The two week pathway

** This is a personal post , I will do a stitchy post later in the week**

First of all , thank you to those who left good wishes messages on my last post and apologies that I didn't reply , I have been on the roller-coaster of life for the last couple of months .

  For those who do not know , the two week pathway is a protocol acted on by the NHS , where if a diagnosis of cancer is suspected , you are guaranteed to be given an appointment within two weeks of your referral.

  I was ill the end of last year , but you know how it is , you can always find reasons and excuses . I put a lot of it down to having Flash , the demands of having a new puppy. I was exhausted all of the time , had little or no appetite , lots of various aches and pains , dizzy spells , nausea and weight loss. Now I had started trying to lose weight around August 2017 , but by last year I was happy and had stopped trying , but it still kept coming off.

  The final straw for me was when I passed out in the local shop and face-planted a crisps display. The staff were amazing and called an ambulance despite my protests. At the time , I was checked out and given a clean bill of health , but it was highly embarrassing and also a wake up call that something really was not right.

   I saw my GP who was concerned , changed some of my medication for an existing condition and ordered blood tests for a couple of weeks later.

 The red flag was raised! My bloods were so out of order it was unreal , I was severely anaemic , infection and inflammation markers were all sky high and my liver function was totally off the score.

 All the factors and my symptoms were pointing to a high likelihood of bowel cancer.

So a week or so later I saw a specialist nurse who ordered lots of tests.
   I had a  colonoscopy and a gastroscopy with biopsies and a ct scan.

The camera tests were given the all clear at the time but I had to wait for the biopsy and ct results.

 A phone call with another nurse and everything was clear apart from the ct scan had shown a mass which looked as if it was on my right ovary , so I was transferred to the gynae team.

  Ultrasound scans followed and then an appointment with a consultant who said it looked like a cyst , but as it was so big (7cm at that time) he recommended removal along with the ovary. To avoid further complications he said it might be worth removing both ovaries at the time just in case , but I could think about it and let them know when I went in.
  Meanwhile , my liver tests were still not right so he referred me back to the GP for them to arrange more investigations.

  Now , mid April and more blood tests for pretty much anything and everything , including HIV as they really didn't know what to make of me by then .

  It turns out that I have auto-immune hepatitis , which basically means that my own immune system is attacking my liver. I have been referred back to the hospital to see a specialist , but as of right now , there are no appointments available ! So goodness knows how long it will be before I get to see someone or how much damage will be done meanwhile.

 On 24th April , I had both ovaries and fallopian tubes removed . I received the histology report last week , and the "cyst" had grown by 2cm in the month between the scans and surgery and it turned out to be a rare kind of tumour. Thankfully it was benign so no further action is required.

  So this is where I'm at now . Slowly recovering form surgery , it is killing me to not be able to walk Flash, hubby has taken on a lot more than he is used to and the kids are helping around the house . And I'm waiting to see someone about my liver ,

  I have done lots of stitching though , so will do another post in the next few days.

Thank you for bearing with me .
Cath

I stitched !

Not a lot , but some , and it's better than nothing , right ?
  First off , I did this little kit from one of the magazines .

 Not totally happy with it , I'm not sure that white back stitch works for me , but it's pretty in its' own way.

 Then , I have just today finished this , sorry for the poor picture , it is grey , wet and windy at the moment.

 Sadly , my sons other gerbil died a couple of weeks ago .

 Brave Shadow has gone to join his brother Popcorn over the rainbow bridge . They are both very much missed , but the boy now has two new little friends to ease his loss. I will try and get some pics of them to show , they are so cute.

One of my daughters' gerbils has a lump , which we are treating with anti-biotics and it does seem to be helping , but they were all the same age , so time is not on our side. However ,we continue to do out best by them and he his still living a very active happy life at the moment.

  Other news , I am dealing with some significant health issues at the moment and the next few weeks are going to be tough , so hopefully my stitching will help see me through them .

 Thank for dropping by ,

 Cath

Happy New Year !

Better late than never , lol .

Apologies for not posting a Christmas greeting , I was ill for most of December so Christmas happened in a bit of a rush here , I was still ordering gifts the week before Christmas , the tree went up a couple of days before , but we got there in the end.

 So , last year was a bit of a mess really , lots of life getting in the way moments . I have not really stitched since September . I am really missing it , and hope to do some soon , but now have another reason for being distracted.
  My orts for last year are rather disappointing ,

My daughter took some out and screwed them up into a little ball , I was most unimpressed !

