I am still here, still knitting, and just got a clean CT scan report — no evidence of cancer!

I finished a sweater and am working on another one. Will post more soon.

As usual, the cat is sleeping on my forearms as I type, his head bobbing up and down.

The cat is completely out of food and is getting all lovey, trying to remind me to feed him. He ate last night, and he has enough fat (so says the vet) to live on for at least two more months hours until I can get to the store. In fact, he is supposed to be on a diet.

And I’m taking my little bichon in this morning for a trim. He probably suspects something because I brushed him out yesterday, and that always precedes a trip to the groomer’s.

Right now my dog is dozing in his bed beside my computer. When my grown son clomped down the stairs this morning, the dog barked like it was an intruder, but he never budged from his bed. Some watch dog he is! My son said the barked message was, “Whatever you do to her, do it quietly; you’re disturbing my sleep.”

I have been knitting a side-to-side sweater. Unfortunately, my gauge tightened during the knitting, which bodes poorly for a cardigan that buttons together in front. One edge was much longer than the other until I blocked the daylights out of it and got them more even.

Sweater partially done, before blocking

Then I started on the sleeves, and the sleeve hem circumference was huge – at least 2” too large for my wrist. So I frogged it and am now knitting a smaller size sleeve.

Unfortunately, there were so few stitches on the cable that I had to readjust the knitting every four stitches. The knitting was going unbearably slow.

So I frogged it again and am now knitting the sleeves flat. I have a sewing background and don’t mind seams, so knitting the sleeves flat (because the knitting is faster in this case) makes sense to me.

I also finished a Just Enough Ruffles scarf for my daughter.

Just Enough Ruffles Scarf

And after the sweater is done, I’ll pick up this project again, Birthday Cowl. It should be finished in time for spring, when I won’t need to wear it anymore.

Well, the color is off, but you can see the nice pattern, at least.

Well, I have been knitting up a storm—all small items, mind you, suitable for someone with a chemo-induced short attention span. I don’t have the persistence for socks or longer projects. Still, these following items are satisfying and good efforts for someone who lives near the Rockies where it can get very chilly.

I don’t have nearly as much hair as I had, but I think I have knitted myself enough hats now so have been concentrating on scarves unless a hat pattern really calls to me. My twelve rounds of chemo—I finished last week, hurray!!!!—caused my hair not to fall out in clumps, but to stop growing and to fall out in strands and become very thin. I don’t know how guys do it with short hair. I have to wear a *very becoming haha* hat at night to stay warm.

Anyway, let me show you some photos of some of my fo’s during the past couple of months. At the urging of my knitting group, I have begun a side-to-side cardigan, but that won’t be done—or even photographable—for many moons, so we’ll ignore it for the moment. I only have a few rows done right now.

Not in any particular order:

Will’s & Lindsay’s hats (nephew & niece):

Blue Shape It Scarf, using some lovely Interlacements yarn that a girlfriend gave me when I was diagnosed with stage IV cancer. I added another denim-colored yarn to it to achieve gauge. This is my favorite scarf because of the color and because of the care of my friend Linda. It is like being wrapped in her love and kindness.

Lace scarf, in progress, but I am loving the result with the Dream in Color Yarn in color Some Summer Sky.

Magic Scarf, which I love, although I’m having trouble keeping it in place on my shoulder. I need to devise a small clip to attach it to my clothing underneath. 

Taos hat, which I also love because it doesn’t smash my hair.

It’s from the same Crystal Palace yarn as Taos scarf, which is nearing doneness but isn’t there yet. 

I have also knit a Just Enough Ruffles scarf  in Dream in Color, color Giant Peach for my daughter, but she is sick and won’t visit me until she is better, due to my not being allowed to be around sick people in my weakened and pathetic condition. I will post a photo of the scarf when she visits.

That’s enough for now. The neuropathy in my fingers has taken some joy out of knitting because I can’t feel the needles and yarn very well. But I plow ahead, hoping for a miracle when my fingers will once again recognize the tactile joy of soft, flowing yarn and the accompanying smoothness of bamboo moving at a rhythmic and satisfying clip.

