Knitting Worry

My fiance and I headed to the Thousand Islands region on the St. Lawrence River (along the boundary between Upstate New York and Canada). It was meant to be a quick, relaxing jaunt to visit my mom's BFF and her husband at their summer home. Maybe with some sightseeing via boat and some fishing.

We left Friday morning and Dan had a sore throat and a slight cough. By our evening hike around the island he was feeling really poopy. And after a night of coughing fits and not being able to breathe very well in the morning, we decided to go to the emergency room. My nurse friend Kelli suggested that the quick decline might be pneumonia and she was right! After being admitted to River Hospital emergency room very quickly, we sat and waited for breathing treatments, steroids, benadryl, 2 "big dog" antibiotics and robitussin with codeine to start working. By 4:00 PM they decided since Dan was on 4 Liters of O2, he was going to be admitted.

I am very good in a crisis. My real melt down didn't happen until we were all done with the hospital two days later. Since Dan was finally able to get some rest and was sleeping in the Emergency Room, I sat by his side and instead of actively worrying, I knit. I concentrated on my child's cardigan in Lion Brand Cotton Ease (the newly relaunched Cotton Ease). It was a nice easy garter and stockinette striped pattern and very good worry knitting. Especially good for stopping on a moment's notice waiting for updates. (Pattern was a free Lion Brand flyer next to the new display of the relaunched Cotton Ease. I will admit that the baby girl on the pattern flyer--not the same kid as on the internet pattern--was too cute to avoid wanting to knit the cardigan.)

I added inches and inches to this sweater meant for no one in particular, the colors just spoke to me and the size was sort of determined by what I got out of the gauge of the needles I had on hand when I started it.

When we found out Dan was not going to go home Sunday like we thought, I spent the entire day in the hospital keeping him company. And I knit my current "epic project", the building blocks baby blanket from Vogue Knitting on the Go I. I am using Red Heart Super Soft something or other I got for $3 a ball when I started the project two years ago. I got quite a bit done on the intarsia house block while trying to concentrate on Dan and not on the fact that I was terrified that when I had to leave for the night he might have a catastrophe and, well, all of the things you knit instead of worry about.

The blanket is knit in squares--the filler squares are meant to look like lego blocks and the intarsia is meant to look like the images are made of lego blocks. The blanket is worked in great strips and will eventually get a garter stitch border.

Luckily, Monday he was finally able to breathe room air. With six prescriptions, we headed home. I continuing to work on the building blocks blanket and the cardigan now that I've caught the bug (but am breathing deeply and coughing in order to avoid developing pneumonia). Macy, The Official Spokesdog of the Totally Knitting Universe, is doing her best to nurse me with sweetness.