  Stitching wise , a let down , I had 15 finishes and most of them for Love Quilts .

  This year , I just want to stitch . I would love to finish at least one of my HAEDs and start a few more ,lol and there are lots of other projects I want to do , but I'll have to see how it goes.

 Reading was more successful , I read 102 books last year , but have a feeling the number will be reduced this year .

  The main reason for lots of the changes is this

This cute , crazy little creature came to live with us in November. His name is Flash and he's an English Springer Spaniel. I love him to bits , but wow , it's like having a baby again , including getting up in the night to do potty duty. We can start taking him out for walks on Thursday and I can't wait. He's getting bored and frustrated and so are we ,lol.

 Sad news is that we lost one of my sons' lovely gerbils yesterday . They are all getting old now , but still very sad . Popcorn will be very much missed by us all .

Hopefully this year will be a better year all round , but particularly for stitching .
Best wishes to everyone .
 Thanks for dropping by ,
 Cath

Is it 2019 yet ?

Have to say , I've pretty much had it with this year.

 Earlier in the year , my MIL was poorly and so was Grandma in law , who then passed away . At around the same time , my Grandma had a pretty bad fall which left her shaken and scared to be at home on her own , so she moved into a local nursing home.

  Things were going well ,she settled in and was happy with the situation .

Sadly my Grandma died on the 21st October , very quietly and peacefully with my mum at her side . My Aunt and Uncle and some of their family however , are still on holiday around Australia and New Zealand so it has been a very fraught time trying to make arrangements for when they get back .

Added in to the mix , last year my Daughter pulled her shoulder whilst throwing a javelin at school. The GP practise diagnosed a strain , advised rest and ibuprofen and it improved after a short while. She had problems intermittently over the year until July when she struggled to pull the plug out of the bath and we ended up at A&E.

  Many appointments, x-rays , wrong diagnoses , physio based on the wrong diagnosis and further appointments later , she ended up with an MRI scan with dye injected into her shoulder. Two appointments later ,we still haven't been told what the problem is , but we have an appointment next Thursday afternoon to see an upper limb surgeon , so I'm thinking it's not good. Meanwhile ,she is in constant pain and is unable to use her arm . We have been threatened with fines from school due to low attendance , even though it has been for appointments or because she has been in so much pain she's had little or no sleep and cannot even get dressed.

 So , next Thursday also happens to be the day of my Grandmas funeral , thought it is earlier in the day , so I will be glad when it is over.

  Also , like many others in the blogging community , I have been mourning the loss of a wonderful person , blogger , designer and friend Gaynor French who died of breast cancer. I have struggled to put into words how I have felt , but at some point I will write a post to honour that very special lady who I still miss every single day .

  And , one of my sons' gerbils had a tumour on his tummy , so lots of vets appointments , and surgery followed . Thankfully , I am very please to say that he has made a full and complete recovery and is happily doing everything he has always done.

So , not a lot of anything has been done other than stressing and worrying.

  I did a label for Love Quilts , but it seemed to take forever. I am now taking a break for a while as I just don't have to time ,energy or inclination to do it at the moment.

I want to stitch , but wanting and doing are two very different things . I have finished a free cover kit from a magazine , but haven't got a picture and that is all .

 I am still reading quite a lot , just not updated Goodreads since like forever ,

So until next time , thanks for dropping by ,

Cath

A slight delay in posting

Sorry I have been AWOL for a while , last time I posted my MIL had been admitted to hospital with pneumonia. She was in for nearly two weeks and on being discharged went straight to the bedside of her Mum (hubby's Grandma) who also had pneumonia .
  Due to her age (nearly 101) the doctors thought sending Grandma to hospital would be too stressful , so she has been bed bound at home for the last couple of months with my MIL and her sister looking after her and more recently with help from carers.
 My lovely Grandma in law passed away on Saturday morning , just three weeks shy of her 101st birthday. She remained stubborn to the end , and will be very much missed , but for her sake it was a blessing as she wasn't comfortable and had no quality of life. Whilst it was not unexpected , it still hits hard .

  So , I have done a little stitching and lots of reading since last time .

This one is an a/c square for Love Quilts. I sent it in along with the previous squares and this one and the batman and robin from last time have already found their place on a quilt .

  This one is for me , and a good job too as I made so many mistakes it was unreal . Still , I like it and that's all that matters . It's an original !

