I have been a tad quiet for a spell. I haven't been sick or ill but as some of you know, 20 years ago I started being harassed with the old multiple sclerosis dragon. The MS dragon soon became secondary progressive and while I had no problems with Bristol Aerospace Rolls Royce the company I worked for, I couldn't get back and forth to work safely or conveniently enough to suit me so I semi-retired in 1985 and then last year I officially retired from my aerospace carrier.
There is no way to slay the old MS dragon but with the proper medication and changes in life style the dragon can often be forced to remain in it's lair for long quite a long time. I took up cross stitching for therapeutic reasons but I hated the old type scroll frames with a passion and after a year of study finally invented the Stitch Away fabric mount. It became popular enough that I started up a manufacturing and distribution business. I found this to be a great way to keep my body active and my mind off what the MS dragon was capable of doing if it got out of it's lair. One door closes and another door opens.
The old MS dragon seems to love rearing it's ugly head anytime one's body is exposed to a traumatic condition - read injury. So it was disheartening last month to be subjected to an assault by a couple of banditos looking for money who tried to get into our home. I stopped one of them in his tracks but the other one managed to flip me to the ground. When I landed something went haywire in my back. My DW and DS managed to hold both banditos until the police arrived. I passed out from the pain and went to ER. in an ambulance. The third lumbar vertebra ( I think ) was twisted clockwise - actually one more mm. and I would have been confined to a wheel chair for a looooong time. A spinal adjustment relieved half of the back pain but a few days later I got a weird pain in the gut.
Then last week after doing some heavy lifting I look in the mirror and see that I'm whiter than Mr. Clean and I can hardly feel a heart beat. The gut pain is gone and I know something just ain't right so I get DS to take me to ER again. It doesn't take the ER staff too long to determine I'm hemorrhaging inside so they hustle me into ICU. Fantastic staff - they wire me up to every machine imaginable, no matter how many times I tell them I have type *Royal Positive* blood they keep poking me full of holes trying to get blood samples, not sure what's in the IV but they get the hemorrhaging to slow down. Then they sit me on a toilet and get me to drink a 1/2 gallon of witch's brew to clean me out and to stop the hemorrhaging. Needless to say it was a bloody mess. LOL
Oye - Now you just know what's coming next! Yupper - I have to sign away all my rights to any film royalties a camera crew ( not sure if it was CNN, Fox news or National Inquisitor ) sends a camera up my *Royal* tail pipe. The first part of the trip was quite tolerable but they put my lights out for the last 75 feet of their travels.
Oh happy day - I wake up and the movie director ( Boris Karloff type ) informs me there are no tumors or polyps and the hemorrhaging which was coming from a burst hemotobie?? - annualizim?? - whatever, had stopped. That a few days of tasteless soup and multi bowls of cream of wheat should plug up the hole for good.
My guess is that somehow I developed a large blood blister ( my term ) in my intestinal area and it was giving me pain for weeks until I lifted a heavy door and the blister broke from the stress.
Needless to say I was happy to be alive and to get home for the traditional festive meal - er meals. A few years ago a good friend of mine bled to death from the same thing.
The old MS fire breathing dragon has reared it's ugly head and like in the past I know that I can deal with it. My DS and I have revamped my shop to suit his purposes - read Oye Veh, we are back to being able to produce up to 200 units a day.
My immediate problem is that my DW has issued a few *fiery* directives which are curtailing my activities somewhat, Read - listen up Bozo or learn how to cook. I had to hand over the office work to someone else and DW has restricted my computer time for a while because the monitor was/is affecting my eyes. Soooo if I'm not here posting for a while you can blame or thank my DW who hates computer. LOL
Oops my computer time is up! Happy stitching and best of the new year to you all.
Fred
W.I.P. - "Fiddler on the Roof", "Oriental Maiden".