It's the most wonderful time of the year! Autumn! Stephen West's MKAL is about to get going, and normally I'd be super excited and picking out my yarns. But this year, since I have so many shawls already, I thought it would be fun to admire everyone else's and instead use that time for sweater knitting. If I end up really loving this year's shawl, I might be tempted to join in later. If I do, I'm going to use the Holst Garn supersoft that I've been wanting to try. It's everything I like, inexpensive, tweedy heathered colors, rustic, and wooly. I'll hold a strand of lace alongside to make it easier on my fingers. IF I knit the MKAL, lol. For the sweaters, I want to use a yarn I remember from when I first started to knit, Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool. Lately, I've been appreciating neutral colors and cables, so I picked out 4 patterns that looked cozy, cabled, warm, and fairly simple to knit in a single color of worsted, and matched each pattern with a color of the fisherman's wool.
The patterns I chose were the Barbie Aran Sweater by Bana Kavanagh, Bedford by Michele Wang, Cracked Walnuts Vest by Drops Design, and Gaon Cardigan Aran by Soomin Ahn.
On a different note, here's an instructive little tale about the state of health care in the US
A few days ago, I was feeding the cats, slipped on the steps leading to the outside, and fell. I was carrying 2 food dishes, and my feet slipped out from under me. They landed against the wall on the other side, and I went down into one of the stair edges. Thankfully I didn't break my back, hip, or crack my head open, but regardless, it wasn't a fun injury. The most painful thing I've ever experienced. The entire blow was to my lower back/right side ribs. I couldn't move, because surprise, everything is attached to those core muscles, and could barely breath. I almost threw up, and started to cry. I debated getting the ambulance over here, but the thought of having to somehow get picked up and stuck on a stretcher was not something that seemed possible. I realized that nothing was broken, as far as I could tell, even though I wasn't so sure about my ribs, and so my goal, after trying to sit there and recover a tiny bit, was to make it into bed and give it some time, even though I 100% couldn't walk or stand for several hours. Also, I thought it would be a good idea to get some medical advice, to see if there was anything I needed to know about this type of injury. Like how to tell if my kidney was ok, or if my muscles had been compressed too much, if I had internal bleeding, or maybe how long I could expect to be out of commission. I'm not sure where my spleen is, how delicate the liver is, or what organs could have been injured. So I called the ER. The doctor on the other end was not nice to me whatsoever, and told me that he legally couldn't give me any advice. I knew that if I somehow made it there, my bill would very likely have been at least $8,000, and they would make my life miserable with their tests including possibly harmful unnecessary ones(CT scans are actually really bad for you), so it wasn't looking like a viable option for me. I have insurance, but that doesn't mean that I want to use it all up for no reason, or get overcharged for every little thing. Medical care shouldn't be for some opportunistic company to swindle you when you really need them. There was a chance that this was just severe bruising and I could save myself all of this trouble, but it would have been nice to talk to someone who actually cared about people's suffering or who was able to share the supposed knowledge they received in their 13 years or so of schooling. Also, maybe there should be a 24-hour clinic that wasn't the ER. My cats have a 24-hour clinic, but I don't? Sigh. I called my insurance helpline, a nurse, and while she was much nicer to me, and seemed to at least marginally have feelings, she also gave me zero advice. She wanted me to go to the ER and kept asking me what the chance was that I would. I realized that she must get a referral fee if they look my name up in the system later as having gone. I could have called a plumber or a kindergarten teacher and gotten a more helpful response, so I'm not sure why they even bother to hire an actual RN for that job. I don't even want to know how much my insurance was charged for her useless chit chat. I debated calling a doctor in Mexico or something, maybe a country where their doctors can actually help people with medical problems, and then thought about if I knew any local shamans or retired nurses. Nope. No advice for me. I had to research it all on Google, and hope for the best. Anyway, it's been a few days, and thankfully, I'm recovering at lightening speed, and it seems like I'll heal up just fine. I'm still quite injured, and might have a few fractured ribs or something, but it's healing faster and better than I thought was possible. I'm going to install some stair grips, and be super super super extra careful when going up and down them from now on. But I've never been more discouraged about the state of our health care system than now. It makes me want to move to another country real bad.
