Illness and quilting, or lack thereof.

At home...

Wow, it has been a crazy two weeks here and so little to show for it.  As you know, I went to a quilting retreat with my daughter and we had a great time!  However, there were a few germs somewhere in the air and by the time I was ready to leave, I had a bit of a sore throat.  By Monday it was a cough.  Hailey felt poorly by Sunday night and then my hubby was feeling bad by Tuesday.  Before I continue, let me give you a bit of a background history of myself.  I have chronic asthma.  Now, keep in mind that I do everything I can and have managed my asthma extremely well.  As a matter of fact, it has been so well maintained that I seldom use a rescue inhaler and it had been several years since I needed breathing treatments with a nebulizer.  Even still, the smallest of ailments for someone else can be dire for those with other issues.  By Thursday, I was suffering with coughing and breathing.  My inhaler wasn't working and my meds for breathing treatments had expired.  My heart was working way over time trying to keep my lungs working.  So, to the ER for me.  Tests, tests, tests, diagnosis of bronchitis, tons of meds, back home to heal.  Well, that wasn't good enough sadly.  Lungs were getting worse, heart was working even harder, and while I have had the odd occasion of feeling so sick I wanted to die, this was the first time I thought it was possible.  No amount of inhalers or breathing treatments or anything else was working,  I felt like I was suffocating.  I'm not going to lie, I was truly terrified.  Back to the ER on Monday night.  More tests, more meds, more problems, etc.  In the end, viral, bacterial and fungal infections were to rear their ugly heads.  Only able to sleep two hours a day due to constant monitoring and medication schedules (which seemed to be changed up often).  We had IV problems as well, did I mention I'm afraid of needles already?  Oh well, the staff was nice.  I am finally back home.  However, my room has been stripped of nearly everything that can move.  I am not allowed to do anything for at least three weeks, including climbing the stairs to go to my studio.  The meds are still round the clock and of course they are all on different schedules.  I have already lost two weeks of quilt related work time and now I have at least three more weeks of work to lose.  My daughter did better than me and only lost half of her work hours.  My husband, on the other hand, lost a full week of work.  Due to so many meds, our insurance didn't cover the majority of them.  Now, here me when I say I'm not complaining at all.  I'm stating facts as they are right now.  I'm grateful to be home again.  I'm grateful that I'm marginally better.  I'm grateful that I can watch quilty YouTube videos.  One could say that I can at least do some hand work while in the bed.  But have you ever tried to accurately use a small needle when you have the shakes from round the clock breathing treatments?  I did sew on two beads last night for my Ostrich Quilt and I'm not going to tell you how many times or how painfully I poked myself in the process.  I needed to do it though.  I needed to feel in control of something, anything, at all.  I have only two more that need to be on and I will try to do them today.  I know it will make me happy to have that round finished up and photographed. (I did it, see pics below! Do you know what the beads represent?)  The next round I need to audition some fabric for, so that I can definitely do.  And since I'm only using stuff from my stash, I don't have to feel bad about not being able to shop.  The other projects I want to work on require using a rotary blade...I think that is probably a no-no right now. LOL.  I'm praying that the treatments grow fewer and further between so that I can at least get 5 minutes done a day instead of my 15 minutes.  So, as I said, I'm not complaining.  I have no ill will toward anyone.  However, I do wish to make a brief public service announcement that if you are sick at all, please stay away from others!  You don't know what hardship you might be forcing on others.  IF, and I mean IF, someone went to the retreat knowing they were sick, but didn't think it was that big of a deal and didn't want to lose out on the money they spent... can I just say the money we have lost and are continuing to lose is a much greater amount.  Overall, I'm saying just be mindful of others, please.  Now, I've posted some pics of my last week below.  Some might be a bit graphic, so feel free to not look at them.  And my prayers for all of you are that you are well and get lots of quilty stuff done this week.

Opal is showing off the completed round!

Close up of left side.

Close up of top side.

Close up of left side.

Close up of bottom side.

Now for the not fun stuff....

Houston, we have a problem!

Better with this one... until it wasn't.

Gotta keep your spirits up.

Trying to make things fun.

My amazing support system!  He never left my side!

The reason I lost several pounds.