I did learn a great deal during my week-and-a-bit in the clinic. One thing that's rather easy to learn if you're lucky like me, and go through your procedure and recovery with very little trouble, is - humility. There's a lot of luck involved in the diagnosis and treatment of any disease, and when you hang out in a clinic, you will usually see quite a lot of people that have it much worse. 

I also gained a much deeper appreciation, and a lot more respect, for the people working in the care industry. Everyone on my ward was always calm and friendly, even if there was a lot to do. They were going back and forth all the time, and put in some extra time before their shift and some extra time afterwards to make sure the hand-over was complete, and their colleagues were informed about everything. Whenever there was an issue, they'd be there, happy to help. Any questions were answered if possible, or if it was a question for a doctor, that was stated clearly and then the doctor would be asked about it. Once I was woken up for the night-shift checks, and the lady apologised for having to wake me - even though it was her job to do so, and I knew when I went to bed rather early that this would happen. 

Working a care job is a very hard job, but seeing the people on this team, you'd never suspect it. They were, one and all, really wonderful and I can't praise them enough.

Another thing I have learned? How to administer an anti-thrombosis injection to myself. Because of side issues of Cushing's Disease like a less effective immune system and a higher risk of thrombosis, I got extra antibiotics plus extra anti-thrombosis injections for a full 5 days, 3 times a day. That was a lot of injections... and I was offered, straight from the start, that I could do them myself if I wanted to. After a few of them, and after one of the ladies managed to accidentally hit a spot where it actually hurt, I did decide to try it. The trick is to pinch a fold of muscle in your thigh (or belly, but I went for the thigh), insert the needle, then let go of the pinch and slowly press in the injection. It did not hurt at all that way. (It got a little uncomfortable and stung afterwards, as the liquid moved through the tissues, but that can't be changed. You also inevitably get a "blauer Fleck" around the point, proof that the anticoagulation stuff is working!) 

When you get surgery like mine, you also get to do fun things for a while. Such as dragging an infusion stand around with you; I quickly dubbed him Hans-Georg. Though, admittedly, we had a lot of fun together, the nurse's declaration that he would be my new best friend was not completely correct. I was quite glad to officially break up with him on Tuesday night! 

I also learned that I tend to drink a lot if there's tea available right outside my door, and I have nothing to do all day. Except, well, hang around and sip tea, especially as that also seemed to help my nose to get less congested. And sniffing the tea was a nice way to try and wake up the sense of smell.

Finally, I got told (before surgery) to ask for pain medication afterwards as soon as I'd realise the pain was coming back, or increasing. Both the surgeon and my roommate at that point made it very clear that trying to just endure the pain would be a very bad idea. The explanation? Traumatic pain like you have after a surgery is harder to dampen down the higher it was able to rise, and there's a kind of memory mechanism that will kick in over a certain threshold. You do not want to have pain memory. So, basically, waiting too long before asking for more pain meds after a surgery will mean that they take longer to take effect, and that you will need more and possibly stronger ones to work. Since I was not planning on having more pain than absolutely necessary, I asked for some more drugs straight away when I noticed the pain coming in - and that did work wonderfully.

Fun side story: When I first came to again after surgery in the wake-up ward, I had some pain in my nose (which was to be expected) and in my left ankle (which was utterly unexpected). The pain meds made the nose pain go away, but the ankle persisted in being really painful. I told the nurses about it, and there was nothing visible, no swelling... and then they removed the foot part of the surgical hose, and a minute later, the pain was gone. There must have been a tiny fold pressing on a weird spot!

So... I am back from my time off, and back from a wonderful NESAT. The health stuff has been taken care of at the start of May, and it was definitely an experience.

I could have gone on living very well without being medically interesting, but in things like that, well, you don't always get a choice. I was very, very lucky overall, however.

What I had goes by the lovely name of Cushing's Disease - and if a condition has "disease" in its name, usually that is not a good thing to have. My diagnosis happened more or less by a chance discovery of abnormally high DHEA-S levels, so I did not have any real, noticeable symptoms yet. Cushing's Disease is a rather rare condition; most people, however, have heard of Cushing's Syndrome, which has similar symptoms and is much more common. 

Both conditions are characterised by an excess of cortisone in the system. Cortisone is a good thing to have, in general (you need it for the flight reflex, for instance, or to handle other stressful situations both physical and psychological), but too much of it for too long is very much not-so-good. In Cushing's Syndrome, the excess cortisone can come from anywhere, for instance from a therapy with cortisone. In C's Disease,  it's all home-made stuff. In my case (which is the most common variety of CD), it was a little adenoma (a benign tumour) on the pituitary gland. That tiny booger had nothing better to do than sit there and secrete ACTH, which is the signal stuff telling the adrenal glands to get going on making some more cortisone. Because, well, the booger thinks it's a good idea. (If it thinks. Anyways.)

There's only one good way to fix this, and that's to cut out the adenoma. How this is done is fairly straightforward, literally - you go in through the nose, then make your way through the sphenoid bone, open up the bottom of the sella turcica where the pituitary gland sits in, cut out the adenoma, and that's it. (Well, you place the insides of the nose back where they belong on your way out, of course. The septum gets temporarily pushed to the side, which means two small incisions inside the nose, but they can't really be seen from outside.) Going for the brain through the nose is not a new idea either, as the old Egyptians did that already. (They may not have been so specific and precise with what they took out, though. I was quite determined to only do this kind of reenactment in a very much modernised and very watered-down version.)

