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https://youtu.be/CsYTOK4lVUw

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Dead Knitter Society - Episode 2 #knittingandgrieving

All Saints Day - in which, we begin.

Chasing a Cure

In the 19 months and 7 days that I have been a T1D Momma, well meaning friends have shared articles about the newest study or trial for the BREAKTHOUGH CURE, the panacea that will eradicate Diabetes from our lives. And while I know that these posts come from a place of love and concern and caring, I am at best pessimistic, and at worse a little angry everytime I see them. 

You see, the FDA sees type 1 as managed, so it's never at the top of the heap of things to be approved. And, God knows I've learned, that just because there is a treatment, it doesn't mean it's covered by insurance, or accessed by anyone with a limited budget. My other kids need to eat too. When copays for life sustaining medications get doubled and the amount covered gets cut in half each year, the idea of THE CURE being something I can afford? Laughable. 

You see; being the parent of a diabetic is waking up every day and watching your child dart into traffic. Every. Day. Every meal, every hour they exercise, every cold, every stomach flu, every fucking breath, they are BASE jumping with a shitty tattered parachute. 

I can't hope. My capacity for hope has been exhausted by our daily living. It's not that I don't appreciate the intention behind the sharing, I do. I just can't even fathom what happened to my girl. I can't even comprehend that she walks around wearing life support. SHE WILL DIE WITHOUT THESE THINGS, THESE VERY EXPENSIVE AND IMPERFECT THINGS. Every day that I wake up I am one day farther from before, and I yearn for it more. Hope is a dangerous thing. When you dodge traffic every moment of every day. 

On Confidence

I wish you didn't need the validation of strangers to believe how awesome you are. Hell, I wish you didn't need my validation either. But somehow it stings when it's my opinion that doesn't count. In reality though, I really wish you believed in your own muchness. 

You are so much. 

Rockstar Human

Leaving this here for a time when I need a reminder that there is a rockstar human under the snark and sass:

"I'm sorry I cranked at you and your brother on Sunday. It wasn't you. I was projecting."

"No worries Mom. I could tell."

Disjointed Psuedo-Rant

Posted about 6 weeks ago on Facebook...

I am still grieving before... Insulin is not a cure... It is life-support. Please Heart, beat from love, not from fear...

"Thank You For Being Nice To Me"

"Thank your for being nice to me." Every so often, really often actually, a patient of mine will say this to me. Hearing this makes me really sad, and pretty damn angry. You see, that means that along the way, my patient has had an encounter with one or more EMS crews, my colleagues, who were not kind, or worse.

Emergency Medical Services. That's the industry I work in, as a Paramedic. There's a saying, it's cliche, but so true:

The call is rarely an emergency. It is sometimes medical. But we always provide a service. 

I think that last sentence is oft forgotten, hazy in a fog of yet another blue faced junkie, a perfectly healthy, ambulatory young adult with a fever that they haven't treated at home, a lonely Nana who has a hangnail... for the past three weeks, it's endless. This post however is not about the burnout, or the overuse of the 911 system, that can wait for another day. 

My point here is this: Each person we interface with deserves our empathy, and our compassion. Each one deserves to be treated as we would wish to be treated. Why? Because we are all part of one human family. Because being kind and empathetic is not actually for the other person, it is for our own humanity. Because we are in service to these people. All of them. I challenge you, in EMS and in life, to be love, be kind, be human. The energy you put out will return to you.

 "Be kind whenever possible.  It is always possible." ~ 14th Dalai Lama

Take Me to Church

I'm not a religious person. Spiritual maybe, I believe in inherent human goodness and the golden rule. I'm fairly convinced that after this week if I did believe in a god I would be pissed off. But I don't, and I'm not. I'm sad, still disbelieving that a week ago my child lived a different life. A friend said this week, that while life isn't fair, this seems inequitable. And it is, but I can't believe it was for any reason or failure of positive thought or visioning for my life.

 Fuck you, The Secret. Yeah, you. I'm talking about you. 

Anyway, it is a thing. It has happened. In the scheme of the universe and billions of stars it is tiny, and we are insignificant, and it is this thing that happened, and we are now moving forward into it and with it.

