It Won't Just Be About Worms

   I thought I had put all of my pony beads in one spot, but it seems I was hiding some from myself.  If anyone is worried that I'm only going to make Worry Worms from now on, you don't need to worry, I'm just able to catch up on all my scraps now.  The scrappy hats also aren't going anywhere, so I won't be turning all scraps into worms.  I am pushing to get more done because I wanted to have a lot done for T.A.P.S. but I'm also wondering if any other organizations might want them.

  So far, my dad is off almost all of the machines.  He was put back on the insulin.  The dialysis machine is gone.  He ate sometime on his last day in the ICU.  According to the doctor that is a better normal.  When people come off all the things he was on they usually don't want to eat anything.  So far he's on the same floor, but the other tower, so he hasn't gotten his view of the helicopter pad back yet.

  My dad is acting more alert and coherent.  He's been moved back up to the 9th floor, but doesn't have the view of the helicopter pad back because he's in a different room farther down.  He wants his laptop to work on things but also tires easily.  My mom says they have started him on some physical therapy to try and get this strength back.

Second Round of $1.25 Tree Yarn

Pattern: Worry Worms - Yarn: Crafter's Square in a dark blue color - Hook: 5.5mm

  I really liked the Premier Just Yarn.  This Crafter's Square yarn is interesting.  It's very springy, spongy, and very slippery.  It's almost slimy while being dry, which means it doesn't want to stay knotted.  I'm not worried about them coming apart, but it was annoying that I could pull out the slip knot when tightening the loop around the hook.

  It also stained my white crochet hook some and my fingers.  I did not really enjoy working with it at all, but I kept going because I didn't want to waste the yarn and they feel very interesting when made into a worm.  I will not be buying that yarn again.

  I added a bead kind of trim to one as a test.  I would start the single crochet normally, slide the bead down and complete the single crochet.  I then would pop the bead through the loop closest to it, flip the working yarn to the front, and pull it tighter.  It looks pretty cool but takes so long I don't think I will make many more of them.

  I've recently learned that Claire will be coming out this way for T.A.P.S. so it seems that the worms will have a place to good after all.  I didn't think that they would want individual cards to go with each one for the kids to lose, so I made a sign for Claire to put out near them.

  I didn't mention this before because it hadn't been as big of a deal before, but now it's gotten more dramatic.  My dad went to the doctor because he was feeling tired all the time.  They said he was anemic and sent him home with some iron tablets.  Those didn't do anything, so he and my mom went back.  He was then diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia and was admitted.  This is apparently one that people usually get when they are middle aged and the doctors were surprised he got it so late in life.

  The plan was then to give him some chemo pills and keep an eye on him until everything that didn't belong in him was nuked with chemicals.  The chemo caused his white blood count to sky rocket, so his chest felt tight because his blood was thicker.  They said this is fairly normal.

  However he had started having breathing problems.  So they sedated him while they give him oxygen and kidney dialysis.  The doctors don't know which way he is going to go, so we could use some good vibes and well wishes.

  When we went to visit him it was great how kind the staff were.  A lot of them, like Jenn, talked to him when doing their checks.  They let him know that they were there and what they were doing.  The "air hugger" was an interesting thing.  It reminded me of the air pillows used in shipping, but it has warm air being pumped through it to help warm people without adding too much weight on them.

  Less than 100 people per year get acute promyelocytic leukemia, 16% of those people get differentiation syndrome, and 9% of that get it severely.  So if anyone is wondering why I'm sometimes dramatic, that's where I get it from. 

  On day two he's already off some of the medication he was on before.  They tried to wake him some but he tried to take out the breathing tube, which I don't blame him.  He also squeezed my mom's hand a few times.  His heart is now doing a lot of the pumping, so that's another good thing.

  So far on day three he is breathing on this own and moving his limbs.  The good limb movement means that he hasn't had a stroke the last few days.  The plan now is to change the sedation medicine to see if he can become more alert and they want to get him back up to the 9th floor to finish treatment.  The 9th floor was fun because he had a view of the helicopter pad.

Special Dinner

   Mike and I had a special dinner together.  We tried to go to Gopchang Story KBBQ before, but even though they took our phone number, they never called to say there was a table for us.  I saw Tzuyang have grilled beef large and small intestines on YouTube before and I found out through Google that I can get some here.  She was going on about how good they are, and I now agree.

  Since we were feeling adventurous, we also got beef heart.  We still had some room after those, so we got some pork belly too.  When we arrived they didn't have any flavored Soju, but part of the way through dinner they got an order in and our server offered us some.  The yogurt flavor is really good.

  The heart had a flavor similar to liver, but way more mild.  The intestines were very interesting.  The small were more chewy, like calamari, but had absorbed the marinade better.  The large were really good with a crispy outside because the inside tasted very fatty and soft.  Our server said that the large was his favorite.

Pattern: Worry Worms - Yarn: Premier Just Yarn in Turquoise - Hook: 5.5mm

  The whole skein is 109 yrd/100 m and 1.76 oz/50g.  I got 16 whole worms and good part of another out of one.  I had 0.05 oz left over, so the math tells me that I used about 6.62 yrd/6.07 m for each one.  I know I could have worked one and then taken it out again to measure it, but that sounded like too much work.  Emmy suggested that I weigh the skein, make one, then weigh the skein again, but my scale isn't sensitive enough.  I've knitted a row on a hat with the scale telling me that I had the exact same amount of yarn left as I did before, so I didn't think these would be big enough to get an accurate measurement.  I'm also fairly sure that I haven't used the exact same amount on each one.

  I'm looking forward to doing the same with the other skein of yarn from the Dollar Tree.