I have started another one in this series , but not much progress as yet , I tend to be too tired to stitch when I've been at work and then have lots of stuff to catch up on the other days , so at the moment stitching time is limited.
  I am hoping to get more done on my HAEDs and hopefully start a new one soon , as I've bought the threads I needed for it , so watch this space.
 Thanks for dropping by ,
 Cath

Resistance is futile

I've kind of given up on the idea of doing less for Love Quilts , I always seem to think "I'll just do one more before having a break" and that break is not happening at the moment.
  My sons' wee doggy has been sadly neglected . I'm still getting into the work routine and am not up to counting too much at the moment , plus I have realised that I grossly miscounted at the start and he is not centred properly,which has put me off somewhat.
 But , still wanting to stitch so I have been doing lots of block colours for team Superhero.

 And loved doing this bright label.

 Just finished yesterday.

 Easter half term , hubby also had the second week off work so we had some fun days out when I was not working.
  We had a day in Skegness , it was chilly and foggy but we had fun nonetheless . We can never go past a branch of The Works , so popped into the Skeg one , and I found treasure.
  This is extendable , magnetic and has an LED light on the end . Perfect for if you drop your needles , and a bargain at  2.50 . I haven't seen them in the local shops , so not sure if they are limited .

Our local Hub has some very talented people who love sharing with the community . One such gentleman is a wood turner and goes into the local primary school to do demos for the kids .
 My son was chosen for the most recent one and was over the moon to be given this pen that he saw being made . It is absolutely lovely , and I'm a tad bit jealous.

  That's all for now , I am busy doing laundry so I can dry outside while we have the lovely weather.
Thanks for dropping by ,
Cath

Ooops , I did it again !

Square finished for Love Quilts.

 But , I also finished this , and love it.

 The stripes in the water were getting me down a bit , but I love the end result.

   Had a couple of questions about this , but some of your blogger profiles are set to no reply so I couldn't e-mail back .  Anyway , the design is by Jody Rice and is in Cross Stitch Crazy issue 226 March 2017. I stitched 2 over 1 on 19 ct fabric using the called for DMC threads.

  So , finishes mean starts right ?

 My latest project is another dog for my boy .

 What it will look like

I have another sign up for Love Quilts , but it's not due until end of May , so I'm not starting it straight away . I want to get more of the dog done before allowing myself to be distracted by anything else .

   In other news , after eight months or so of trying , I have got a job . No start date of yet , should find out from Thursday onwards when I can get cracking , but really looking forward to it . I will be working as a domestic at the local hospital three mornings a week. Ready for a new challenge.

Thanks for dropping by ,
 Cath

A New Year !

Means time to re-cap .

 So , 2017 was a bit of a flop stitching wise , I had 32 starts and 29 finishes , 21 of which were squares for Love Quilts . No big finishes and not as many small ones as usual. I fell into a bit of a funk towards the end of the year , mainly due to stress and jury duty ,but thankfully things are improving now .
 My Orts for last year :

 My jar was emptied ready to start afresh .

Books read last year came to a grand total of 133 , quite a bit more than previous years but with not as much stitching , I had to be doing something , right? 

  Christmas saw a big enhancement to my book stash .

 And these were purchases from the charity shop  , so I am set for a few weeks ,lol.

I have been busy stitching since the holidays.

   This was started last year , but finished on the 2nd of Jan and is a sign up for Love Quilts.

This one was started 2nd Jan and finished on the 9th , another LQ sign -up. They have both been posted now along with the Green Lantern logo which was originally an a/c square but has since been used for a sign-up.

 After Mickey , I stitched this for my daughter. It was complete , but she's now decided that she wants her name and birth month putting on , but it shouldn't take too long to do .

I love doing my Love Quilts squares but I really do need to start doing more of my own stitching , my stash is languishing and has been for far too long , so I am now stitching on a personal project which is quite different to what I would normally do , but I'm loving it . I will show that next time .

 I did have a teeny bit of stash for Christmas , I ordered it before hand as I knew I would be getting mostly money , so just a few bits. Most of my cash went on new clothes as I have lost over a stone in the last few months and I was getting a bit fed up of my bottoms falling down ,lol .

So , Happy New Year , here's to a year full of stitching , stashing and reading and whatever else you would like .

 Thanks for dropping by ,

 Cath

Winter already ?

We had some snow on Thursday , thankfully not a lot and it didn't stay around for too long . I am just not ready.
 Not ready for Christmas either. I am so not organised this year , it's dreadful.
 I finished the dog for my boy , and love how it turned out.