It's out in the universe, our natural world, that I feel most connected to whatever it is that we are a part of. In the spaces where elements meet, toes in sand and water, in the thin air that meets ancient rock at a mountain top... That's my church, my breath is my prayer. I went out for a paddle this morning, just me and the wind and birds. I really thought that would be the time I could cry, on my knees as my legs can't hold me. It feels like that, this week. I learned today that the tears won't come until I know they will stop. I'm not ready to grieve this. Not yet. That would make it really real in my heart. 

Dumb and Lucky

"She made some comment about being thirsty at the end of school. It was right when it was really hot. Then the wounds that took a while to heal. And the insomnia... And I didn't know she had actually lost weight until they weighed her at the er. Each thing could be explained alone, and none was so glaring. But put it all together... I had an actual conversation with Rich musing that sometimes I thought she might be diabetic, but then put it off until her physical. I'm just so glad she wasn't in dka. I'd feel so guilty then. Now I just feel dumb and lucky."

This was a conversation with my friend C, written last night. This post will not be eloquent, or cogent. I'm too raw for that.

Isabella has diabetes. My daughter is a diabetic. MY DAUGHTER HAS A CHRONIC DISEASE. IT WILL NOT GO AWAY. IT MIGHT EVEN KILL HER. And I had an inkling, a hunch, and I ignored it. I wrote it off. I am a fucking paramedic and I didn't see it. My baby was sick. I did not see it.

I took Isabella to have an infected finger drained Sunday morning. In the evening she ran a temp so we went back to our local ER as per discharge instructions. They did a urine dip just o rule out a UTI. It came back. Our focus then changed. Massive amounts of glucose in her piss. A finger stick. 438. Fuck fuck fuck. There's no other real reason. An IV, labs,. Some good news, no DKA yet, only slightly elevated creatinine, her kidneys were not yet in a bad way. Transfer to boston, drive to MGH in the middle of the night because GOD DAMMIT I will not be that medically unnecessary BLS transfer at 1 am. Pedi ER, insulin, IV fluids, tears creeping up when she isn't' looking. Admission. Specialists. So many doctors. I give our history just like she was my patient, they call me on it. Time to be a mommy.

We met our team. Dr McGill is sweet and kind, reassuring. First round of education so we can go home. I give my girl her insulin. It feels unreal. I haven't slept. Rich went home, Kat came to be a ride home and the rock that she is. I pick up all of our medicine and syringes, we are discharged. Home. 38 hours. No sleep.

"I'll never feel like a normal kid again."
"I can't believe I have to do this for the rest of my life."

Me neither.

She is amazing, my girl. The next day she did her own finger stick in the morning, and by evening had done her own insulin injections. She's taking this and running with it. New normal. We will find it.

Let's talk for a moment about insurance and gratitude. Before insurance a month supply of insulin, both kinds, and the test strips and syringes, all the bells and whistles... TWO THOUSAND FUCKING DOLLARS. After...Two Hundred and Thirty. Gratitude.

HOLY SHIT. Isabella is diabetic. It sounds so strange. She tells everyone she meets, strangers. I ask her if she's trying it out, to see how sounds. She nods.

I blinked. Life changed.

Bearing Witness

There's a list of calls, the ones you hear about and shudder. The ones you hope you don't see but know if you work the road long enough you will. I've slowly checked various ones off, the eyes of those patients making a mosaic on the insides of my eyelids, the few of thousands of patients and families that I remember, with terrible visceral clarity. Those are the calls where as I step on scene, I have a brief moment where I wonder, will this be the one where I spit the bit, then I make my assessment and go to work, despite and because something terrible is in front of me. 

It's said this job makes you hard. I don't want that. I want to stay soft, stay present and human and bear witness to these moments. I want to shepard my patients and their families through these horrible scenes. There is a beauty in the spaces, in those moments where we know the soul before us is leaving the body, in the sound of a mother's heart breaking open. These spaces are just as important as the triumphant save, and they occur so very frequently. It's in these moments our humanity is tested, in the foul and the dark and the desperation. I want to hold sacred these places, in the minds of those left behind, that their loved one was valued and cared for, that there was some glow in their darkness. I want to be the person I would want there for me, or my family. 

Divorced

I got divorced today. I am divorced.

When this becomes final in 120 days I will have been separated for 2 years and 51 weeks. I have become so accustomed to the limbo, that this resolution is welcome but so foreign. There is relief, nostalgia, sorrow, joy, grief, unnamed swirling within. Mostly though the lightness. I can move forward now.

