Tony has been home for days in a row; yesterday I took him to see his friend Len who isn’t doing so well,. Tony had a rough night and was super tired today – we need to watch next weekend that we do even less.
I haven’t had a lot of art time, but managed to squeeze some inky finger time in today. I’ve been making gelli print papers with my new Klimt inspired stencils by Elizabeth St Hilaire for Joggles.com. I’ve worked on deli paper and Hahn sumi-e rice paper. Once that was done I played in my 6×6 Dina Wakley art journals for a couple of hours. Some of the pages are cut and extended so the writing looks odd unless you see it in person.
Deli & Hahn sumi-e gelli papersPages in my 6×6 Dina Wakley journals
I haven’t been much of a blogger lately, for a few reasons. There’s some things I’m concerned about I can’t or won’t talk about publicly, which is unusual for me. However, in the new year I’ll blog a lot, because I’ll be doing some daily art challenges.
I had a quick break in the South Island recently. Alan was going to visit his sister MaryRose in Tekapo so I went along for the ride. We visited the Mt John Observatory where she used to work, had lunch up Aorangi Mt Cook (they went for a walk, which I couldn’t do yet) had lunch in Wanaka, visited Haast and watched the Hector’s Dolphins at Jackson’s Bay.
We had dinner out with her two night’s in a row in Tekapo; the restaurants were fantastic, and enjoyed a walk round the outdoor sculpture exhibition along the lakefront. We went for a drive up the Ahuriri Valley, in the Lindis Pass area – the scenery is just incredible. We stopped for lunch at Franz Joseph on the last day, and checked out some beautiful waterfalls along the way.
I took us 5 days to get back to Hokitika after he picked me up in Christchurch. I’d never seen any of the South Island except for Blenheim, Christchurch, Hokitika and Greymouth, so it was a real treat. We ate out for lunch and dinner every day, and I relaxed and left my worries behind.
We got back in time to go to a Christmas party Friday night, which was fun. I’d done quite a bit of shopping so wore a new dress and a new pair of shoes with a slight heel – the first heel in 9 years, thanks to my two new knees.
On Sunday Penny and I had lunch and talked art. I’ve started writing poetry in the books we’re creating and it’s pushing us both a bit. Honest feelings, permanently recorded for others to read, and emotionally hard … but part of healing and moving on.
Over the weekend I’ve been talking with Penny about food addiction again … it’s a complicated thing. An alcoholic can potentially avoid alcohol for the rest so their lives, a nicotine addict doesn’t have to smoke a cigarette ever again. A food addiction faces their addiction multiples time a day. Is it hard? Yes. Do we always succeed? No! But we’re not giving up either…
The other pain is my knee. I’ve got really good movement, and a scan on Friday showed there’s no clot in my calf. That’s great news, but does mean we still don’t know why it’s so tight and sore. Last night I slept with only one pillow knee to ankle instead of two. I slept ok but my hip’s been uncomfortable today. I think I can persist with just the one though and let the muscles adjust.
For me, with pain comes art. Actually, art comes with most things; pain, joy, sadness, anger, love and so on. This weekend I made a Teesha Moore inspired journal, starting with a large sheet of Fabriano Artistico paper that I cut, folded and stitched. Not quite my usual style, but a lot of fun.
I’m pretty good at honest conversations these days, and facing stuff. I admit to my addictive nature, and talk about the impacts. There are still things I put to the back of my mind though.
Today I voiced a nagging fear. I’ve walked oddly for 9 years, mainly with the aid of a walking stick. Now I have two new knees, and am starting to walk without crutches some of the time. Will I walk normally once my knee has fully healed? Do I know how or is the muscle memory gone?
I was under a neurologist’s care for a while. I have some obvious problems, but we couldn’t get to the bottom of it as my “I need new knees” walk made diagnosis difficult. We talked about whether I’d had a stroke when I was put on life support, or have MS. I’ve got a decent sized lesion next to my spine, but we don’t think it does anything. In the end, we decided to wait until my knee replacements were done, as a diagnosis isn’t necessarily useful.
In the next few weeks I’ll need to face it. I might walk totally normally, and it’s so simple. I might need some physio to learn to walk properly, and it’s a bit more work but totally ok. Or I might still walk badly and need to connect up with the neurologist again, and deal with … something …
Whatever the outcome, I’ll cope with it. Having voiced my worry is a really good start.
The damage to my knees was severe according to the radiologist and surgeon. I’ve had significant osteo arthritis in my knees since at least 2012, the year I had a car accident which damaged them further. As a result of the bones eroding, my legs were very bowed. It was so bad my surgeon was concerned he might not get either knee totally straight.
It’s just over two weeks since my second total knee replacement. There’s still a lot of swelling and bruises but these before and after photos tell the story…
Cath Sheard Art 