A Recap of Ancient History

Back in October of 2009, I had a major heart attack while attending SOAR.  Much to my chagrin this caused me to miss all of the Retreat sessions due to being stuck in the hospital.  Three days after arriving home from the hospital, I had a stroke and - gee, guess what?  Yup, right back in the hospital again but this time it was followed by a month of physical therapy in a rehab hospital.  Rehab was necessary because the stroke left me paralyzed on the right side.  That meant I could not spin!  Or knit!  Or do most anything else for that matter. 

Taking matters into my own hands, I asked my husband to bring one of my wheels to the rehab hospital.  I chose the Jensen because of the ease of treading and the fact that it is a double treadle.  My right foot could ride along while the left did the work and with the PT and the treadling, I learned to walk again.  The Jensen had one other advantage and that is that I fitted it with a WooLee Winder back in '07 and had just gotten two extra bobbins for that in '08.  Because I control the fiber supply with my left hand, this meant that I could draft.  I could spin - sort of.  My attempts did not produce viable yarn and rethreading the orifice every time the yarn broke was a major challenge.  Hey, try threading your orifice with only one hand and the one you don't normally use at that and see how well you do.  :)

I finally got out of rehab and went right into yet another hospital for surgery.  One week, two illiac stents and two cardiac stents later and I finally got to go home.  But to a new house.  My husband moved us while I was in the hospital - well, we were in the process of slowly moving before I became ill but completing the move became a medical necessity for me.  The problem was heat - I simply could not have handled feeding the wood stove. Moving our stuff was the hard part as it all had to be packed and hauled and I was totally unable to be of any help since I was basically stuck in a wheelchair at the time.

2009 ended with a bang for us when I got to go back to the hospital because of a gall bladder attack.