This is my year. It begins now.

Construction

People, I am knitting a mother-loving sweater. I am really doing it! After a little break over the weekend, I felt well rested enough this morning to tackle picking up the stitches for the sleeves. For whatever reason it seemed daunting, I had dreams of sweaters gone badly, but after a few start stops, I am immersed in the miracle of short row shaping. Magick yo. Short rows add depth, making a crescent shape for the cap of the sleeve. There is something amazing about beginning to understand WHY a pattern calls for these techniques. Learning. It's cool.

WIP Wednesday - Talise

PROGRESS!

Low

Trending downward... So tired, all of the time. Every waking moment is a struggle to not cry, not scream, pretending to smile, breathe in an iron chest. No space no air. I know there is an eventual end, but when just pretending to be ok takes all of my energy, there is nothing left to operate on in this crazy life. Trapped, if I acted on all the things I wish I could do, I would be lost. Everything I'm working for gone, but god it hurts. There is nowhere to put the hurt and fear and the desperation. I hear the murmurs, the placation, you're fine, you're strong and I want to scream bullshit. I am hollowed out and apathetic. I can not feel anymore. I don't want to feel. Just so done. So many plans. And no recourse. Cornered.

WIP Wednesday vs Fantasy Knitting Life

Oh my, there is just so much I want to knit. My queue on Rav is over 20 projects, my favorites and library well over 100, but alas, so little time...

For now, I have made awesome progress on Talise, I've split for the armholes, and am working on the back yoke. I did find a bit of errata, but did the mathz and think I have it right.

My Mom's shawl has been a journey... To be polite. I started with Dream in Color's Wisp, and the Haruni pattern. I felt the yarn was too thin and not really showing off the lace. So I frogged, and found some gorgeous alpaca dk. Which has such a glowing halo the lace was lost. Gah! Mom LOVES the Wisp, so I went pattern searching, and think I'm going to make her an Omelet. That goes on needles this weekend.

Lastly is a little portable project, from Never Not Knitting's new collection Botanical Knits. I love each piece in this book, and the photography is worth the cost alone. Just beautiful. I'm working on the twin leaf loop, but, in a theme it seems, I'm not loving the yarn I pulled out if stash for it. I do like the pattern, and this will go into gift stash, but I hate not loving my projects.

I am being lazy and will link tomorrow. Edited to add... IT'S TOMORROW - I linked!

Fair-Isle, a life allegory

Isabella took her first step on her first birthday. She took a single step, fell down, and proceeded to continue just creeping along the furniture for another three weeks, unwilling to let go and risk falling, failing, again.

I am exactly that creature. I refuse to be bad at things. I either do things well, or not at all. If I identify something that I might fail at, I work to practice the component skills, until I can be sure another attempt will be successful. This analysis paralysis, this need for perfection, or excellence at the least can be limiting, but at last I am finding a willingness to try new things again, to risk failure a second time.

As evidenced by stranded knitting. I had always left colorwork to my infinitely talented mother, to scared to try. I knit many things, but none in more than one color. Or big stripes than were a simple change from one color to the next. Five years into my knitting life, pregnant with Bridger, I found an adorable blanket pattern, a baby and mommy elephant, complete with blankets on the elephants that carried four colors. I finished the intarsia portion, with minimal trouble, but failed miserably at the two tiny stranded blankets. That blanket is still in its bag, unfinished. I keep jokingly say that I'll finish it for one of his kids. So for the past five years, I have knit more items, lace, cables, but not color.

Until now. I discovered the Never Not Knitting podcast, and in listening to the archives, followed another knitter's journey into new techniques. She referenced a pattern for a beret, a perfect pattern for knitters new to stranded colorwork. I looked it up, thought it was cute, and propelled by the gauntlet that Mom threw down last month, I decided to look in the stash for appropriate yarn, and cast on. I looked up videos, and got a few clutch tips from the ladies in my knitting group, and actually did it. I did it! And I love it.

Fear can be so limiting. But I have learned that fear is a constant companion in my life, so I will use it as the force to make me leave what is safe, and familiar, and easy for me. It's not brave if I'm not scared, and the rewards of leaving my safe place have proved worthwhile. Maybe I can show my daughter it's ok to fail in the pursuit of learning. Fail, get up, fail better next time.