For Poppy ...

JB Hi-Fi is having a sale and was selling the DVDs of Miniscule for a ridiculously small amount so I have bought the first and second series (three DVDs per season) for about $5.50 each for Poppy.  She usually comes running when she hears the music.  Parsifal is not as rapt in it but sometimes climbs behind the TV to see if he can catch the insects.


I have almost finished spinning braid 4 of the Jewel BFL+silk which D3 gave me for my birthday.  It is taking ages because it is so soft and it spins so fine although it fulls when it is skeined and washed.  I will have five skeins when I have finished spinning and am not sure what to do with it   -  a shawl of some sort because the colours are very overlapping.  And yesterday I finally bit the bullet and undid the vest thingy which I knitted from the 'Storm' fibre which I bought from the mob over the Tasman  and which gave me so much grief when I was spinning it.  I have just over a half kilo but it is very thick; maybe a proper vest?


Christmas was good.  We had a sausage sizzle and chocolate mousse which is something which my lactose intolerant family are able to cope with.  D3 is also gluten intolerant and GB1 is about to start a trial of no gluten.  It makes them all a bit difficult to cater for and D3 brought her own sausages  -  gluten-free Cumberland sausages; the rest of us ate ordinary Cumberlands.


Himself gave the babies a couple of toy mice and Parsifal immediately picked up one of them and tried to post it into his ball box  -  a sure sign that he thought that it was a keeper  -  bless his little black heart.  They insist on their walk in the passage every morning, in their harnesses, and then put themselves to bed.  They are getting very good about having their harnesses put on so if there is a fire I will be able to quickly tether then into the kitty carriage and take them down the fire escape.

... who cannot see.

Yesterday the COTA volunteers were taken on a Grand Tour of our new headquarters and I am not happy.  We are moving to the Blind Institute and it seems that we are taking over quite a bit of the building.  I don't know if the current tenants are contracting down to a smaller space or if we are sharing the facilities.  Ken took us around the upper floor  -  security passes only  -  pointing out the changes which will be made  -  partitions removed, a door cut  through to another area, etc, and then we went downstairs to where the computers are.  We will be using the computers which are already there and which are set up for use by blind people so I am really not sure how it will work out.  Our server will be housed in the basement but I assume that we will have to turn on vision and turn off speech.


The facilities are good with a canteen and a gym which we will be able to use and far more space  -  but some of it is on a 'by the hour' basis.  I am not sure how the receptionists will fit into the scheme of things as there are receptionists already and I don't know if we will have to collect security passes if we want to go upstairs to speak to the admin. people.


I will be able to catch the same train into town as before and then I have six minutes to get to Platform 4 (which Transperth has hidden) and will arrive at Victoria Park Station which is just opposite the Institute so I will no longer collect Himself on my way to work.


I guess that if I don't like it, or find the system unmanageable, then I can just stop teaching.  We won't be moving in until about the end of February when all the alterations are completed and I will probably take my own computers just in case.

Negative, negative, negative!

I have received the results of the breast biopsy I had the week before last and the result was negative  -  no cancer, no sign of cancer and nothing abnormal except for a small area of calcification of no significance.


I hadn't realised how much the result was preying on my mind  -  most particularly the fact that if I had to have surgery then the cats would have had to go to boarding school for a while and at this time of year all the catteries (the good ones, anyway) are fully booked and if they are to be boarded they are going to have to have de luxe accommodation with room for them to get away from each other.  They squabble every so often and then Poppy shrieks for help but I suspect that she is usually the one who starts it.


Today I finished spinning the first of the 'Jewel' braids.  Because it is so soft I did not split it down the middle but spun it "across the tops".  I had to keep quite a lot of tension on it or it loosened itself on the bobbin and made a terrible mess; at one stage I had to unwind a couple of metres and wind it back by hand under tension so that it would sit properly and not billow out from under the singles spun over the top.  It will be interesting to see what it looks like when plied.  I am going to have to ply it tighter than I usually do  -  I think ...

Still no results

It is now ten days since I had my biopsy and although I have had the bill from the pathology laboratory I have not had the results.  The bill stated that my doctor would have the results already (that was typed on 24th November) but my doctor has taken a very long weekend and either didn't receive the report in time or she hasn't opened it.  She will be back to work in two days time and I have left a message for her to phone me but I can't get an appointment to see her until 11th December.  I assume that the findings did not turn up anything urgent because nothing can be done at this late stage of the year and I will have to wait until after the school holidays to board the cats if I need any surgery done, which is probable if I have a DCIS as the mammogram suggested.

This unforgivable delay has made me realise that  I am going to need a doctor who is there when needed and not just the three mornings per week which my current doctor seems to be working now.  All the women doctors in the area seem to work part time and up until now it hasn't been a problem but I have decided that I am going to need to transfer my allegiance to a male doctor and just visit my current doctor for girly things as it can be risky for men to do some procedures as they run a risk of being charged with assault if they do not have a chaperone. 