 This is an a/c square for Love Quilts. I needed some easy stitching whilst on jury duty and this fitted the bill nicely. I did the black outline the week before and then just had to "colour it in" . I couldn't take it with me as no sharp objects allowed , they even took a pair of baby nail scissors off me the first day , so I just left them out of my bag after that . Still , it was nice to have something to pick up in the evenings when I wasn't too blasted .

  Jury duty was not easy and it is extremely wearing mentally and emotionally. I am only now beginning to feel that I can put it mostly behind me . I only had one case Monday - Friday the first week . Had Monday and Tuesday off the second week , went in on Wednesday to wait around all day and then be dismissed , but to be frank it was a relief .
  After I finished Green Lantern I wanted to do some "me" stitching so finally got round to doing this gorgeous chart by Gaynor of Stitchers' Anon .

 This was charted as a memory piece for Cathey and I am so glad to finally have it stitched. Not sure how I am going to finish it off yet  but I'm leaning towards a wall plaque kind of finish. We will see.
 Now I've got to decide what to do next .
 Thanks for dropping by ,
 Cath

Well into Autumn

And it feels like I should still be in summer. This year has positively flown , I must be getting old.

 Only a bit of stitching to show from last time , both sign-ups for Love Quilts. The butterfly one only took a few days  .

 This one felt like it took forever . I have stitched it before , three years ago but will not stitch it again , the chart has been sent off to someone else to enjoy. I love the end result , but it was not worth the stress . I was beginning to think I might not make the deadline , thankfully that has never happened yet and I hope it never does ,I hate to let people down. This one nearly got the better of me though.

I literally had to force myself to pick it up. Once I did , it was ok but it was an effort every time. Strangely enough , as soon as it was finished I really wanted to stitch. I have started another dog for my son, and it is nice to pick it up when I want to rather than feel I have to.
 Speaking of my son, he came off his bike three weeks ago and broke his arm. Thankfully it is not a bad break , and all being well his cast will be off on Monday, but we had a rough couple of days.
 Not much else going off , I may not get much stitching done over the next few weeks . Half term holiday has just begun then beginning of next month I have jury duty.
 Thanks for dropping by ,
 Cath

Squares .

Wow ! Half way through the holidays already. We have had busy times and quiet times , relaxing and fun. Hubby had the second week of the hols off work so we had a couple of lovely days out , and also some r&r at home. Been busy clearing out the kids' rooms (always a summer holiday thing). The boys' is done , and he has a lovely new bed so he's happy.
 The girls' is a work in progress.Yesterday saw 12 bin bags full of teddies going into the loft ,lol.
 Today she has gone off to her friends' for a couple of days. I miss her like mad , but so glad she has finally found the best friend she has always wanted.

  My daughter surprised us on her last day at school , by coming home with another gift card which she received for not only having the most A points in her year , she got the most ever in the school history of giving them . So very proud of her .

Still stitching when I can , but also reading a lot too. Some fabulous books both bought and borrowed from the library.

  I realised last time that I forgot to show one of my LQ squares. This was done between the fairy and the rocket.

 Another Batman , I did the background a different colour this time for a change.

 9 a/c squares altogether.

 And for a change , this one is for my son . Another Jack Russell for his eventual quilt.

 A label finished yesterday.

 I have two more sign ups to do for Love Quilts , then I will be taking a break to do some personal stitching .
 I have also stitched up a couple of free kits from the magazines, but have not yet took pictures , so maybe next time.
 Thanks for dropping by ,
 Cath .xxx

Quick catch up

Well the summer holiday time is almost upon us , so I thought I'd better update while I get the chance.
 I am a very proud Mum at the moment , both my lovely kids have had excellent reports from school. My daughter has aced her first year at Comprehensive school , coming out with 100% attendance , working above expected levels for her age group and has been presented with a badge and trophy for completing the Leadership Bronze award and also received a gift voucher which she earned with her A points. They get given A points for various things , like good work , handing in homework on time and doing it well as well as many other things.
 My son got a fab report too , and we had a great time this morning watching the year 5s and 6s performing Grease.(He's in year 5 at the moment - last year at Primary starting September). So , really chuffed with and for both of them .

 Stitching wise , I have been a busy little bee , so let's have a look .

These are all any child squares for Love Quilts . The trains were finished just this evening .
 I have also nearly finished a gift for my sons' teacher , so will have to show you that next time .
 I'm sure that there was something else I had to write about , but cannot think of it at the moment , so will leave it here .
 Thanks for dropping by ,
 Cath