I Married a Knitter

Blog's not dead

2009-11-01T00:12:00.001-07:00

We are, though. Dead tired. Exhausted.

Live has really been getting in the way of, well, everything lately.

At least Bun's been working her tuchus off knitting. We'll have a number of projects to show you, as well as our honeymoon pictures, as soon as we get them off the camera and into the webosphere.

Hang in there!

Should I bring my old sprite comic here?

2009-08-26T22:42:00.000-07:00

Way back in college, I think I started it my junior year, I made a really poorly made sprite comic.

Nobody really read it. And I doubt anybody really cares if I bring it here or not (with a new title, of course, since this is an anonymous blog for the time being), but what do you think? It was full of interesting observations, witty comments, and crude humor. It could give some of you a laugh. I think a lot of you, dear readers, would enjoy it!

Should I bring it over here and start up again?

I set up a poll over there in the side bar. Can you see it? It's right there, on the left! Still can't see it? I don't think I can make this more clear.

Here's a preview comic I made to show off the kind of humor involved in the comic:

So, vote whether or not I should bring it back. If you've got any comments about this, I welcome them below!

We're alive!

2009-08-23T17:16:00.000-07:00

Yeah, sorry for not posting for a while. But, rest assured, we are alive!

We have been both busy and not busy - that makes sense. During our busy times, we've been very busy! During our not busy times, we just haven't been able to post anything on here.

Don't worry, dear readers (if you exist), your prayers are going to be answered! That's right, I'm going to post something 100% related to knitting! Say what? You heard that right! This knitting blog will have its first knitting post! Hooray!

Long story short, Bunny has been working on these hat-things lately. She calls them something in french, but I can't remember the word. Whatever, they're hat-things. They take around 2 or 3 days to make, depending on how much she knits at once.

Take a look, they're cute! Don't you think?

In related news, one of Bunny's friends from the knitting store she works at decided that instead of giving us a wedding gift off our registry, she'd let her come to her house and take whatever she'd like from her stash. I was invited to go too... but I (wisely) opted to just go to lunch with them before the yarn-choosing event. I have no doubt I made the right choice. They were choosing yarn for somewhere between 3 and 5 hours (I don't know what time they started choosing yarn, but it was a long ass time!)

In the end, to the victor go the spoils! And ultimately, it seems our dog was the victor!

"You should just go to better doctors"

2009-08-17T19:15:00.000-07:00

My friend from freshmen year of college, @overflowinbrain, recently posted her reaction as someone else with a "invisible illness" - the author of reading "An Open Letter To Those Without Invisible Disability Or Chronic Illness …". As I explained in "Sleepless Nights", I too have a chronic, debilitating disease. While much of what I feel is similar to both Ms. Overflowinbrain or the mystery writer of the open letter, I'd like to post some of my thoughts and feelings as well.

This is going to be a long one. So go to the bathroom beforehand.

1. Yes, shockingly, CRPS aka RSD is a real disease that affects many people across the US and other countries around the world.

2. My happiness and my degree of pain do not necessarily reflect one another. During my wedding, I might look happy. In fact, I am happy! But, just because I was able to put on a happy face and generally enjoy myself does not mean I was not in pain. Believe you me, by the end of the night my pain was so high I could barely walk, see straight and was literally nauseated. You read that right, my knee was hurting so much I thought I was going to throw up. Yet, despite the amount of pain I was in, I was happy to spend the occasion with my friends, family and new wife!

3. I'm still me! Seriously, I got hurt and now I have CRPS. My personality might have changed slightly (whose wouldn't after becoming disabled?) but, deep down, I think you'll find that I'm still a nice, caring, fun guy who loves dogs. I still love The Simpsons, playing Dungeons and Dragons, eating with friends, and so on. I'm sad to say that since my accident I have lost friends. But, it occurs to me, that if they would stop calling/emailing/IMing me after developing CRPS, then they really were not true friends at all.

4. Like you, I have good days and I have bad days. Who doesn't have a bad day once in a while? The fact is, on my good days, I'm in more pain than 99% of you could possibly imagine. You don't even want to know what I experience on bad days. Just because I sound cheerful and can bring up topics that are not related to my pain, does not mean I'm not in pain.

5. Speaking of bringing up topics about my pain - please, please, please, don't immediately ask, "How is your pain today?" when we first begin talking. Most of the time, it's no different than it has been since I developed CRPS. The fact is, if I'm doing better, I'll bring it up. If I'm doing shitty, I don't need you asking me how I'm feeling which makes me focus on the pain more than I already am. There are so many other topics to bring up in conversation. Stick with those and keep in mind that unless I bring up my pain, I probably don't want to talk about it.

