On different levels of socialisation

I have been trying to make sense in my head of the fact that I have both become more sociable, and more anti-social, and I think I have managed to reach a conclusion on what I have been doing. Aren't you lucky, dear audience, that you get to read it? ;)


I realised there are two socialising modes: active, and background. By "active" socialising I mean big things, events. I've done loads of those recently! I've gone out to drinks with my co-workers (back home much before anybody else, but still out), dinner with friends, games evenings, going to the cinema or the market... I've been out!

Ah, but the background socialising... This is where I have become even more antisocial. I barely talk at lunch at work, and I barely even write/post online, in any social media (blog, forums, FB, etc). I read, at least. I have not stopped keeping up with blogs and posts and friends, but I don't comment back, I don't complete any kind of communication circle.

Being sociable takes a lot of energy (it always has for me, even at my best). I can manage big events because I know they are happening, so I can prepare and arrange things. But the low-level socialising is proving too much for me. It is leeching only a little bit of energy at the time, but it is constant, and I just can't really handle that loss.

I think this means my fatigue is getting slowly worse, but by cutting down the social leech, I am able to retain enough energy to be functional in other areas. I've redirected it so that I don't feel that energy loss outside the social area. It's not ideal, but on the other hand I feel a bit better most of the time, so that is my current trade-off.


So I've bee knitting, reading, spinning, playing games, just not reporting any of it. The other day, I even found myself with "free" time, time that I didn't have to plan detailed to be able to do everything, just extra time, because I wasn't too tired. I have a wonderful silk shawl finished, only pending pictures.

Low level socialising is not for me at the moment, although I'm quite happy I still have some to do "big" social events. So, does anybody have a plan? Any direct Questions, which are really like plans? Those I can do!

I have been knitting, after all

On a strange turn of events, today I not only had energy to do things I both wanted and had to do, but to take pictures of things and update!

I've admitted to myself that I'm only knitting the Peaks Island Hood, so I set everything else to hibernate, and took pictures of it. It is a strange feeling to only be knitting one project, but, at this point, it is exactly the right number of them. I also love this project, the yarn, and the way the seed stitch looks.

On exciting health news, I had an MRI last week. It didn't rip my dental metalwork out, and I found the experience incredibly relaxing. The MRI machine is loud, but with the ear defenders it just feels like a low rumble, and it nearly put me to sleep :)

There are only 5 more work days until I have two weeks holiday. It won't all be relaxing, but the beginning and end should be fairly quiet, and hopefully I can stock up on rest and knitting for the new year.

Lil'Cthulhu ate my sanity

Lil'Cthulhu ate my sanity. What about yours?

Energy is back to "normal", I think. By normal I of course mean me-normal, still requiring to be in bed by 11 pm and not going out, etc, but at least I do manage to be awake for most of the day, and even do stuff beyond the basic. Go team!
The plus side of the slumber of energy is that my doctor has got herself in gear (I think I scared her), and I'm having more prodding and poking this week than I've had for a while. Something may yield a result, and that prospect both makes me happy and scared.

I have been knitting again, but nothing that is nominally on my knitting list (see sidebar top). After I met Ysolda at my LYS (that was the first time I knit for 3-4 weeks), I got some orange yarn and cast on for the Peaks Island Hood (rav). It is a good mix of mindless and interesting, and I have just started the hood part.

I have no idea when/if I'll pick back up the knitting list, but at the moment I'm not going to push it: I'm just happy I kind of feel like knitting again.
One of these days it may even stop pouring down like the world is going to end, and I may have enough light to take some pictures. But I'm not holding my breath on the rain thing.

A little better

Things have been a bit better since I wrote my last post.
My sleep got a bit better. I only worked a half day on Friday, and even if I didn't get to do as much as I wanted, it was both nice and restful. I got a very shiny iPod Touch. I went to a Jonathan Coulton concert (with Paul & Storm), which was a lot of fun. I met Ysolda, and now I appear in her blog. I am meeting friends (friends!) on Saturday for some knitting.

I am still quite low on energy, but not as low. Still not finding a lot of joy on things, but things feel a little bit better. I may make it this week to the gym (after two no-show weeks and the leaving-in-the-middle week). I have a doctor appointment next week, and this time I am bringing her a list with things to check, so hopefully something will yield results.

Is it sleep time now? Please?

Week event pile-up

Sometimes things just pile upon you. I'm not talking necessarily bad things, but just how you happily coast along quiet weeks when nothing happens, and then suddenly all the events and occurrences of the month happen in the same week. I am in one of those weeks, and I find myself almost wishing that it was next Monday (Monday, people, Monday!), as that marks the beginning of what will hopefully be a normal, quiet week.


