CT Scan - nothing crafty in this post!

Yesterday's scan was as uneventful as I expected.  I'm an old hand at these though not usually on my head!

As you can tell from the time stamp on this post, I'm losing sleep over this whole issue - but that's nothing new!

I insisted on taking the films with me.  I don't see the ENT for another week so I need something to torture myself with until then!

My sister who had just come back from a 2 week spell in Hawaii (she has such a hard life ;-P *lol*) was at work on her day off so I couldn't get a free second opinion (or first opinion in this case) on my scans.

This meant I'd have to to the best I could on my own.  How hard can it be?  Afterall, I've always got Dr Google, right?  And the radiologist who reported my last CT couldn't tell my index finger from the middle one.  At least I can do that much!

The first thing that struck me was how hideous the human face looks on a sinus CT.  I look like a demented alien...an ugly one at that!  This is before I even started looking for deformities in my nose!

Well...let me tell you it doesn't take an expert to see my nose is a complete mess!  My findings are as follows:

*Septum is really badly deviated towards the left side - in several places!  The lowest place is so bad it explains why the ENT couldn't get his camera into my left nostril more than a few cm.  I thought he was just being slack when he pulled it out and started on the next side at that point.

*Inferior Turbinates (thanks Dr Google!) which are the lowest ones are huge.  There is air around them but very little.

*Middle Turbinates are a mixed bag.  The right is filled with air which really didn't look good until Dr Google informed me it's called a Concha Bullosa and really isn't that big a deal.  The left turb looks...kind of normal!  At least it did on initial inspection but later I noticed an air bubble higher up.  A little too close to brains and eyes for my liking.  :-/

*My left maxillary (cheek) sinus has a big grey blob in it.  It's in the same spot in all the different views so it's not just a smudge on the scan.  It's not air or bone so it means it's either tissue or snot or something like that.  Back to Dr Google I go to see what it could be since I couldn't sleep.  The first few entries that came up were somewhat unnerving but further reading it looks like it's a polyp.  Seriously gross!

Now my only concern is to make sure I get a nice anaesthetist who will be prepared to work with local anaesthetics/nerve blocks alone.  If he asks very nicely I might allow him to give me a tiny bit of happy juice provided it doesn't make me fall asleep.  There is no way anyone is going to be messing with my face unsupervised!!!!

From a pain perspective, what I've read seems positive.  Bone pain is the worst and I've survived 4 of those surgeries so this one shouldn't be too awful...except that there is bone involvement in the deviated septum.  Yuckity yuck!

I am really REALLY not comfortable with the idea of people doing things to my face...but if it means I'll stop being tired...and how much more crafting time will that give me?

And if I'm not too dopey I can hand sew in hospital.  That's the down side with wrist ops.  There's no crafting to be done during the boring hospital stay with one arm out of action!


The ENT is keen to do the surgery asap - hopefully within a week of seeing him next.  YIKES!

If I don't laugh I'll cry...

But it's yet another surgery for me!

Thankfully not my wrist again but my nose.

I've been battling airborne allergies for at least 10 years (at least then when I was diagnosed) and until recently a steroid spray meant I got some air through my nose, BUT over the years I got more and more tired and exhausted and sleepy during the day.

About 4 years ago I finally saw a doctor about it because it definitely wasn't related to being a new mum by that stage.  Blood tests showed nothing and I was told it was because I was chasing a toddler etc.  A few more theories were put forward since then and all ruled out until a few weeks ago when DH informed me I have sleep apnoea.

There is a family history and the most common side effect people complain about?  Daytime tiredness, sleepiness, downright exhaustion, lack of concentration, headaches...the list goes on and it fits all my symptoms exactly...even ones I would never have associated with it!!!!

I'm really annoyed no-one thought about it sooner.  Aside from being potentially dangerous, I've been feeling sooo rotten for years by now.

I saw the ENT again yesterday.  18 months ago when my ears started hurting he warned me I'd need my nose fixed and I happily kept using my spray and hoped never to see him again *lol*

Well spray no longer working and me not breathing meant it's crunch time.

He scoped my nose and throat with his little camera.  Definitely have a deviated septum (quite badly) and turbinates need reducing but to what degree and whether anything else needs doing will be determined by the CT scan I have this afternoon.

He's not going to start slashing soft tissue out of my throat for which I'm extremely grateful!  It can lead to problems of its own aside from being really REALLY painful!!

I will need a sleep study done after my nose has healed up and since my throat tissue isn't too big, we're both hoping the nose job fixes the sleep apnoea.

So it's another hurdle before we do more IVFing but worth it since I'm too exhausted to do any baby wrangling in my current state.

