Thursday, October 15, 2009

Scarfilicious

I love this scarf. I'm pleased the weather is becoming cold and blustery for the excuse to finally weave in ends and put this lovely about my neck. For all its seeming simplicity, it took quite some time to finish. I do love the woven look of the linen stitch, but moving the yarn front to back to front to back does somehow take a while to do.



Pattern: Scrappy Lengthwise Scarf by Zona Sherman
Yarn: Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend - one solid and one variegated

I began the knitting in February 2009, right about when I wrapped up my attempt to lose the dizziness by not eating my most favorite foods. It is a relatively small percentage of people who can identify dietary triggers for migraine, and I am not one of those (lucky?) people.



I began instead to take anti-depressants, which is a common migraine treatment. By June it was pretty clear that the first anti-depressant was not alleviating the dizziness, so I was onto a second one. In August I doubled the dose, and then in September it was clear that things were only getting worse.



My neurologist suggested a neck MRI, especially because all along I have had numbness in my face, arms, hands and sometimes my feet. I am now taking an anti-seizure medication to alleviate the numbness. While she has not come right out and said that I don't have migraines, it sure seems like a quickly fading theory. The neck MRI shows a bulging disc. I do at least have a very pretty scarf to warm the neck that holds this errant disc.

I'm soon to have an EKG with ultrasound to make sure there is not a heart problem at the root of all this. And so, at the 16 month mark I don't quite have a diagnosis or treatment. And I'm starting to feel just a whole lot more dizzy. It's really hard to remain optimistic that all will soon be resolved and I can return to the life of a healthy person. Whine.