6. "You should just go to better doctors" and other equally helpful suggestions. Yeah, I'll get right on it. The fact is, I'm seeing some of the best doctors in the country when it comes to CRPS and its treatment. If you know of a CRPS expert, you can run them by me. But if you don't know of any doctors who specialize in CRPS and other pain disorders, please keep your suggestions to yourself.

7. Yes, when that (slight stumble / pet bump / child bump / other seemingly minor event) occurred, it did hurt. A lot. I am not being melodramatic, it really did hurt. I know, it did not look like it would have hurt. Before developing CRPS it wouldn't have hurt. Now that I have the disease, I have become hypersensitive to stimuli. There are many times when what I feel seems to be the reverse of what a normal person would experience. I know it is strange but the harder the pressure, the better it feels. I use this analogy a lot:
- When the dog sits on my lap, it hurts, but not much more than normal.
- When the dog's tail sweeps lightly across my knee, it feels like somebody is using a grinding wheel made of liquid nitrogen on the bones and tendons inside my knee.

8. Telling me about the time you injured yourself and telling me that I should just get over it the way you did is really insensitive and totally unhelpful. I don't feel like I need to explain why I feel this way.

9. Even though this condition can make me miserable from time to time, I can still make jokes about it. You don't have to feel like you have to totally censor yourself in front of me. Hell, I make some tasteless jokes like, "On the plus side, I get better parking spaces!" or "Come with me to Disneyland, you'll get on all the rides first!"

10. I'm very grateful to those who help me. Holding the door open for me, picking up something I dropped, or even just offering me a place to sit will always be appreciated! Other kind gestures will be equally regarded.

That's all I can think of now... I'm sure there are other observations I've had, but I think you should be able to get the point.

Basically, long story short, yes, I'm in pain, but there's more to me than my CRPS.

If you suffer from a chronic illness posting something like this might be helpful for you to do as well. I am sure others can gain some insight from all of our observations. If you have anything you'd like to add, please post them in the comments below.

If you have any questions about my condition, I will be more to happy to answer what I can in the comments below.

Two more chuppah pics

2009-08-16T17:05:00.000-07:00

Just received an email from Bunny's sister, linking me to all the pics she took of the wedding. There's two awesome pics of her chuppah

Can you believe that Bun knit that? ^^

Edit, sorry, there was a problem with the pics. They should work now!

Mystery Folder

2009-08-16T15:58:00.000-07:00

I was going into my Applications folder by clicking on Macintosh HD (a process you are surely well practiced in) and noticed a mystery folder. Does anybody know what this is? Or what it's for?

It has 2 folders contained within...
and

I copy-pasted the folder name into Google and got this helpful result. The awesome part is the "Did you mean" link linked me to this ultra-helpful page. Fantastic!

So, does anybody have any idea what the hell that folder is? Did some rogue application make the folder? Can I delete it?

Thanks!

3rd Party Account

2009-08-15T20:38:00.000-07:00

My good friend from way back when, @nicopolitan, posted an awesome 3rd-party account of my wedding ceremony!

Check it out!

Sleepless nights

2009-08-15T16:41:00.000-07:00

I have not shared my medical conditions with my ~~nonexistant~~ plentiful readers.

I have a severely painful nerve condition called Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. Basically, my right knee was injured a few years ago, and though it is physically healed, my brain believes it to constantly be in a state of sever injury and therefor is always in tremendous pain. Due to this condition, I need a cane to walk.

There's a scale for rating the severity of pain for different conditions called The McGill Pain Index. CRPS always rates extremely high - you can see it compared to other pain conditions here:

That's right, the pain in my leg is worse than it would be to have one of my fingers amputated w/out anesthesia.

It always hurts. Always. Sometimes it feels better than others, but I never have relief from the pain. It hurts so much I have begun to not only perceive pain differently in other parts of my body; but, I have also begun to become used to being in pain. People always ask, "Where on a scale of 1-10 is your pain? Keep in mind 10 is going to the emergency room." If the emergency room could do something, I would have gone long ago. If I were to go to the emergency room now, they would probably tell me that I have CRPS and there's nothing they can do. So, I cannot answer the 1-10 question accurately. What feels like an 8/10 for me, would likely be unbearable for anybody else. Keep in mind that there's a lot that will make the pain worse, while very little that makes it better.

