I fight being sick with everything I’ve got, but I have to finally admit – I’m sick. Last Wednesday it began with difficulty breathing, a little asthma, and my voice was horse. I didn’t feel bad, just not great. By Saturday I was coughing and my voice was quite horse even at a whisper. It’s now Tuesday and I haven’t slept much in the past week. No deep sleep whatsoever. I am coughing deeply though. So deep my chest burns with the aching of the coughs.
While in town this weekend we stopped at the bookstore (don’t we always?) and I thought I’d see if I could find a decent book to help me better understand adult onset asthma, the triggers, and how I should respond. It seems I have one of the unpopular chronic diseases as far as finding books on the topic go. There was one book – The Dummies Guide to Asthma, which followed the one book for another disease – The Idiots Guide to Arthritis. Now if I had a gluten problem there would be a wealth of written material to chose from – a shelf and a half to be precise. (no offense to those with Celiac’s Disease is intended in this minor rant)
I’ve since done some searching on Amazon and found a few more titles and promptly bought three books that intrigued me. One of which tempts me with the possibility of going inhaler free by learning certain breathing techniques. In my mind I imagine the likes of the breathing that got me through natural child birth. Okay I tell myself, I’m willing to do that if it means I can toss my rescue inhaler. (Did I mention that the inhaler burns the dickens out of my throat. Maybe I’m allergic to my inhaler. Is that possible?)
Late this afternoon after prompting from Chris I stood in the shower with hot water creating a fog thinking it would help my ravaged bronchial tubes. I grew up in a house with one small hot water tank, learning at a young age to make my daily ablutions quick and thorough. Standing for a prolonged time in the shower is tough – but I discovered I can make the time stretch by combining one of my two favorite ways to lose track of time. Obviously I couldn’t knit in the shower. But I discovered I could read in the shower. I grabbed my copy of Sweater Quest by Adrienne Martini. Subtitle, My Year of Knitting Dangerously.
Martini chronicled the year she spent knitting an Alice Starmore fair isle sweater called Mary Tudor. Starmore has her devotees and those who think she may just have gone too far in her legal pursuits and prosecutions to protect her patterns and her yarn line. What she has given the knitting world is a legacy of intricate colorwork sweaters, the patterns and yarn which have become so rare that they fetch astronomical prices. All of this legacy though is somewhat shrouded in the mystery of the woman who designed them who escaped to the Scottish moors and only makes rare public appearances.
The author of Sweater Quest interviews a lot of famous knitters, and quotes Stephanie Pearl McPhee, the Yarn Harlot, at least once a chapter. Adrienne Martini has taken a stab at creating a book to be compared with Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. While I’d say it’s not a masterpiece, it’s a good book to read if you’re a knitter who is stuck in a long hot shower.
So you see I have it bad. The cough, sleeplessness, chest pain and porn voice. And an addiction to knitting that just seems to seep into everything I do.
I’ve got it badI fight being sick with everything I’ve got, but I have to finally admit – I’m sick. Last AdriWednesday it began with difficulty breathing, a little asthma, and my voice was horse. I didn’t feel bad, just not great. By Saturday I was coughing and my voice was quite horse even at a whisper. It’s now Tuesday and I haven’t slept much in the past week. No deep sleep whatsoever. I am coughing deeply though. So deep my chest burns with the aching of the coughs. While in town this weekend we stopped at the bookstore (don’t we always?) and I thought I’d see if I could find a decent book to help me better understand adult onset asthma, the triggers, and how I should respond. It seems I have one of the unpopular chronic diseases as far as finding books on the topic go. There was one book – The Dummies Guide to Asthma, which followed the one book for another disease – The Idiots Guide to Arthritis. Now if I had a gluten problem there would be a wealth of written material to chose from – a shelf and a half to be precise. (no offense to those with Celiac’s Disease is intended in this minor rant)I’ve since done some searching on Amazon and found a few more titles and promptly bought three books that intrigued me. One of which tempts me with the possibility of going inhaler free by learning certain breathing techniques. In my mind I imagine the likes of the breathing that got me through natural child birth. Okay I tell myself, I’m willing to do that if it means I can toss my rescue inhaler. (Did I mention that the inhaler burns the dickens out of my throat. Maybe I’m allergic to my inhaler. Is that possible?)Late this afternoon after prompting from Chris I stood in the shower with hot water creating a fog thinking it would help my ravaged bronchial tubes. I grew up in a house with one small hot water tank, learning at a young age to make my daily ablutions quick and thorough. Standing for a prolonged time in the shower is tough – but I discovered I can make the time stretch by combining one of my two favorite ways to lose track of time. Obviously I couldn’t knit in the shower. But I discovered I could read in the shower. I grabbed my copy of Sweater Quest by Adrienne Martini. Subtitle, My Year of Knitting Dangerously. Martini chronicled the year she spent knitting an Alice Starmore fair isle sweater called Mary Tudor. Starmore has her devotees and those who think she may just have gone too far in her legal pursuits and prosecutions to protect her patterns and her yarn line. What she also has given the knitting world is a legacy of intricate colorwork sweaters, the patterns and yarn which have become so rare that they fetch astronomical prices. All of this legacy though is somewhat shrouded in the mystery of the woman who designed them who escaped to the Scottish moors and only makes rare public appearances. The author of Sweater Quest interviews a lot of famous knitters, and quotes Stephanie Pearl McPhee, the Yarn Harlot, at least once a chapter. Adrienne Martini has taken a stab at creating a book to be compared with Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. While I’d say it’s not a masterpiece, it’s a good book to read if you’re a knitter who is stuck in a long hot shower.So you see I have it bad. The cough, sleeplessness, chest pain and porn voice. And an addiction to knitting that just seems to seep into everything I do. var gaJsHost = ((“https:” == document.location.protocol) ? “https://ssl.” : “http://www.”);document.write(unescape(“%3Cscript src='” + gaJsHost + “google-analytics.com/ga.js’ type=’text/javascript’%3E%3C/script%3E”)); var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker(“UA-xxxxxx-x”);pageTracker._trackPageview();
