Monday, March 02, 2020

Stitching While Waiting

Sadly, my Relapsing Polychondritis flared up this weekend.  Usually I know it's coming when an ear or my nose is inflamed and becomes very painful.  Not this time.  My cauliflower ear was only tingly and I went straight to crippling joint pain while the disease was attacking the cartilage there.  I'm chalking this flare up to the stress of living in an active construction zone. Who knew that could be stressful?  (sarcasm)

I'm supposed to treat a flare-up with steroids and I HATE STEROIDS!  They rot my stomach, make me manic and chatty, make me rather testy, make me hungry, and make me gain weight.  The long-term effects are far worse.  I'm blessed to not be on them full-time any more, but I put taking them off as long as possible.  When I finally took them, I had to wait until they kicked in.

While I was waiting, though, I dug into my basket of 1 1/2" scrap squares.  Quilting is a great distraction.


I made some progress on Dottie (L).  She's now 12" tall.  I hope she grows to be 60" tall, so I still have a ways to go.

I started playing with a new block (M).  I have tons of squares and an entire basket of black scraps so I can work on this for a long, long time.

I have tons and Tons and TONS of blue squares so I decided to put together a 6" blue and white checkerboard block (R).  I might make some blue/black and some blue/gray, or maybe I'll just keep up the blue/white theme.  I'm not sure yet.  Maybe I'll mix in some red/white blocks?  Who knows?

So I made some happy blocks while waiting for the happy steroids to kick in.  I have quite an energy burst now and am able to move around again.  I'll be annoyingly chatty and won't get much sleep for a while.  Hopefully a few weeks of treatment will bring my disease back under control. 

None of us know what life is going to bring us, but fortunately quilting is always there to get us through the rough spots.

9 comments:

Linda P in IL said...

Oh honey, so sorry. I do agree that quilting is a life saver!

Janet Myers said...

Hope this flare up will not last long.

Sue@suepellanddesigns.com said...

Hope you feel better soon...I love “Dottie” and am glad she was there to distract you!

Beth Timms said...

I kind of understand your pain. I have lupus and am blessed to only have occasional joint pain and have to have a steroid injection and do the steroid treatment where i go from a high dosage and dwindle down to no steroids. Like you, it aggravates the stink out of me and the worst is the eating and not sleeping. I pray you get peace. Here if you want to message me :)

QuiltGram said...

I’m a registered nurse and soooo agree with everyone who puts off being treated with cortisone. I worked in a family practice for almost 10 years at one point and saw patients who had to make these difficult decisions. Thankfully you don’t need to take it full time now and hopefully this relapse will be short. Thanks for sharing the pictures and looking forward to good news.

Pamela Arbour said...

I am really sorry to hear that. I know how frustrating that it no to mention the pain. Hope the meds kick in soon

kpedi said...

Hi Debby, I'm sorry to hear you're not feeling well. I wanted to tell you that I enjoyed the class in New Hampshire so much and I have signed up to do some quilting on the frame on Sunday. I can't wait ...thank you for all the inspiration and the confidence to try. Good luck at the workshop . I hope you feel better Karen P

MDTerp said...

Debby, so sorry to hear that you are having a flare-up. So happy that you can continue your creativity when you are under the weather. Your schedule of travel for your business seems so busy. Perhaps, while the stress of construction continues, it would help not to travel? Or, perhaps you need to travel more to be away from the stress of home construction? Dottie is such a sweet quilt. I love the little blue and white quilt. I am working on 2.5-inch square blocks, in groups of 25 squares, for lap quilts for my 4-year-old granddaughters. Next, I will do a blue or purple lap quilt! Take care! Sending quilter's love from Maryland,
Karla

Unknown said...

Water Hack Burns 2lb of Fat OVERNIGHT

At least 160 thousand men and women are utilizing a simple and secret "water hack" to lose 2lbs every night as they sleep.

It's proven and it works on anybody.

Just follow these easy step:

1) Take a clear glass and fill it up with water half full

2) And now use this awesome hack

and be 2lbs skinnier in the morning!