There's a lot I can't do without aggravating this already painful condition:

Go to movies (seats are too uncomfortable)
Drive for more than 30ish minutes
Ride in a car for more than
Walk for more than 20 minutes w/out taking a break
Run at all
Climb stairs comfortably
Many more

So, you might ask, what do I do to help this condition? Well, there's a few things I do regularly:

Take medications like muscle relaxants and antidepressants (pain killers do not work at all)
Lay down
Go to physical therapy for 2-6 hours per week
Use mirror therapy
Take lots of breaks while out
Drive as little as possible

Wow, you might think to yourself, that's awful. Indeed it is, but you know what? No matter how much pain I am in, I can always count on one thing. I can always count on Bunny to help me, no questions asked. She is always willing to help me no matter what it is I need help with. Sure, there are certain times that she can't help, but just knowing that she is there for me makes it so much better. Just knowing how much she loves me makes living with this condition so much more manageable.

Now, you might be wondering why is this post titled "Sleepless nights"? Well, when one is in the amount of pain I'm in (as many others with CRPS will attest to), there are good nights, when my miginary of medications helps me get to sleep despite the pain. Then, there are bad nights. No matter what I do, I just cannot get to sleep.

Last night was one of my sleepless nights. I tried everything I could, and I just could not get to sleep. (It didn't help that the dog kept kicking my knee). Even though it was a terrible night, Bunny was able to help me by doing nothing more than scratching my back and whispering that she was here with me. I never got to sleep until 5:00 am and only slept until 9:30 am, and I'm exhausted today. That said, I'm so glad that I got to spend most of the day with Bunny despite the exhaustion and pain.

No matter how much pain I'm in, she never ceases to amaze me. She's the most caring person in the world. I'm so lucky to be married to such a loving person!

Bridezillas

2009-08-15T00:22:00.000-07:00

Does anybody else watch "Bridezillas"? Bunny and I have been watching it for quite a while, I believe we started watching from Season 3. We have not started watching this season... we tried to, but it stressed her out too much to watch before our wedding. I think we'll start watching it more now that the wedding is over... but that's not the point of this post.

Forgive me for generalizing, but much of the time the women on this show are all such bitches, it's incredible others want to be around them - no less marry them. That's the point of the show, isn't it? But, I'm not just talking about the brides themselves, I'm referring to their friends and families as well. A lot of the time, these other women seem to egg on the brides who are already well passed being stressed out. Then, as the bride goes off on them, they act totally appalled that they are being yelled at and that the bride is making a scene.

After watching many of these episodes with Bunny, I came to realize that I am a very lucky man. Bun was hardly a bridezilla, she was always interested in others' opinions. Sure, sometimes she would not ultimately follow their opinion; nobody can ever please everybody. In fact, she would ask fairly regularly if she was being a bridezilla, which I always answered, "No, and if you start to, I'll tell you before it gets out of hand." She genuinely wanted to know what my thoughts were regarding certain aspects of our wedding. Looking back in retrospect, it makes me very happy that she was always interested to know what my opinion was, even if I genuinely did not care one way or the other. A funny example that comes to mind was, "Which table cloth do you like better? The off-white one? Or the slightly-more-yellow-off-white one?" Yeah, yeah, I know, she used different words... probably the real names of those colors... but seriously, they were the same color in my eyes!

I even managed to help her make up her mind when it came down to tough decisions. Decisions, that in my mind, no other man would be able to help. Most notably, I was able to find the shoes what ultimately wore for the ceremony and reception. I was also able to find the artist who worked with us to design the perfect cake topper!

I'm so lucky to have Bunny, a bride (and now a wife) who always wants to make sure everybody feels their input is important! Especially mine thoughts, feelings and opinions.

Why is our dog...

2009-08-14T22:14:00.000-07:00

Why is our dog, "Chompers", humping Wife repeatably throughout the night? Seriously, she's humped Wife upwards of 30 times tonight alone!

Wish I could find our camera

2009-08-14T22:13:00.001-07:00

I wish I could find our camera. Then I could show you all the awesome projects Wife is working on. Until I find it, however, you'll just have to enjoy these pictures of the chuppah she made for our wedding.

It took her about half a year to make, and is obviously as beautiful as it is meaningful!

I married a knitter

2009-08-14T19:35:00.001-07:00

On August 8th, 2009, I married a knitter. This is a blog about our lives together as husband, wife, her stash and our dog.