I called my fellow AML patient in Lebanon today. He's doing well, about three weeks out, getting a little return of marrow activity. He said he was reading the Agnes Day piece when I called. The nurses put it on a bulletin board on the station which is awfully nice. He said he could really relate to the fevers and chills part, but it didn't feel right to ask him if he had been visited by any spirit animals.
Other excitement for today is I started my new warp. Weavers in general have to say to themselves a lot of things like "I need twelve which is really six" or "There are four which is sixteen" and double weave doubles the number of times one has to add in multiples of two or sometimes divide by two. I did the first three stripes of my new warp and realized that I made them twice as wide as I wanted. I will get the rest correct and when I put it on the loom, I'll just have to throw out half of the first three stripes. It is much better than having done it too narrow at which point, I'd have to unwarp and rewind all that yarn. And, don't forget, when you unwrap 600 inches of yarn, be careful how you wind it so it doesn't snarl!
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| This is the warp in question. The black, blue and black stripes closest to the bottom are the problem ones. |
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| The rest of the warp colors are lined up and waiting patiently for their turns. |
I was listening to a description of the new USPSTF preliminary recommendations about screening for intimate partner violence (the new name for "domestic violence"). It discussed the adults who they feel are at risk: women of childbearing age and the elderly. This means that the only age women are not felt to be at high risk is roughly fifty to seventy. I guess this is something else that (temporarily) gets better with the passage of time. What exactly does this say about our society that over half of the citizens are felt to be at high risk of violence for almost all of their life? I am not entirely sure, but I don't think it's a good thing.
I'm still reading "What have you lost?" One of the poems I read today is about domestic violence (parent/child; I'm pretty sure autobiographical). The poet says in her biography at the back, "Like everyone, she has lost many things, but believes there is one thing that can't be lost. The thing that makes us who we are. The one thing that is different for each of us." I was talking with one of the nurses today at the Hospice House about how the terrible experiences in our lives make us who we are as we learn from them (in her case, compassion). We were talking about how we wouldn't want to undo those experiences because they have made us who we are. It also makes me think of how very demented people sometimes go back to a prior traumatic experience and relive it over and over again. It would be a literal demonstration of not being able to lose the experience that makes them who they are.
Tomorrow, I am going to visit the dentist and then go to CMC and do some chart reviews for the cancer committee. Attending cancer committee was one of the last things I did before my diagnosis so I am expecting the experience to be a bit of a touchstone for me. I think the actual committee is later this week, but conflicts with IDG at the Hospice House so I will wait another couple of months for that touchstone.
For me, for tomorrow, I will hope for happy touchstones and no cavities. For you, I'll hope for good dental hygiene but perhaps also a reminder of how far you've come.
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