I have been squeezing some knitting time, in a (probably misguided and futile) attempt at keeping me sane. Most of this knitting time has happened during my work commute, but as a result, my Pluto for Planet Woodland Shawl (ignore the silly name) is coming on. I probably knit about half a pattern repeat when I took it with me on holidays, but now it's finally starting to prosper.

I have also been doing some crochet: I've finally carried on with my GIR, after deciding that I wanted to start with 6 stitches instead of 8, and I've reawaken the tachikoma, which I'm making up all on my own. Smithers was a big fan of tachikomas, so I figured it was about time I continued with it. Even if he can't see it now.

In the last week or so, I...

- went to the Last Night of the Proms, and it was a lot of fun
- spent some very nice days in Lille, eating an awful lot of melted cheese and drinking wine
- have barely knit anything, but read lots
- rested a lot, and feel almost human (hurrah for 10 hrs of sleep a day!)
- started therapy again, but I can't tell how it's going yet
- managed to badly crash my desktop
- have moved onto my very old, very wine-stained laptop
- am about to go see District 9
- have become even more insane and plan to finish my Hanami stole in two weeks (did I mention I'm only a bit past the half-way point?)

The turkey and the zaps

Today, my body has been cleared from Sertraline for two weeks. Sertraline takes about two weeks to have some effect in an ill person so, despite having a rather short half-life, it makes some sense that the withdrawal side-effects would take about two weeks to wear off. They can stop any time now.
Technically, it's not withdrawal, but a discontinuation syndrome. Antidepressants do create a dependency, but they are not addictive: patients on them, while they need them to function, will not go down drug-seeking behaviours, and this makes a different (for example, in lab experiments, animals given the option will not increase their dose as they do with other addictive drugs).

The discontinuation has not affected my mood, which is a huge success. My best friend was incredibly proud of me when I told him that I had stopped them, and talked about how far I had come from the bad time.

The main problem I have had with the discontinuation have been the brain zaps, which feel like a static shock (I like this description of the zaps (4th paragraph)).
It took a couple of days for them to get started, which made me foolishly believe that I had escaped them. They reached their worse last week, about a week after I had stopped (which makes sense in the two-week theory), when I had to go home from work because I couldn't handle it any more, and they made my left eye see blue. I kid you not, my sofa was green when looked from my left eye instead of brown, and the pale cushions were blue. No awesome 3D effects, though.

At the moment the brain zaps are finally in remission: most of my morning are now free of zaps, and they only appear in the afternoon, as I get more tired. They normally get triggered by things like changing positions (like from standing to sitting down), when I change directions (turning corners is suddenly very difficult) and when I look at things that are at different distances (I've been looking at the floor while walking because it's always at a constant distance). They get worse the more tired I get.

And this is my cold-turkey experience. Dizziness that is still present, but no mood change. I guess is not so bad, but I would like if the zaps stopped, and if it also brought my incredibly vivid and realistic dreams to a halt. And a pony :)

It's not all dark

I've been having a bit of a rough time lately, as a result of the foot bone that doesn't finish healing and makes me even more tired and frustrated. But not all is bad. I'm still mostly ok, I still have Alex, and there are projects on the needles.

I started this top in between projects, as something to do and put away when something else came up. Other things have come up, but I can't bring myself to stop. It's mainly twisted rib, and it takes forever, but for some reason I love it. I want to knit it, and so I do. And it feels great.

I have a new camera!

This is my Wisteria. You can't see the cables very well in the picture, but I just wanted to show off my new camera (Samsung L200, for what is worth).

The stitch markers are some cute bees from yarnlust. I am completely in love with them, and I will recommend her: I got several sets from her and I'm very happy with all.

Pictures will slowly resume as I take them. I still don't have a full picture of my Emerald, so I should probably do that first.

Foot update: still broken! :(

So, when people have been asking me how was my foot, and I was answering either still attached or still broken, I was right!

I had a follow-up appointment today. My foot is mostly ok , but the bone has not finished joining, and it shoudl have by now. Even I could tell the bone wasn't completely closed from my x-ray.
I will keep with my boot and my crutch to see how it goes, and I have another appointment in 6 weeks. However, if it hasn't finished healing by then, I'll need an operation to put a screw in the bone, which sounds quite a lot unlike fun. I'm not being very lucky! At least, things seem to be going all right in other areas, so I can't complain too much.

Tales of a camera

My camera used to belong to one of my housemates. About two years ago, when we were moving out of a house, he left all his packing to the very last day. I found this incredibly annoying because that meant he was busy packing, and did not help cleaning and tidying the place, but that is another story. He was panicking and packing, and then decided to throw away his digital camera, because it was broken. By broken, he meant that he had lost the battery charger and the little tab to move between taking pictures, videos and displaying them was missing, so you had to get a pen into it to move it. So, while it was technically broken, it was perfectly serviceable.
I rescued it, got the card reader from him, got myself a charger and voilà, I had a digital camera! It was fairly decent, albeit a bit old (4 years when I got it), and it served me well ever since (although I did have to get another card reader eventually, and then another memory card).

