How to get 4 uninterrupted hours of knitting time

You break a bone in your foot and spend the time in the emergency room knitting. Yep, you heard it right. Madam klutz chipped, cracked or broke (depending on which dr I was talking to) a bone in her foot near her ankle. I'm not really sure how I did it either. You know those moments when you're walking along and the next thing you know you're flat on your face and have no idea how it happened? I had one of those. I was walking into the local AC Moore with a 50% off coupon to get a ball winder and splat right in the middle of the parking lot. Missed a step and rolled over my right ankle. Hurt like blazes for a few but once the pain subsided I had a decision to make. Get back in the truck or continue on and get my ball winder. I'm a knitter, what do you think I did? I got the ball winder of course, it was 50% off. It would have added insult to injury if they had been out of them but they weren't.

After doing the errand I was out for, I called Jeff and told him what I had done and would he please meet me at the door. He did, helped me hobble in and I sat in the comfy chair and iced it for a while until I decided it had a weird swelling and maybe going to the emergency room was a good idea.

Now remember the two munchkins that live here? We called our awesome neighbors to watch them for a bit until Jeff's brother, David could get up here and babysit. So they're taken care of for the night. Oh, forgot to tell you it's about 8:30 by now. Off to the hospital we go. But wait! It gets better. My dear darling husband realized he left his military id (which he needs to get onto the base where the hospital is) at the base he works at in the opposite direction from the hospital. Any brownie points he had gained for taking care of me and getting me in the car, etc. just flew right out the window. We get his id and we're finally off to the hospital. We get to the beltway and merge on.

Me: Honey why are you going the wrong way?
Jeff: I'm not, stop worrying
Me: Um, honey that's the exit that's one before ours to get home.
Jeff: %*%*#@ (he's losing more brownie points here)

We turn around and finally get going in the right direction and make it to the hospital at 10pm. A 30 minute trip took us and hour and a half. I love him but he's going to give me more grey hairs.

Before we left I had grabbed a project that didn't need too many directions to knit on. One of the UFO's that I had stuffed in my craft room until I stumbled across it again and looked at it guiltily. The Aran Weight Victorian Lace Shawl went with me. I was not about to spend who knows how long in the emergency room without any knitting. And even though I wasn't thrilled with this project it was mindless knitting, just what I needed. This is another reason to start knitting socks more often. They're easily portable. Now Sue the Ewe is also portable but needs more thinking than I could give to a project, so the shawl it was.

After two sets of x-rays (the first ones weren't good enough), a visit with the doctor, a visit with the orthopedic surgeon (who's bedside manner can be compared to Gengis Khan) and long breaks in between, I had added about 5 inches onto the shawl (it's almost done! there's a silver lining to everything). Sorry I don't have any pictures for you, it's still on the needles and looks like a bunch of grey spaghetti. I'd also gotten used to the wheelchair they made me use and was having fun zipping down the halls from x-ray.

I was finally stuffed (and I do mean stuffed, that orthopedic must have forgotten the part of his oath that says do no harm) into a fracture boot and we were on our way home. Ick 2:30am! I will admit the drive home was entertaining. Two sleep deprived people listening to a comedy channel on XM radio is scary. I don't recommend it.

We made it home at 3am. All the kids were asleep and David was crashed on the futon. Jeff and I crawled into bed and were back up at 7am to start the day. Where's my coffee?!

Since I wasn't able to do much else I made a bit of progress on Sue.


She's much easier to knit than I thought she would be and I'm having a great time working on her. I like the idea of knitting something unconventional. And since the ball winder is what started all this, she's sitting on top of the first ball I wound with it.