CRAFTY | HEX & STUFF

A couple of weeks ago I woke on a Thursday morning with a rather nasty pain in my chest. At first I thought it was some sort of weird pre-breakfast indigestion, then when it did subside within a few minutes I thought it was a heart attack. When it hadn’t eased within 10 minutes I decided it might be time to take myself off to the Emergency Room at our local hospital.

One very bumpy, slow and painful car trip later I found myself doubled up in the ER waiting room praying like mad that I wasn’t about to depart this mortal coil.  The doctors in the ER were stumped – no fever, no vomiting, no issues with my heart, nothing on the chest xray – and were about to send me home with some painkillers and a rest and see order when the supervising doctor told them to send me for an ultrasound.

One very painful and rather contortionist visit to the ultrasound department done and it was concluded that I had a rather significant sized gall stone well and truly wedged in my gall bladder.

Who knew!

I was hoping to get home that day, but my attack wasn’t subsiding and so they kept me in the Surgical Assessment Unit overnight to make sure I wasn’t going to need emergency gall bladder removal. Not how I had planned to spend my first ever night away from our son. (There were tears… big, fat, silent tears every time I thought about it.)  But I consoled myself with the fact that we are lucky enough to have a great public health system (for now…), the nursing staff and doctors are amazing and I wasn’t dying any time soon.

But what to do when one finds themselves stuck overnight in a hospital with no warning? Stitch of course!

HUBBY went home and grabbed me the essentials; my tin of hexies.

I keep my hexies, my needles, my thread, my trusty scissors all in a tin that I pack and take with me when I think there might be a chance of stitching time when I’m out and about so it was ready and waiting for me during my time of need.

I have to say, stitching those hexies kept me sane. It was great to have something to focus on that wasn’t health related, or how much I was missing my family or crappy free-to-air television. It kept my hands busy, my mind occupied and gave me something to talk to the nursing staff and patients about. (Surprised to find lots of quilters in the hospital professions!)

I managed to get a few of them done too, which was great. There’s something so wonderful about seeing a pile of single hexies diminish and a pile of hexie flowers grow.

When I got home I continued on and made a couple more. I’d forgotten how addictive it can be.

I still have a number of them to complete and then I have to join them all together. It’s weird stitching with fabric I bought a couple of years ago and seeing how much my taste in fabric has changed. I still love the fabrics, they’re just not the fabrics I would choose for this project today. But quilting, like life, is an evolution.

I’m really very thankful that I was able to access a top-notch health service and that they found the problem. I’m now scheduled to meet with my surgeon (the same lovely man that did my gastric sleeve) in early April and then my gall bladder will be removed shortly after that.

I’m worried (as always) about anything going wrong, but it’s better out than in. It’s also helping me to appreciate (even more) how lucky I am to actually have family and friends that I would be bummed (understatement) about leaving behind should the worst happen.  But that’s not going to happen, so I just need to put on my big girl panties and be thankful I can get the surgery, that it’s not a life ending problem and that I’ll be up and about in a day. Also, it’ll give me some time to make another hexie flower or two.