On Tuesday I toddled off in the biting cold sleet for the operation on my arm. After a brief wait, the same cheerful surgeon came in to prep me beforehand. He drew on my arm with his ballpoint, marking the amount that would be removed. It was about twice more than I expected. I feebly tried to bargain with him, but his reply “You don’t want to come back, do you” ended the discussion. Then he escorted me to the theatre, where I got comfortable on the operating table while they attached a padded tray for my arm. Then the anaesthetic was injected, and there was a short wait for it to take effect. It’s possible the wait wasn’t long enough, for when they commenced, and this is where it was different from last time, for it hurt. As the surgeon had said, “let me know if it’s painful”, I did. Then there was another jab in my arm to inject more anaesthetic. After that, they started again, and there was no sensation, apart from the stitches, which were less painful than the anaesthetic injections. As before I kept my eyes shut – some things I don’t need to see – and after the stitches I could feel the surgeon stretching and manipulating the skin around the incision. I had no idea what he was doing. All was revealed a few days later when I took the bandage off. He’d been pulling the edges together in order to tape it shut.
A Good Reason to Stay In
Thankfully, getting another piece out of my arm hasn’t slowed me down. But the weather has been either raining, sleeting or cold, so I haven’t been out much. On Wednesday morning I drove through snow to a bell practice in Thurso. By evening, after a day of blizzardy showers and temperatures near freezing, I decided it was too inclement to drive back to Thurso for orchestra rehearsal. While a rehearsal would have been better, I practiced at home instead. For the past week, I’ve been practicing nearly twice a day, and it has helped a lot. The fingering is better and the notes more secure.
Sunday afternoon
The first concert of two was Saturday afternoon in Wick. There was a short practice in the morning, to quickly run through any tricky bits and get used to the sound of the room. I was glad of this, as there were a few bars that I had to play on my own. All the practice, both at home and at orchestra rehearsals, paid off, as I wasn’t overwrought when the time came. It wasn’t great – not by any means – but it wasn’t a disaster. We get to do it all again on Wednesday night in Thurso.
Snow
Remember last week when I said the chart for the sleeve band didn’t need to be changed? What was I thinking? I either misremembered or misinterpreted what I’d been told, because when the band on the second sleeve was finished, it did not mirror the first. So I ripped it out and knit it again – it was only 11 rows. The sleeve is about halfway complete now, and as always it’ll get quicker as the sleeve narrows.
It was a slightly busier week this week, for preparations for Christmas events are starting to populate the diary. Two additional handbell meetings have been scheduled, and the first took place Wednesday morning, when we practiced Christmas carols. We’ve been booked to play at nursing homes and befrienders’ groups scattered around Caithness, plus a booking for a ‘team building’ exercise. There’s also a carol service just before Christmas, which we’ll do jointly with the Caithness Brass Band. We’re sounding pretty good, and it’s still just November.
Late Roses
On Tuesday, the hospital phoned with a choice of appointments for the next excision. The soonest choice was the following Tuesday, or later in that week. I chose the Tuesday (tomorrow)so that it would be done and healed by Christmas. Later in the day, they phoned again. My first thought was that they had to cancel, but instead they had received a cancellation and were offering me that slot. However, I had to decline, as it was for the next day when I had extra bell practice. Tomorrow is soon enough.
Later in the week, I ventured into the kitchen to bake a cake. A few weeks previously, I’d impulse-bought a punnet of three persimmons. Not knowing what to do with them, I found a recipe online for persimmon cake. When I finally came to make it, the first hurdle was to solve my lack of baking powder. The second was to figure out the right size of pan, as the recipe specified a size I don’t own. The solution to the first was sodium bicarb and an acid. For the second, some maths and sideways thinking – I made two smaller ones instead. The sodium bicarb was an excellent substitute, and one of the cakes is in the freezer for later consumption.
Leap in the Dark
As it’s been an uneventful week, I’ve surfed the internet for interesting content. On this day in 1558, Elizabeth I ascended to the throne of England upon the death of her half-sister Mary. Elizabeth was 25 and reigned until her death in 1603 at the age of 70. One of her first actions was to re-establish and consolidate the English Protestant church, which had suffered under Mary’s Catholic reign.
In 1970 – and this is significant to every computer user – Douglas Engelbart received a patent for the computer mouse. As well as the ubiquitous mouse, Engelbart pioneered many other user interfaces for computers, such as hypertext, networked computers, and graphical interfaces, thereby making computers more accessible.
St Fergus’ through the trees
The cuff on the gansey has been finished and cast off. The simple band around the bicep breaks up the acres of plain knitting without being overpowering. The stitches for the second sleeve have been picked up and five rows knit. The pattern band, when I get to it, should mirror the first. Gordon found that nothing needs to be done to the pattern to accomplish this. It sounds counter-intuitive, but because the pattern is rotated 180°, it stays the same. Progress on a gansey rarely seems speedy, but after the last one, this one seems to be rapidly nearing completion.
This week has been a week much like the last, without the disquietude of a phone call from the consultant. An appointment to see her in Inverness arrived on Saturday, to take place a week before Christmas. I’ll need to leave bright and early to get there by mid-morning. In the meantime, my arm should be nearly normal by then; the stitches in the incision in my arm have fulfilled their purpose and fallen out, leaving a red patch which is fading day by day.
