and understand. The number one reason for hospitalization is for saftey reasons. And, generally speaking, I needed saftey the past few days. Safety from myself. Safety from the darkness. Saturday night to Tuesday afternoon I spent my time attending individual therapy, group therapy, psychiatric evaluations, giving blood, wandering aimlessly up and down the East wing, and putting a puzzle, (of an English garden), together.

No shoes with laces. Rubber soled hopsital socks.

Menus. Circle your choice with an eraserless pencil.

Twin size hospital bed with threadbare blankets.

No drawstrings in your clothes.

Daily Lithium level tests.

A piano that hasn’t been tuned in years.

Missing caps to watercolor markers.

Conference rooms.

Crying to the sound of Scout asking, “Mom, you OK?”

Cheetos and blue Gatorade.

Talking to my mom again.

And now? I’m home. I find it hard to adjust to my large bed. I find it hard to get comfortable on our soft couch. I find it hard to be in such a different situation. The past two days I’ve kept my days busy: washing dishes, cleaning the kitchen, folding laundry, reading stories, swimming with Scout…

I need to readjust to the regular me. The one that isn’t put away, safely kept away from the world. I am the woman who wants to learn how to paint. I am the woman who could eat an entire jar of homemade strawberry jam without bread. I am the woman who prefers the cold to the heat. I am the woman who has a color coordinated closet. I am the woman who can appreciate a good wool. I am the woman who has an endless list of things to do.

But most of all, I want to be me. I don’t want to be defined by being Bipolar. I don’t want to be defined by the symptoms. I just want to be myself.

A Baby

Nearly four years I was involved in a very personal tragedy. Three days before going on a three day weekend trip to the-middle-of-nowhere-Texas I learned that I was pregnant. I had noticed that my body was changing one day while sitting in Art 102, which I was taking for Summer School. After class one day I decided to buy a pregnancy test kit. I had to confirm what my body was telling me.

I had made no decisions. I had not told the father. I just went to Texas as planned. The plans were set in stone. I couldn’t not go. So I went. I was at the LAX airport at 5 a.m. when I first started to feel, well, funny. I felt feverish.  Sweaty. Exhausted. I chalked it up to being nervous. I arrived in Fort Worth/Dallas and immediately started running for my next flight to Austin, which was leaving one hour after I landed. And then I just started to feel even worse. I was completely disoriented. I didn’t know where I was. Where I was going. And yet, somehow I got on my next plane.

Mid flight is when it hit me. I was losing the baby. A baby I barely knew or understood. I hadn’t even heard his/her heartbeat. I hadn’t felt him/her swimming around in it’s little cave. The cramping was so intense. It felt like someone continually knocked the wind out of me. We landed and I ran to the bathroom. Nothing. I ran to one of the terminal shops for pads. Nothing.

I met with my friends mother and we drove three hours to our destination. We stopped once at a small Blue Bunny ice cream shop. We both ordered double scoops of Butter Pecan that immediately started to melt and leak from the little sugar cones in the summer heat. She held my cone when I had this urge. I sat on the toilet for what seems like hours feeling the blood rush from my body. The cramping intensified as I held on tightly to the steel handle that sat next to the toilet. What was the handle for? Disabled people? Or girls who miscarried in the-middle-of-nowhere-Texas and had to stop at the closet thing that had a somewhat clean bathroom?

That evening, in the hotel bathroom, I just sat under the spray of the shower. I allowed my body to purge itself. I said my goodbyes to someone I didn’t know. Someone I would never know.

Fast forward to January 06. Shawn and I had only been together for about a month and a half before I got pregnant, for the third time. I knew it the weekend of his birthday when the morning sickness flooded my mouth. He knew it too. Neither of us said a word. We knew that we would just do what we had to do. Afterall, what other options are there? But this would be the second time that I wouldn’t get to know the little creature that found it’s way into my stomach. And heart. A week later it started all over again. I laid on my bed with my legs up. Hoping. Waiting. Praying. I watched every minute tick by on the digital clock on the stereo. I counted to 60. I counted every minute. Until I could no longer count. And then I cried. I got on my hands and knees and screamed. Shawn held me and told me everything would be ok. He looked into my eyes and asked, “Do you want a baby?”. It sounded like a dumb question but I realized at once that we both wanted the same thing. A family. Just one more person to love.