Alas, now it's dead! It turns on, but everything comes out black, so I would like to replace it before its body finishes cooling down.
Given that all I use my camera is to take pictures of knitting and the occasional holiday, I don't have grand demands from one. Yesterday I had a look at the cameras in the big supermarket and discovered that they go as low as £29. While I will not buy something so cheap, at least I now know that you don't have to sink in hundreds of pounds on one. Something mid-range, so it can last me a bit, and ideally with manual features, as I do know how to handle a fully manual camera: I took photography and was school photographer for a year!

I'll probably buy my camera online after some research, and hopefully I can have some pictures up soon. My webcam does no justice to anything.

In chronological order...

• I spent Xmas at my not-in-laws, which was very lovely. I even got presents, including more Bill Bailey (Tinselworm) and the Spore Cute & Creepy parts pack from Alex, a lovely necklace from Alex's sister, and a couple of beautiful scarfs and a knitting book (Heartfelt - rav) from his parents. I was happy.
  
• Walked with my boot and one crutch to the centre of town, where I got new glasses. One of my eyes is now worse, but the other is better. Alex was quite shocked at the price of glasses but, with my prescription, you need them that high quality if you don't want them to be bottle bottoms.
  
• I can now walk at home without the boot.
  
• Knitted and finished a dice bag for my upcoming Shadowrun campaign.
  
• Worked on Alex's socks. At time of printing, I'm only missing the ribbing on the second one, and weaving in all ends. I might pass on the blocking; after all, they are going to go on feet!
  
• Saw the New Year's fireworks from the comfort of my own balcony. This is particularly nice because I could go back inside where it was warmer. Bristol is very cold at the moment.
  
• Got a gremlin. My old phone got bust, my new phone is not yet active, my camera is not working and my webcam is temperamental and crap. Now I wonder where I have put the rest of the points.

Still alive

Just a quickie to let you all know that I am still alive, but my foot has sapped all my energy and, while I've been knitting, taking pictures of stuff and typing something coherent was a lot more than I can handled. Videogames were another matter :)

Anyway, I'm at my not-in-laws at the moment, I can walk with one crutch, and tomorrow I will get pressies. I still dislike the crap surrounding Xmas, but this particular instance of it has not been too dreadful for now.

I hope you are all well.

Robo-Cristina

Yesterday I went to the hospital and got my cast replaced for an orthopædic boot. I have an exoskeleton! My leg looks like a Terminator! This makes me happy.
I can also take it off to wash and can put a bit of weight on it, although not enough to walk yet. As time progresses, I'll be able to put weight on it, take it off to do ankle exercises and then, slowly, start walking without it. I can't wear work trousers with it, not easily, but at least I can put on tights without cutting them up. And standing up is so much easier!

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Now time for a public service announcement.
Are you stressed about Xmas knitting? Wondering what to make for everybody?
Wonder no more! Embrace the selfish and check out this wonderful holiday knitting post by the Lumpy Sweater.

I broke my foot!

Well, that was crap. As I left work today my heel gave away, and I landed all my weight on the side of my foot. Some hopping and pain later, I am finally home with a broken metatarsus, the one belonging to my pinky, near the ankle. Clean fracture, at least, so I just have to wait of it to heal (4 to 5 weeks). Let me tell you, a third floor flat with no lift and no help is not fun in crutches.
People were very nice to me. I had someone from work help me onto the bus (I broke it very near my bus stop) and then a random person stopped on the street and helped me from the bus to the taxi. I was nearly in tears of pain and gratitude. One in hospital I had a wheelchair, and that was very welcomed. I also managed to knit about 80% of my second Fetching, which was quite nice.
Alex will be back tomorrow from his course, so at least I can have a bit of help. After the evil cold from hell, and the throat-ear infection, and now this, November has not been my best month ever. Is it can be Dezember nao?

Still alive

So, I spent most of last week ill with the plague. Two plagues, actually: I had both a very bad cold (viral) and a throat infection (bacterial). Not fun. It did, however, result into a lot of knitting, so my healing cardigan is just missing weaving in ends (this might take a while) and blocking.

As well as knitting, I did some web surfing while I was ill, and I got this.

This is an awesome dpn roll, bought from knitonebeadtwo at Etsy. The service was very good, the quality of the roll is good, and it only took a week to get here from the US (it arrived today!).



The first day I was well enough to go out, I went yarn shopping. I ordered yarn to make a Wisteria, and I got this lovely mini project bag from Get Knitted.