As petrified as I am of people messing with my face, the thought of being alert and able to do...stuff is quite exciting!

December Swap blocks Sent and Received

I'm a little late in posting pics of my December Swap.  My partner was Larain and she requested any block in yellow and white.

This photo was taken by Larain since I forgot to take one before sending off the block!

And Larain sent me a beautiful Baby Bunting to add to my collection in PINK! (apologies for the bad photo!)

Thank You for being my swap partner, Larain!

Thank you also to my January partners whose blocks I have received.  I plan to make my January blocks tonight or tomorrow and I'll let you know when they get sent out!

UFO Domination begins

I mentioned a few posts ago about the Confused Quilter's UFO Domination challenge.

Visit her blog or Flickr group to join!

I was intending to start once I'd finished piecing the top of my Roll Roll Cotton Boll Mystery quilt.  No such luck.   I'm massively behind in the RRCB and with the flooding in Queensland, charity quilts are needed now.

I promised DH I wouldn't start on any til I finished DS Dino quilt and the quilt that's supposed to cover one of the sofas.  They're both on the UFO Domination list so that's excellent and I have 2 more UFOs which I wasn't planning to finish this year as part of the challenge but I think I will since they were supposed to be charity quilts all along.

So...I've quilted another chunk of the dino quilt. It's taking sooo long!

Here's a progress report

My quilting is very wonky and wobbly because I seem to have lost the ability to smoothly move the quilt around while I freemotion the design on.

I simply don't get it. I'm sure I could do it a few months ago when I last worked on the quilt. I double checked that the feed dogs were down.

My wrist is getting stronger not weaker since my last surgery in September so it can't be that but if I have slightly wet hands it seems to help. Maybe I should try those quilters gloves?

Right now I'm just grabbing handfuls of quilt and pulling it around. It doesn't make the quilting look any good. Any thoughts?

Exciting news!

Sue from Quilting Block Swaps Australia has entrusted me with co-ordinating a sister group to enable new members to keep coming now that her group is at capacity!

Click on my new button for a visit!

Roll Roll Cotton Boll Step 7 (Spoiler Alert)

Step 7 is the big reveal!

I was right in regards to the block layout!  I'm in no way ready for this step though!

I'm still pressing and trimming HSTs from step 5 and plodding on with string blocks from Step 3.  I haven't done step 6 at all except to make one sample block and I'm liking how it looks.

I decided it looked better with the green triangles next to the block rather than abutting the string blocks.

So...we have our pieced block...

...and the string blocks are halved and restitched to make alternate blocks

 

Side by side...

This is what the pieced block will look like once all the alternate blocks are added.

The variety in pinks and purples is huge though so all the blocks will look a bit different.  I can't wait ti start putting them together buuut there is still the issue of the border which wont be resolved til tomorrow night!!!

Roll Roll Cotton Boll Step 6 (Spoiler Alert)

I know I know - this step came out over a week ago and has since been replaced with step 7!  The delay in posting and completing this step is partially due to all the re-organising and spring cleaning  I've been doing and partially being unsure how to proceed knowing I wanted to make the quilt a bit longer and not wanting to wait til the end to make extra units.

Step 6 added to my suspicions about the possible layout.  I can now post these because Bonnie has revealed the block in step 7.

These were my suspicions (which I'm very pleased to say were correct!):

The first part of Step 6 has us stitching last week's HSTs into strips of 5.  I think I'm seeing a pattern emerging which is giving me a clue as to how many extra units to make.  If 4 strips of these HSTs make sashing or borders for one block, it makes 30 blocks.


Step 4 has us making 30 sets, the other HSTs in step 2 are also divisible by 30 - again 4 per block.


The 60 string blocks from step 3?  2 per pieced block?  Perhaps cut in half diagonally and used to set the pieced block on point??


So...IF we are indeed having 30 blocks it would make sense that they might be set 5 across and 6 down to vaguely resemble the rectangular queen sized quilt Bonnie has in mind.


This still doesn't factor in the units from Step 1 which in step 6 require triangles added on the ends to make parallelograms.  They just don't seem to fit in anywhere!


I decided to trust my guess and make enough units for an extra 5 blocks from the units that give me a clue as to what's going on and I'll wait and see as to the rest.  I needed 5 more sets of Step 4 and 100 more HSTs from Step 5.  I already made enough extra Step 2s.

I wont make any extra Step 1s til I see the border design altho I think from memory there are a few extra.

So...here is what part 1of step 6 looks like: (I haven't sewn them togeter since I'm still pressing and trimming)

And part 2: (haven't sewn them til I know how many to make but I did cut pieces)