What makes me think of these things? What makes me question the inevitable? I started reading a new Jodi Picoult book that’s about “wrongful birth”. There was a comment that a priest says about life’s struggles. He says that God doesn’t give people more than they can handle. In ways I never understood, I can agree to this. I have to believe there is something better. I didn’t have a chance to name them, to know if they were blonde boys or brunette girls. I didn’t have a chance to hold them, to know if they have a birthmark on their right hip like me and Jem. I didn’t have the chance to buy them Onesies and jammies with feet, to breathe them in and never forget their scent.

It all came as a rush when Scout finally said, “I wuv you mama”. And then when she walked away with her baby swaddled in a fleece blanket imprinted with kitty cats. I hope she will  hold onto her baby for as long as she can. I still do.

Scout’s Baby, “Dot Dolly” pattern from Herbst’s Etsy Shop

Almost Easter

When I was a little girl, (albeit, I was never really little, but young), I absolutely loved Easter. Any holiday that gives you a reason to do arts and crafts and be rewarded with a basket full of chocolate was a-ok in my book. I loved yellow chick Peeps. And Cadbury Eggs. Who doesn’t crave the milk chocolate with fun fillings?

I remember one Easter, I was about ten or eleven, when my step-Grandmother, my step-Aunt and my twin step-Cousins came to California for a visit. The six of us took a trip to Cambria and San Simeon to visit Hearst Castle, in the pouring rain mind you. On Easter Saturday we spent the night at a run of the mill motel. My cousins and I immediately changed into our bathing suits and spent hours in the heated pool and pretended to play pool in the rec room. The next morning everyone slept in, yet the “Easter Bunny” tracked us down and managed to hide some very lovely baskets. And matching pink fluffy bunnies. My cousins and I held onto our bunnies once we got the castle. Years later I found out the my Aunt, Grandmother and mom had all fallen asleep early and forget to hide our stashes. Luckily one of them woke up early in the morning and hid our baskets among the cheap motel furniture.

It’s years later and I still love to color my eggs. I’ve always used PAAS kits, they bring out such gorgeous color on such a simple object. This was Scout’s first year at really getting into the “holiday spirit” and she thorougly enjoyed the little wire dipper that comes with the egg kit. She stomped her feet and slapped the counter when the vinegar didn’t dissolve quick enough. She tried squeezing the eggs. And then she learned she had to gently put them into each cup. And say the color she was using. Purple, pink and blue were easy. Green, not so much.

We also braved the early morning crowds and went for a visit to the Los Angeles Zoo. Every year they have arts and crafts for the kids. There’s also a long line for bunny touching. A few children with broken hearts because they can’t take the bunny with them. Others completely disinterested.

She wasn’t up for the cardboard bunny ears either. What did catch her attention were the gorillas walking around, the giraffes stretching their necks for some green vegetation in the nearby trees, and…

Yes, a bubblegum slushie.

Oh, and one picture with Daddy.

Do you see that delicious little blue and white dress with little birdies? I made that! (I know I haven’t spent much time talking about my sewing classes, as a matter of fact I am not taking them this month or next for Jem is now in football. But I have been indeed sewing and one of these days you will see some of the items I’ve completed. One of these days.)

The rest of the night I’ll be working on Scout’s Easter basket and probably sneaking a few peanut butter eggs, (I’ve traded the yellow chick Peeps for them), and some Cadbury Eggs. Of course.

Here’s wishing you a wonderful Easter.

Big Plans

Spring in Southern California has been very strange, to say the least. Some days are warm and bright and you think to yourself, Summer is going to be extremely hot if it’s like this already. Some days it’s cold, windy and rainy and you think to yourself, Summer is going to be short and sweet. But for me, well I feel like I’ve been hibernating for so long and I’m having a terrible time trying to wake up. Lately my days have been riddled with pain. And yet I still find ways to keep my creativity queue flowing.

Nights are the hardest. Usually Shawn goes to bed a few hours before me. I spend my late nights watching old Miss Marple movies. I knit. I read. I’ve spent a bit of time on the computer finding all sorts of new cute patterns, Softies books and classes to meet my idol.