It's at the moment holding my second pair of fetchings. Some of you might recall I made some last year, although I made the mistake of making them out of bamboo. While lovely, it stretches. More. No, more than that. And a bit more. Ok, maybe not so much. I'm making this out of cotton, matching both gauge and yarn weight this time, so hopefully they will work out better!



Yesterday I went to Forbidden Planet, and bought this cute dead kitty mints box, to use as a pill box or stitch marker box (or both!).

I opened it today at work to have some of the mints, and I squeed. I mean, look at it. The mints are shaped like teeny bones!



I am less plague-ridden now, although still with my bacterial infection. Not likely to die any time soon, though! Normal service may or may not resume!

Slightly mad

I think I'm going slightly mad(der).

Decreasing the meds is giving me brain zaps. It seems that my brain just wants the damn serotonin, but I don't know what else I can do: even with the lowest possible dose, if I don't take it one day, it complains!
Possibly related, I had such a bad night of sleep Sunday night that I didn't make it to work on Monday. Spent most of the day like a zombie (braaaains), knitting plain stockinette (and now my Healing Cardi has nearly 1 sleeve!).

I've also stopped wanting to go to Tai Chi, although that is from before I started the med reduction. It's fine once I'm there, but at the moment it's cold and grim and dark outside, and I just don't have the energy to go there (although I would love it if I could teleport there).

On the good side, I've just ordered way too many pounds of yarn, some worsted weight in bright colours to make amigurumi and some beautiful light chocolate laceweight silk for a shawl. I've only made basic lace before, so of course the right thing to do is get very lovely, very think silk and dive to the deep end, right?

No meds

Today, I took no meds. I'm weaning down my last medication, taking it two days and resting one, and today it's the first of those days. If all goes well and my brain doesn't fry while doing so, I shall be med-free in about 4 or so weeks. I guess this is the pure and unadulterated Cristina.

Of course, today the pure and unadulterated Cristina is suffering from sleep deprivation and leftover sadness, so this is not a good indicator of how things are or should be going. I just need a couple of nights of better sleep.

Migraines seem to mean reading

Except for Saturday, I have had migraines every day for the last week. I've had better weeks, and, although I know that they are partly related to the stressful week at work I had, they are starting to worry me. I think part of it is also that my brain is getting used to the decrease of meds: I just recently decreased my anti-anxiety medication, which is of the same family of meds as the medication I took a while back for migraine prevention.
I have an appointment with my doctor on Monday, so I will discuss this with her (ideally I'd like to find my copy of the neurologist report, just in case the one the NHS is meant to have has gotten lost in all my moves, but I don't think it's going to happen).


As a result, I've had lots of naps, lots of knitting and lots of reading, but not that much computer time, except for the 7.5 hours a day I have to put at work and brief email checks at home. The combination of sleep and painkillers is absolutely great, but I can't sleep all day. While the compute screen hurts my eyes, I can still read without extra pain, so that and knitting have kept me entertained when I have been awake.
I've started Olympos, and I have made quite a dent on Alex's socks and my Healing Jacket 2, so I'm quite pleased with that. I like reading, the problem is that there is not enough time in the day to do everything, so it's nice to just do it every once in a whle, even if for this reason.


There is no need for alarm, by the way: it's a fairly standard migraine, albeit a bit long than normal. One of my coworkers keeps looking at me and asking me how I feel as if I had the plague or was about to die, and it got annoying really quick.



I think my brain needs a reboot.

Not passing out!

Today, I have finally manage to:
1) not pass out of exhaustion on the sofa for over an hour as soon as I get home
2) take pictures of my knitting
2 is very strongly related to 1, and they are both an achievement.

I am making socks for Alex, using the pattern An American in China, although in my case they are An Englishman in England. I like making things for him, but socks is what he wants, so I'll just keep making socks! (I have another ball of sock yarn to make him another pair, and plenty of man-socks queued up!).

     

Inspired by this comic (and the next one!), I am making myself a Worry Hat, using a generic hat pattern from Last minute knitted gifts. I am worrying quite a lot about how it's turning out, so hopefully it will be finished soon and I can activate it.


Finally, I have been working on Sizzle, because I want to have it ready before it's too cold to wear, although I guess I could also wear it as a vest. I have already split the neckline, although I think I will have to go to the back again and make the armpits a bit longer. I was surprised when I took the picture of how squat it looked, but it's even longer than my Green Tea, so it must be an illusion created by the fact that it's not yet finished.


I also can't start any new big project until I finish Sizzle. I have a bit of a dilemma on that, as now I want to make Wisteria (for which I have the pattern but not the yarn, although I know which one I want to use) instead of Emerald (for which I do have the yarn). But, if I get the yarn and make Wisteria first, I will feel guilty for not making Emerald. But I want the pretty cables. Etcetera. At least I still have some days to decide!