So. First bit of real good luck: Diagnosis before the onset of any noticeable symptoms. Second bit of real good luck: One of the best clinics in Germany for this kind of surgery is in Erlangen. Third bit of real good luck: Everything went very well, without complications, and I had the best team, best nursing staff, and best roommates imaginable in the clinic for my recovery.

Now I have a lot of high-res images of my brain, with and without the booger in. There will be another check in about three months where I get to lie down on the really expensive wellness lounger again. (Pro tip: If you have to go for an MRI, bring a blanket or ask for one. I almost turned into an icicle my first time; the bed itself is heated, so you're warm from the bottom, but there's a cold air flow inside the machine, and that does mean business. I was afraid that I'd start shivering and would ruin the images! Second time I asked for a blanket and it was really nice and comfy.) 

I will also get the questionable treat of a lot more visits to the doctor in the future than I was used to, as hormone levels of all kinds need to be checked regularly for now. Time will tell whether my pituitary gland will take up its job again to produce ACTH - as it has been on pause for a good while, it might be a little miffed and not willing to do the work just now. (The surgeon said that for them, it's nicest if the gland never starts up again, as that means the tumour is gone and has not come back. Once production starts again, checks have to be made to see if it's legit and done by the gland, or if something has grown back.) So for a while, I'm now depending on meds to keep me going. That is a little scary, actually... but I'll get used to it for a bit, and I do hope I will be able to wean myself off the pills at some point. I can report that there was no problem at all with my dosage even hopping through Warsaw for the NESAT conference, which I was able to attend without problems. The only thing that happened was that I got very tired rather quickly in the evening, and a bit earlier than usual, but then, everyone was tired after the very intense days of the conference.

(Side note: It was a very good thing that I prefer the train to the plane and had arranged for a night train trip to Warsaw and back - you're not allowed to fly for three months after a surgery that goes inside your skull. So I was very, very pleased to have travel plans compatible with after-surgery guidelines!)

The month of May will be full of different appointments for me, including one for a surgical procedure, which also means that I will unfortunately not be able to go to the Nadelwelt in Karlsruhe. Because I'll be off to NESAT following that, I'm putting the shop on hold for a while, and orders coming in will be sent off after May 28, when I will be back.

I'll also be having a blog break during that time, so I can take all the time necessary for recovering and don't need to squeeze in blogging between coming back home and going off to NESAT. 

So I will leave you with this image of my test weave for the fabric reconstruction:

The lower part is the one that's the best fit to what we are going for. The little test piece was done weaver-tensioned, and my selvedges are still, well, let's phrase it kindly and say they are offering a lot of room for improvement. But it's doing okay for what it was intended for, which is answering the questions "how will it look, approximately" and "will we get into the right range of thread density" and "does the amount of twist in the threads look about right". 

And then, just like with knitting swatches... you go for the big thing, and you hope. Which is what will happen while I'm off the grid, or a bit afterwards, depending on how things go, timing-wise. Keep your fingers crossed all goes well!

Because I have to wet and stretch the skeins anyways, the plan for the warp yarns this time was that I add some sizing in that process, saving Silvia (who will do the weaving) from that extra prep step.

As it's here and available already, we settled on animal glue for the sizing. The idea behind sizing is to strengthen the threads against friction and abrasion on the loom, making it easier to weave and giving a better end result. So I dissolved some animal glue in warm water, bathed the skeins in their hot bath to set the twist, pressed out as much excess water as possible and gave them a good long soak (about half an hour) in the gluey liquid. 

I'm very, very happy about two wonderful prototypes... of shears!

Shears were more common than scissors for most of the Middle Ages, at least according to archaeological evidence. They are still in use for some things today, so you can relatively easily get simple shears in either a fairly large or a very small size - for shearing sheep, pruning plants, or snipping threads.

The medium-sized shears, though, they are hard to come by if at all. And if you're going for historically correct shapes of the blade and the overall form, well, here's none of them that will pass scrutiny. So for years, I have searched for someone willing to accept the challenge and make shears for me to sell.

Finally, I found someone. These shears are made just like the originals were: With steel cutting edges, welded onto the iron body, in the shape and size they should be (around 14 cm in length). A nice, rounded bow at the end, and a bit of decorative waves just before the blades start. They are sharp enough and well enough aligned that they will cut fabric nicely and cleanly. 

There will be a little bit of fine-tuning to make them softer to press together, as cutting at the moment requires a little more strength than is comfortable for doing more than just short bits, and then they will turn up in the shop at some point. And I am thrilled they will!  

 There's an exhibition opening this weekend - in Lauterbach, about the everyday life on Burg Wartenberg. The exhibition includes some finds that have never been shown before and are not published anywhere as images, plus some finds that have been newly evaluated.

Alas, I won't be able to go there, as I will be in Kamenz demonstrating spinning - but I do hope I'll be able to see the exhibition at some point! 

And now for something completely different... I found this very amusing, and I hope you do, too!