Cling-on
Early in the week, a delivery from Amazon brought an inexpensive whetstone. I can now sharpen the kitchen knives properly, but more importantly, the reed-scraping knife too. I spent at least an hour sharpening one kitchen knife and then the reed knife. The kitchen knife is now acceptably sharp, and I’m not sure about the reed knife. I’m at that stage of scraping reeds where I don’t know if what I’m doing is correct or not, and if it even matters.
After splitting another reed, I’ve had a minor success in achieving a reed that makes a sound. Then I compared it to the oboe reeds I already have, and was dismayed to find that they were 7mm wide, and the new cane is 9mm! I don’t know for sure, but this may be akin to using too large a knitting needle – the results won’t be satisfactory. I’ve queried this with the supplier and await their reply.
Looking downriver
I’ve been practicing the oboe more too, after being quite lazy about it for quite some months. The orchestra has two concerts in a couple of weeks, and I’d like to be able to play at least a few of the notes. Many get left out at rehearsals because I’m just not fast enough to play them. Practice practice practice . . .
Foggy Day
Another activity that’s fallen by the board, particularly when I was concentrating on sewing in the late summer, has been going out for regular walks. I started to rectify that this week. It’s been good to get out with the camera again. A couple of days were drizzly and foggy, one partly sunny, but all were unseasonably warm. The weather held for the Bonfire Night fireworks on Saturday, which I again enjoyed from the top floor window. There wasn’t much wind, either, so having the window wide open to take photos did not send arctic blasts through the house.
As you can see from the photo of the gansey, I decided to add a simple band around the bicep, just where the gusset ends. It’s a simple decoration of a single purl stitch progressing one stitch to the left for five rows, a purl row ‘vein’, and finally a purl stitch moving towards the right for five rows. There are five plain stitches between the purls. It’s so uncomplicated that it doesn’t need charting. Who knows, maybe next week I’ll be knitting the cuff!
I received my prognosis last week, following the recent op/biopsy. The consultant phoned and said she was completely wrongfooted by the results. She had not expected any cancerous cells to be present, yet there were. But, she went on to say, it was a ‘melanoma in situ’, meaning that it was only present in the upper layers of the skin and had not spread. While the prognosis is ‘excellent’, I’ll have two further appointments. One will be for another op where a 5mm margin around the previous incision will be removed. The second will be to see the consultant again in Inverness, when she’ll give me a complete inspection.
While I hadn’t expected this, I can’t say I’m surprised. In fact, I’ve been waiting about 50 years for skin changes to appear. While I’m not one for sunbathing, for a few summers way back when I was a lifeguard, where being in the sun is part of the job. That, and being very fair-skinned, meant it was just a waiting game. Still, having mortality suddenly slapped in your face is unsettling, and it took a few hours to regain balance.
Near sunset
The museum is closed for the winter now. I continue to go in Mondays to edit photos and chart ganseys, but my Thursday morning is free. I’ve decided to use the time to learn how to make oboe reeds. The tools in the beginner’s kit I’d bought a few years ago are simple, but some are specialised. There’s a special knife used to scrape the cane, and there was also a square of ‘fishskin’, which is used to seal the reed. A doubled piece of cane is bound with thread to a metal piece called the staple, which fits into the end of the oboe. This binding needs to be airtight. However, there are substitutes for the blade and skin. Some people use x-acto knives or knives with snap-off blades. For the skin, cling film or plumber’s tape are sometimes substituted. Nail varnish/polish is also used for this purpose. As the book says, it doesn’t really matter how you get there, it’s the results that count.
Backyard fungus
It’s not a difficult process, but needs to be done just so for the reed to work. The first attempt was a total disaster. One half of the cane was satisfactory after binding, but the other half split in two places. The second and third attempts are better, and I’m working on them. It will probably take many tries to achieve a reed that plays as it should.
With the gansey, it took three attempts to get the right number of stitches around the armhole. Usually, I count the rows on one side and compare it to the number of stitches needed. So, 80 rows and 64 stitches would give a rough ratio of three stitches to every four rows. However, being mathematically challenged, my counting was off and it took two further tries. When that was done, I sped off down the ski slope of the sleeve, and have nearly three inches completed. The sleeves on the original are plain, and I am debating whether to add a pattern band above the elbow, if only to reduce the boredom of constant stockinette.
On Tuesday I toddled off in the biting cold sleet for the operation on my arm. After a brief wait, the same cheerful surgeon came in to prep me beforehand. He drew on my arm with his ballpoint, marking the amount that would be removed. It was about twice more than I expected. I feebly tried to bargain with him, but his reply “You don’t want to come back, do you” ended the discussion. Then he escorted me to the theatre, where I got comfortable on the operating table while they attached a padded tray for my arm. Then the anaesthetic was injected, and there was a short wait for it to take effect. It’s possible the wait wasn’t long enough, for when they commenced, and this is where it was different from last time, for it hurt. As the surgeon had said, “let me know if it’s painful”, I did. Then there was another jab in my arm to inject more anaesthetic. After that, they started again, and there was no sensation, apart from the stitches, which were less painful than the anaesthetic injections. As before I kept my eyes shut – some things I don’t need to see – and after the stitches I could feel the surgeon stretching and manipulating the skin around the incision. I had no idea what he was doing. All was revealed a few days later when I took the bandage off. He’d been pulling the edges together in order to tape it shut.