I have started spinning the BFL+silk which D3 gave me for my birthday and it is a whole new learning experience for me.  It is very soft and is spinning much finer than my usual singles but unless I keep a strong tension on it, it unwinds itself on the bobbin and fulls to a far thicker single than I had expected.  I will have to ply it with more twist than I usually use and it is going to be interesting to see what the final yarn will be like.

And I have almost finished the first sleeve of the 'Rosewood' sloppy jo sweater and am considering starting the shawl I am planning to knit with the pigtails which I have spun.  I still have one skein of pigtails to spin but the shawl will be a stop/start sort of project so that won't matter.

Below are 1) 'Jewel' colourway in BFL+silk and 2) Polwarth 'Pigtails'.  Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

Last night I had my first bath for years

Yesterday I had my breast biopsy done and it wasn't a ball of fun but the staff were universally nice and helpful a I got through it, not without a degree of discomfort  -  not from the biopsy itself but from the position I had to maintain for about 30 minutes in which my breathing was severely restricted.  Thank goodness for my yoga practice which allowed me to utilise the small amount of ribcage which was moveable.  Now I just have to await the results.


I am not supposed to do any strenuous physical exercise for a few days and not allow the shower to pour water directly on the dressing so I used my bath for the first time.  When I lived in Cottesloe I had a huge spa bath which took ages to fill so I rarely used it and since I moved to this apartment over three years ago I have showered  -  the cats being the only ones to use the bath; they like me to turn on the tap so that they can play with the stream of water.  But last night I felt that the time had come when it would be best to bath rather than shower and ooops!


The drains are not all that efficient and eventually I experience what I call 'the plughole symphony' when the five drainage holes gurgle.  That happened last night when I emptied the bath and a lot of black sludge came up into one of the hand basins.  I poured top-strength Domestos down the drains and left it for 30 minutes, after which I ran hot water through.  It seems to have worked but I will probably need to send a brush down the central drain in the floor and remove any loose hair.  Such fun!


Anyway, I am feeling fine today; yesterday I was a bit spaced out.  Now I just have to wait until next week sometime when I will find out the results of the biopsy and where I need to go from there.  Hopefully there will be nothing suspicious but a positional clip has been inserted just in case and to enable subsequent accurate viewing of the spot.

Walking the cats

Every morning the babies sit by the front door and give me the eye  -  and ear  -  until I put on their harnesses and take them out into the passage.  They don't do much; Parsifal rolls himself up in his lead and Poppy can occasionally be persuaded to walk to the other end of the corridor as long as I go with her.  There is a warm patch of carpet at the other end where the sun comes in and they will sometimes walk up there and lie in the sun which gets a bit tiresome when I have better things to do.


However, this morning, having pumped up the tyres of the Kitty-carriage and since I needed to go over the road to the pet emporium to get some cat food, I loaded the cats in and took them with me.  Poppy climbed out and then decided that the kitty-carriage was a safe place and climbed back in again but Parsifal thought that he had landed up in cat heaven.  Cat toys, cat beds, cat scratching posts, cat food and endless new smells for him to experience.  Needless to say, he didn't want to come home again but we have reached a stage where I can harness them and load them quite quickly if there is a fire  -  and that is really the whole point of the exercise; to evacuate them if there is a fire.


Tomorrow I am having a breasts biopsy.  I can't say that I am looking forward to it but it is something which obviously has to be done so I will be turning up in the late morning 'sans' deodorant or talcum powder and get it over with.  I understand that the procedure is done under local anaesthetic so hopefully there will be no problem when I take a taxi home afterwards. 

I didn't need this on a Fast Day #2

This morning I phoned the Women's Breast Clinic and ascertained that the films and report for my mammogram and ultrasound would be ready by this evening so I phoned to make an appointment for the biopsy which my doctor, presumably on the advice of the Breast Clinic has ordered, only to be told that until Perth Radiology receives both the referral from my GP and the films and report from the Breast Clinic, I can not make an appointment.  I assume that this is so that they can decide if I actually need the biopsy or not.


So I have been to the Post Office and faxed my GP's referral and arranged for the films and report to be couriered to Perth Radiology ... and I will try to make an appointment again in a couple of days, presumably if they deem it necessary.


If I was the worrying kind I would probably be climbing up the walls by now but since it is only two years since I had the last mammogram, whatever has developed is early stage and therefore either to be ignored or treatable.


To make my day even more frustrating I tried to pay my power bill but CustomStrata change the reference number every time and my bank does not seem to be able to cope with it and refuses to process the payment.  Something eventually went through but I can not be sure who or where it has gone.  I sent an email and have printed out the receipt so hopefully it will end up in the right place.  Next time I will try a direct bank transfer or write out a cheque and pay at the Post Office.


On a happier note, tomorrow I will be meeting a third cousin who is descended from my Great Great Uncle Charles (The black sheep of the family) and an unknown woman.  He and his wife are coming for coffee and to swap information.  I need to get my FTM up to date so that I can print off a descendant report for him.