In the meantime, I have managed to write this post while my adorable cat sleeps practically on the keyboard. When he moves a bit, he tends to delete much of what I’ve written, or perhaps a photo or two, so it has been an effort in persistence to get this written and posted in any legible form.

After I was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer in June, I had no desire to knit. Why, with such a grim prognosis, would I sit inside when I could be spending every moment outside walking, soaking up the fresh air, sitting among the patio flowers?

[fo: Shape It Scarf. Yarn is Dream in Color Classy; color is Ruby River. I love this scarf and am working on another one and have plans for a third.]

Yes, I could be knitting at the same time as I sit outdoors, but then I’m watching the needles and not the outdoors. (Okay, I’m not as proficient a knitter as many of you, especially when I’m knitting with two or three strands of yarn.)

[fo: Fountain Hat (pattern revised so it's not so droopy in back). Yarn is Araucania Nature Wool Multy; color is 407. I loved knitting with this yarn.]

Also, I felt pretty awful. At first I was recovering from surgery where almost half my right lung was removed to take out the colon cancer metastases there. After a recovery period, I went right into six months of chemo – 12 rounds, one every two weeks – and it has been grueling. At first I felt too sick to do anything.

[fo: Easy Roll Brim Hat. Two yarns held together, one a gift of cashmere, the other Dream in Color Classy; color is Some Summer Sky. This is my favorite hat for a walk on a cold day.]

Then my hair started wafting to the floor. It didn’t leave all at once like some cancer patients. I still have enough of my hair after nine rounds of colon cancer chemo so people don’t notice.

[fo: Easy Roll Brim Hat with a button I couldn't resist. Yarn is Cascade 220 Superwash; color 1909.]

But my head gets chilly with my much thinner hair, so I finally began to knit again — hats. A friend knitted two hats for me. I bought a soft cotton knit night hat I love from Soft Hats because my head gets cold at night too. After receiving and knitting a few hats, I now have enough and am starting on scarves.

  
[fo: Slouch hat; my favorite for wearing around the house. Yarn is Crystal Palace Yarns Cotton Chenille Solid; color is Persian Turquoise. It's a very soft hat and the yarn did not worm as I knit.]

My attention span is too short now to attend to the larger knitting projects I was working on. I have lots of small knitting projects in various stages, and I move from one to another. Then I go up to my daughter’s old room, which is now my art studio, and I work on my art projects there.

[fo: Easy Roll Brim Hat. Yarn is Cascade 220 Paints / Hand Dyed; color is 9867. I held two strands of this yarn together to make a warm hat. I love this combination of pink and gray. This is one of my favorite hats.]

Then I may meditate…or take the dog for a walk…or take a nap…or do some Internet research on colon cancer treatments…or read in front of the fireplace and warm my chilly feet. (Yes, sometimes they get cold even with my worsted knitted wool socks on; the joys of chemo.)

 

I have also started a new colon cancer website if you know anyone who could benefit from another perspective: http://centerofthecircle.com/.

Another late night post – can’t sleep. I’ve had five rounds of chemo now, every other week. Seven more rounds to go; I should finish in January 09.

The two 1cm nodules in my right lung have shrunk to almost normal, and there are no new spots or nodules.

The chemo is taking its cumulative toll on me, but it’s better than the alternative.

I am slowly knitting a chemo cap but don’t have the attention span I did pre-chemo, so I take the project up and put it down a lot.

Color draws me insistently, though, and I have returned to my poor attempts at acrylic painting. However, I’ve stopped obsessing about producing “good art.”  I’m creating, and I don’t care if it’s good or bad — no time to worry about that. It’s all self-expression, and I can toss the piece or paint over it if it’s bad. I love the colors, and that’s what is helping me right now.

And making peace with my entire process.

It’s almost midnight. Tomorrow morning I am going to the hospital to have a port inserted into my upper chest. Chemo will be dispensed into my body through the port rather than through veins in my arms.

I can’t sleep. I’m a little concerned about the procedure, of course, but it’s pretty routine. It’s one more step toward chemo, which will begin one week after the port is inserted.

But it’s still sobering to have this done. It’s to save my life. Everything is to save my life now.

I imagine the cancer cells within me that have been cut off at their source (the colon) and cut off at their chosen metastatic site (the lower right lobe of my lung). I picture them roaming around, confused, an illness without a home.

I am depending on chemo to blast them out of the water, to obliterate them to smithereens, to destroy every last vestige of them, and to clear them from my body . . . cleanly and thoroughly, never to return.

And in all of this drama, I will be working and praying for my survival and finding peace in that work and in that prayer. I am working to transform my thoughts from sadness to trust and faith.

But we women are strong. I will find my way with God, family, and friends.

I actually began knitting again yesterday. I am making a slouchy chemo cap out of Crystal Palace cotton chenille, and I’m quite sure it will be too small. So I will have to begin again, and I will use finer yarn this time so the stitches are smaller and less perceptible to sensitive skin. And I’ll use a different pattern.

I have a goal this week, the week before chemo.  I have been walking farther and farther lately, and this week I’d like to get on my bicycle and take a ride. There’s nothing like feeling the air on your face and the wheels rolling beneath you. I want to do that before chemo begins.

The weather has been hot, but late in the day the wind has been picking up and rustling all the leaves and playing with the brim of my hat, trying to blow it away. It is the best weather for being outside and playing and breathing and enjoying every moment.

I’m three weeks past my lung surgery now, in which my right lower lobe was removed. I apparently have about a 55% five-year survival rate from this cancer.

I plan to live.

In the meantime, I eat healthy foods and take walks, even a little mild hiking. And for the first time in my adult life, I am trying to gain weight.

It’s not as easy as it sounds. Eating between meals might be enticing if you are yearning for a particular food. But when you have to eat between meals, and it has to be a high calorie food, well, that can make you not even want to look at food at all.

I lost eleven pounds after surgery and have managed to gain one pound back so far. Chemo starts in two or three weeks, and I’d like to have a more normal weight going into that. So we’ll see how it goes.

I haven’t picked up the knitting needles since my diagnosis on June 24th. The surgical scar is across my upper back, and to get to my lung, the surgeon pulled aside the same muscles I use for knitting. Since those muscles are still hurting some, I haven’t had the desire to knit.

Hopefully, that will change soon.

We all go through low times. I am going through one now.

I haven’t posted in a couple of weeks because I’ve been undergoing some tests in connection with the stage 1 colon cancer I was first diagnosed with in October 2005. At that time I had surgery, and all tests showed I was clear.

But now I have three nodules in my right lung, and the surgeon and radiologists agree that they are metastases. On Monday morning, the surgeon will remove almost half of my right lung. I will be in the hospital for a week, recuperate for six weeks, and then begin chemo.

I have had to break this news to my family and friends and have had, oh, a few meltdowns along the way. Right now I’m trying to allow hope to come forth. Grief . . . hope . . . everything in its own time.

I am so busy trying to get all my errands done before I enter the hospital. And I will be officiating at a wedding this weekend, which I want to enjoy and celebrate! So I am preparing for that.

We are also in the middle of a family room remodel, so my house is torn apart, with family room furniture and stuff piled in the living room and in other rooms. I’m trying to figure out how to get carpeting down quickly and the house back to normal so I’ll have a place to lie down when I get home from the hospital.

Precious little knitting is getting done, that’s for sure. And this, unfortunately, is why.

Here is my progress on the Surplice Lace Top.  The back is completed; this is the front. I am using different lace knitting than the pattern calls for.

I’ve been splitting my needle time between this and the alb. Today I almost completed the alb. I need to trim the inside seams and then hem it.

After it’s hemmed, I’ll wear it for a photo. A friend is going to mark the hem for me soon.

I also began a washcloth because I wanted to try a ball of cotton yarn I bought, Nashua Cilantro Colors. The yarn is 70% cotton and 30% polyester and is stretchy. At $9.25 for 136 yards, it’s a pricey washcloth! But 100% cotton is too hard on my forearms, so it’s either stretchy cotton or no cotton for me. I’m using size 6 needles, and the colorway is Blue Mix.

Also, I need a mindless knitting project for when I go crazy with lace knitting or sewing. I can just pick up this washcloth and knit a couple of rows and leave it. I used to knit socks for this purpose, but I’d get too involved in the socks and never finish the other projects.

I don’t actually use washcloths in the shower. I use them to wipe up the bathroom sink areas when they need it. At any rate, this washcloth is certainly giving me a nice big swatch of the Nashua yarn.

First, a garden photo of the lowly but stunning petunia after a rain:

Boy, I’ve had a hard time getting any knitting done recently. I did finish the back of the Surplice Lace Top and am now working my way up the front.

Cliff and I took three days off to move our daughter into her new apartment and help her deep clean her old one. And I’ve been out shopping for cabinets for our family room, which is currently gutted.

Cabinet shopping definitely ranks near the bottom on my list of favorite things to do with my time. Even the cheapest junky cabinets are expensive, and I’m blown away by the prices of mid-level cabinets.

We can’t walk in our living room because everything from the family room has been moved there in addition to the living room furniture.

When I have spare time, I work on the alb, which is a sewing project and not nearly as satisfying to me as knitting. I finally got the side seams sewn up—a major step because the entire garment comes together then.

And I tried the garment on and discovered that the trim I had chosen for the sleeves looks nice enough close up:

but from farther away it looks like rickrack:

Squint and you’ll see it. Ack!

This will not do. Yesterday I carefully took the trim off, having to remove not only the stitching but also a row of basting for each stripe, plus part of the sleeve seam. Aargh.

So I had to shop for another kind of trim yesterday, and also two buttons to hide the Velcro that I’ll be using to keep the alb in place in front. I visited four stores with fabric trims and wasn’t terribly happy with what they had but finally settled on one:

I also had another PET/CT scan last week as part of my regular cancer check-up. I’ll have my bloodwork done next week and will learn all the results the week after that, when I see my oncologist.

And so I remind myself to stay in the moment.

I don’t sew much anymore but I’m sewing an alb, which is a long but simple ministerial garment. I will be officiating at a wedding that will not be held in a church, and I want a simple garment to wear without making a substantial purchase.

So, after much looking, I found a jacket pattern that will work. I’m modifying it like crazy and extending it full-length.

The collar has been the most difficult. Who decided that clergy should wear mandarin collars anyway?

Here’s the upper front so far—no sleeves yet.

And a close-up of the fabric, which is an easy-care, opaque gabardine:

I’ll put white trim on the sleeves and possibly up at the neck as well and will wear the alb with a white cord belt.

Onward to knitting: here is the back of my Surplice Lace Top right now. I’m about to bind off the right shoulder.

As I write, a carpenter is doing demo work on our family room. The cat is confined to my daughter’s room upstairs so he doesn’t escape the house. Jesse the dog is in a long “stay” just outside of the family room, which he is happy with because he can intermittently doze and watch the workman.

He loves people, he loves activity, and he loves the family room. He does have a concerned expression, though, about the changes to his room. Wait until they start busting out the brickwork.

First, here are the flowers I received for Mother’s Day. I don’t normally photograph the flowers my family brings me, but this simple bouquet was stunning.

As for knitting, I’m absolutely over the moon. As I have been reknitting the Surplice Lace Top, my concern has grown as I realized that I will run out of yarn before I even get to the sleeves. The pattern says I should have enough, but I substituted a different lace pattern, and apparently the lace I substituted eats up more yarn.

So I began calling yarn sources and shops all over the US to try to find more yarn in the same dye lot. I bought the original Rowan Calmer at Commuknity in San Jose, California, back in August of 2007, so I was pretty sure it would be difficult to find more.

I also went on Ravelry and called stores which had sold that dye lot in the past, but they had sold out long ago and had different dye lots now. I called the big online yarn sellers and some of the small ones. Struck out every time.

(Before I began the project, I had found one kind person on Ravelry who was willing to sell me her ball of yarn, and I thought then that I would have enough yarn for this project.)

Anyhow, I finally gave up and began calling my local yarn shops here in the Denver area. I figured that even though they wouldn’t have my dye lot, I could see how close a match I could get by holding my yarn side by side with the store yarn and visually matching the color.

Alas, I couldn’t even find a store that carried Rowan Calmer. I’m sure there must be a Denver store that carries it, but it wasn’t one of the shops I called. I began to despair of finding a reasonable match.

Finally I called String, a nearby yarn shop. I had never seen Rowan Calmer there, but I was pretty much out of options and hoped they might at least have a suggestion or two for me (besides “buy more yarn next time,” which I’d already figured out).

The staffer checked inventory and said they had three balls listed in my color number in their storage and she would try to find them for me.

I drove over, and sitting on the counter were the three balls. I held them to my knitting. The lighting was odd—did they match well enough or didn’t they? I looked more closely. Lo and behold, they were the same dye lot number as my yarn! And yes, it was a perfect match.

I never bought yarn so fast and so joyfully. I went home and immediately ripped out part of my knitting again and added two more repeats of the lace pattern to lengthen the top.

Here is the progress of my reknitting of the back so far, along with the wonderful balls of yarn I now have to complete the top:

 
Rowan Calmer, color 476 coral

How many times can you see this photo of the same stretch of knitting and not think I’m just recycling pictures? Rest assured that I have reknitted this section each time. Aargh.

Actually, I’m about 4″ further than the photo shows; I’m now decreasing for the armholes and knitting in relaxed mode again—in fact, I’m noticeably Calmer.   (sorry, couldn’t resist)

 
Knitting Arts in Saratoga, California, is closing its doors.

  photo property of Knitting Arts

Darn. I got pretty far with the Surplice Lace Top, up to casting off for the armholes.

Then I laid it out and measured it, and I had my daughter hold it up to my back (since I’m currently knitting the back half).

Two inches too narrow. Aargh.

It looked plenty wide to me as I knit it. And in a normal sweater I might have gone for the negative ease, although 4” of negative ease (back and front combined) is an awful lot. But this sweater front is a surplice design with already a somewhat low front. I didn’t want to make the top tight and uber-risqué as well.

I began to have doubts about the fit when my knitting of the back yoke seemed to be yielding many beautiful tidy little stitches. Those tidy little stitches were my warning, as I had based my calculations on a looser gauge.

Rowan Calmer is a tricky yarn. I had swatched it, but it’s very stretchy and hard to figure. As I knit the top, I became more comfortable with the yarn and found my groove. And behold, the groove reaped smaller stitches.

It was tempting, so tempting, to knit on. But I remembered the many warnings I had read about knitting entire garments with faulty gauge, expecting some magic to happen and the garment to ultimately fit. It doesn’t.

If I’d tried to block the finished garment wider, it would have shortened, and I didn’t want a cropped top. At 5’8”, I need all the length I can get. (I’m knitting from my stash, and unfortunately I don’t have enough yarn to add much length to this top.)

So with a gulp, I hauled out the swift and ball winder and got busy undoing my work.

Fortunately, both my kids were here working at the kitchen table. Since I feed the yarn through our ceiling kitchen lighting fixture and over to the counter, the sweater being frogged was in the midst of my son’s laptop and my daughter’s artwork. In fact, I anchored the knitting under my son’s computer so the stitches would unravel more smoothly.

And my kids helpfully began singing Weezer’s “Sweater Song” to me:

If you want to destroy my sweater
Pull this thread as I walk away
Watch me unravel I’ll soon be naked
Lying on the floor, lying on the floor
I’ve come undone

Then my son thoughtfully regarded the stitches disappearing before his eyes. And he mused aloud in the highly dramatic tone of a political speech:

“This unraveling sweater is like our dreams. We build these crazy patterns and complex designs . . . only to find that it’s All Too Small. And then we have to go back and unravel . . . and create a new dream . . . one that’s greater . . . one that fits us.”

By the time my kids were done with me, I was remarkably cheered up. And now I have begun again, building my new dream . . . one that fits me.

I thought I had left crochet in the past forever . . . until I saw this photo from Vogue.

The free pattern is here. If anything can get me to pick up a crochet hook again, it will be this hat.

I think that many crocheted items are beautiful, especially when made from more contemporary patterns. It’s just that I crocheted for years (just basic things) and always wanted to knit but felt that knitting was beyond me. Even though my grandmother had taught me to knit when I was a child, knitting still seemed too hard and I didn’t pick it up again until recently.

Now that I knit, I think that crochet is hard and have sort of forgotten how to do much more than single crochet. But this hat is adorable, and the pattern even has three different sizes. And it would be so handy for the roasting Denver sun. Hmm.