When I wrap everything up and make sure to lock the doors and turn off all the lights I creep into the bedroom. I always turn the fan on, regardless of the temperatures. I lift the blankets and try to get comfortable without waking Shawn up. Sometimes I lay on my back, knowing I won’t fall asleep. But I just think. I think of all the endless possibilities that life will hold. I have a few business ideas in mind and I think of all the sketches I need to draw. I think of all the fabrics I can use. I think of the children who will hold dear these little trinkets. And then I turn onto my left side and I watch the pale orange glow of the street lights that pour into the nooks and crannies of our vertical blinds. When I get sick of looking at the distracting light I turn to my right side. I take in the cold air from the fan. Sometimes I wipe away the tears that form because of the air. And when all else fails I lay on my stomach. My fleece pillowcase against my cheek, my legs forming a 4. After a while I drift off and I stop thinking about all the things I’d like to do. Now I just dream of them.

I pour through my memory and I tell myself that I will read every letter in these books.

I promise myself I will finish a present by Easter Sunday.

I think of all the outfits that I can wear with such a pretty knitted item that someone so kindly made for me. Just for me.

I tell myself, just a few more inches. Really.

I dream of all the different patterns that I can use to display such beautiful color.

How funny that up until this very moment I felt like I was being completely unproductive. But I realize now that I haven’t. I have plans. Big plans.

An Ode To Dalton

Dalton is my everything. He is my friend. He is my family. He is my cat. He is my confidant. He is my therapist. He is my everything. It’s hard to believe that we’ve been in this fight for nine years together. From the moment I saw the little fuzzball sitting in a cold, sterile cage in the quarantine room. From the moment I wrote my name on his nameplate and announced he was mine, all mine. From the moment I brought him home and learned that he was a hunter, pigeons. sparrows. mice. rats. squirrels. grasshoppers.

Dalton is aging quickly. A few months ago he’d paw at the door, ready for his nightly journey. But slowly, he’s become an old man. He goes outside once or twice a day, but never for long. He has a hard time jumping the balcony walls. He stumbles when walking across the coffee table. He’s become perfectly content sleeping on my bed during the day. Jem’s bed in the early morning. Scout’s bed late at night. The impressions his body leaves on the bed, a bit of rumpling of the comforters.

And there’s also his physical beauty. His hair isn’t as lusterous. His haunches are thinning, though he still has a good reserve of belly. The tell tale sign is the silverness in his face. Around his eyes. Slightly around his mouth.

We have to be quiet around him. And slow.

I worry about him. But I worry more for me. Whatever would I do without his presence? Without the heaviness of his body at my feet when I sleep? Without him sitting across from me and giving me kisses from around the room?

I am trying to prepare. It is difficult. I grieve and he isn’t even gone yet. But I want him to know how much I truly appreciate every hair on his body. I want him to know how very much I love him. I’ve wondered about his past life. Where did he come from? Is his mother alive? Does she miss him? What did his brothers and sisters look like? And most of all: How did I get so lucky?

Dalton, you are everything a human and a cat should be. I ♥ you.

City Lights

Last night I took a sudden car trip with Shawn to one of his job site’s in downtown Los Angeles. While Shawn did a building inspection I sat in the van. I ate Cheetos. I ate a package of Hostess crumb donughts. I drank one Snapple Peach Tea. I drank one large Arizona tea, peach flavored. I don’t know how long I sat in the van but I brought along a good book and delved into the stories of the Medici family and Leonardo Da Vinci. I settled into the van, legs across both seats.

And then it hit me. I found myself breathing in the city. A pinkish glow to all the lights and what they reflect. Twilight settled in. Building lights burst through windows. A rush of traffic coming and going from the airport. A roar from an incoming airplane. The clink of keys from the security man walking around the perimeter of the construction site.

The air was cool and moist. Not quite winter, not quite spring. I gazed the constellations. I took in the numerous blues of the sky. And then we hit the road. Driving on the 405. Lights shading in buildings from tiny slits of windows. The whitewashed Children’s Hopsital standing so quietly. Red lights flashing, “Gentlemen’s Club”. Three baseball fields filled with Little Leaguer’s. A woman driving past in a burgundy Corvette, her cotton candy like hair wisping the night breeze.The white stream of lights coming over the mountain from another freeway. The Getty Musuem lights shining in the mountains to lead the tram to the neatly paved parking lots. In the dark night I saw three flag poles standing high. What residence owned them, I could not say. But there on the high mountain stood the American flag. To the left of it stood the California state flag. I could not see the third flag as it flapped through the wind.

I just know that it’s been a long time since I’ve seen the city at night. Too long. I’ve almost forgotten the color of the sky, I think it looked a lot like this: