Tag / crochet

by Aleisha Hendry

The heart of the matter

I have old lady knees. Also old lady eyes. I do old lady-type crafts and have old lady habits.

So it shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise that my heart isn’t all that spry.

I’ve been dragging my old lady ass to the doctor on and off for the last few years to refill prescriptions and get the occasional testing of the lady parts. They started monitoring my blood pressure as one time it read as a bit high, so they put a note in my file to check it whenever I came it.

With my doctor on mat leave, it fell to a nurse practioner and the walk-in doc to finally send me for an ECG and order me to start walking and cut out salt and drop some weight otherwise I’d be going on meds.

OK, fine. I started walking for 30 minutes five times a week, I reduced my salt intake, and since I was already working on losing weight to take the pressure off the aforementioned old lady knees, I just kept going with it.

I figured, I’ve done all the things a medical professional said I should do, it should go down right? Of course it will. I’m 36, this shouldn’t even be an issue.

Oh, except it is.

The ECG came back with a regular heart rhythm (yay) but a dialted left chamber (uh, what?).

See, only the bottom (diastolic) number was high, the top (systolic) number was usually within a normal range.

Again, uh, what?

How does that even work?

Apparently it’s not super common, and it has a big name (dialted cardiomyopathy), is more common in men, and can be caused by obesity, alcoholism, thyroid disease, diabetes, and doing an excessive amount of cocaine.

I really need to cut back on the *cocaine.

So since the doctor doesn’t know what is causing this condition for me, we’re playing the elimination game to try and find out.

I’m switching my birth control from the pill that has two hormones to an IUD that only has one. I’m taking off weight for both my knees and my heart now (down 15 pounds, yay me), I’m still going for walks and cutting back on the salt. I’ve also been put on water pills to try and lower my blood pressure in the meantime. Day one on those had me peeing every 45 minutes… I lost two pounds just from peeing.

I went for another ECG and blood work yesterday, have my IUD appointment next month, and will likely have a follow-up regarding the testing at some point.

Can I just say that this is kinda bullshit?

I’m 36, I’m not even at the mid-life crisis point of my existence…like what the actual fuck nonsense is this?!?

Anyway…

I’m gonna go back to my old lady crocheting because I’m pretty sure that’s one of the only things keeping me chill at this point.

To end this post on a high note, look at this super cute bunny stuffie I got myself for Easter instead of a chocolate bunny:

-A.

*This is totally a joke, I don’t do cocaine. Please don’t think I’m on cocaine.

by Aleisha Hendry

Back at it

It’s been far too long since I wrote anything, and I’m clearly overdue for something resembling an update.

The last several months have been trying. I was diagnosed with osteoarthritis in both of my knees, which goes a long way in explaining why they have hurt so fucking much over the last couple years. It was going to happen eventually, what with both my mother and grandmother having it, but a lifetime of random knee injuries (thank you softball, cross country skiing, and roller derby) and my weight gain over the years meant it just happend a lot earlier than expected.

Since knee replacements only last about 10 years, and you can only do so many of them before you run out of leg bone, and I’m only 36, surgery is an absolute last resort. I’m going to physio when I’m actually in town (with exercises to do at home and out in the field) and I’m working on taking some weight off to take the pressure off the knee joints. I’d like to not hear that gross bone-on-bone grinding sound if at all possible.

I also have to start moving more. I stopped going to the gym because of the pain, but apparently I need to keep moving even though it hurts to do so… total catch-22 over here.

So that’s me health-wise. Not great, but working at doing better.

I’m marking my one-year anniversary with my new career as an oilfield medic, and it’s been a pretty great year if I’m being honest. Working with people that actually respect you and care about your wellbeing is weird, but also kinda nice? I actually got a mini-lecture from a coworker about not letting people know I was OK when I got back from the field on Monday, because they were worried when no one had heard from me.

I had a whopping TWO incidents on site, and both times the guy just needed a band-aid. So the rest of my time was spent devouring books, watching Netflix, and crocheting the shit out of everything.

I set a New Year’s goal for myself last year to master the Magic Ring for crochet. It took forever, but looking at the things I’ve made this year, I think I definitely succeeded. Take a look here to see my first attempt at amigurumi and here to see how far I’ve come over the year. I’m pretty impressed with myself.

I’ve even managed to sell a few things, so maybe that should be the goal for 2019? Get myself set up with a Facebook page, get a good supply of stock together and try to make some bank on this little hobby. Couldn’t hurt, right?

I’ve already started to turn the spare room into the offical Craft Room so I have a specific place to crochet and write, as I’m doing now. When I’m actualy at home, I intend to spend at least an hour in here doing something creative, whatever that may be.

So yeah, that’s it for now. I’m planning to get back into my weekly rants again, but we’ll see how that goes. Keep an eye out if you’re of a mind.

-A.

by Aleisha Hendry

Getting (more) crafty in 2018

It’s a brand new year. A new chapter in the book of life, a blank slate on which we can paint anything. Anything is possible at the start of a new calendar!

Or some bullshit like that.

Why we all feel the need to better ourselves in January I don’t even know. Perhaps it’s because we tend to feel like sloths after all that Christmas food and a total lack of exercise—the holidays are over, now we can get back on track!

You could make that argument after Thanksgiving as well, but no one ever seems to.

I don’t really believe in making resolutions about diets and exercise, since I feel that’s something that ought to be done year round. Rather, I’m going to set a goal for myself that I know I can actually achieve and won’t give up on in February.

I want to master the crochet Magic Ring. I’ve gotten the whole crocheting flat things down pretty well—washcloths, hand towels, scarfs, hats, etc. Now I’d like to try and make more 3D stuff, so I’m looking at amigurumi.

Wikipedia tells me amigurumi is the Japanese art of knitting or crocheting small, stuffed yarn creatures. I like small creatures, so I think this will be fun.

However, it takes some practice. Crocheting in the round isn’t something I’ve done a lot of, so I need to get the starter magic ring down, as pretty much all amigurumi patterns start with that.

This was my first attempt, which isn’t too terrible.

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I had no stuffing to fill it with, so it’ll probably just wind up being a toy for the cats.

So that’s my crafty goal for 2018. I plan to have a whole horde of little yarn creatures by the end of the year.

Happy New Year, folks.

-A.