An Important Announcement

This specific post is to better explain the following life event that I have scheduled for mid-June and hopefully answer FAQs and keep my friends and family in the know about all this.

Many of you probably don't know this, but I have a severe case of a potentially debilitating spinal condition called scoliosis. Scoliosis, or curvature of the spine, happens when the normal spinal curve develops sideways. This can actually be life-threatening to lung function and can cause other health complications if the severe condition is left alone and the curvature is allowed to increase over a longer period of time.

There are three stages of this condition (usually found in children and adolescents); slight, which is generally monitored; moderate, which can be corrected with a brace; and severe, which can only be corrected by surgery.

In my case, it falls into the severe category, in which major spinal surgery is necessary. Surgery was recommended for my condition seven to eight years ago, when I was in high school. Unfortunately, due to my parent's separation and divorce, as well as college, I haven't been able to get the surgery that was recommended to me. I have seen specialists several times to monitor my condition and take x-rays every two to three years or so. What they have been seeing is, unfortunately, that the degree of which my spine is bent is increasing and will continue to increase at about a rate of one to two degrees a year until the surgery is performed.

I recently saw a specialist again for a follow-up on my condition and to seriously discuss the surgery. At this appointment, he told me that whether I decide to get the surgery now, five years from now, or twenty years from now, it will be necessary eventually (implying that twenty years down the road this condition could become life-threatening) and the older I got the more difficult the surgery would be to perform.

I want to say here that currently, my scoliosis is not debilitating. With the condition it is now, I get occasional back pain and muscle spasms. It rarely effects my day-to-day activities, including exercise. The only thing that I cannot do physically right now is ice skating and/or rollerblading.

Seeing that this is inevitable, I have decided to schedule this surgery this summer, four months from now in the second week of June. I will soon be a college graduate and need to be in the workforce, which would eliminate any possibility of getting the surgery because of how lengthy the procedure and the recovery time is.

The length of recovery and the riskiness of the procedure is what has been drawing me away from it for several years (as well as other circumstances). Talking with specialists, I know the basic jist of what is going to happen, how long it is going to take, etc.

What is going to be done to correct my deformed spine is that they will be physically correcting the curvature and to make sure that the correction stays so, will not only be fusing vertebrae, but placing metal rods into the fused vertebrae to make sure that these stay fused and straight. Because every person's scoliosis curvature is different, this specific procedure generally takes minimally five hours, but it could really take a lot longer than that. I was told that I would be in the hospital for five to seven days, and be recovered to work between one to two months.Yes, there are risks of complication, including paralysis. However, the specialist assured me that due to increases in technology, there are many things that they do to make sure I am safe and to decrease any complications.

Obviously, a lot of thought went into getting the surgery at this particular time. I know that once I get into the workforce, a lot of workplaces will not allow a month or more of sick leave to get this surgery done. So my plan is to graduate, get this surgery done, and then throw myself into a career. I would rather get this done with now than wait until later in my life and be at a greater risk of complication.

Please Note: I am confident that I will be able to get this surgery in June, but my living situation after graduation is up in the air right now. If it turns out that I will not be able to get the surgery because of this, I will cancel the procedure and let everyone know.

I want both my offline and online friends and family to know all of this because this surgery and what I'm planning around it is important to me and I want all of you to know what is going on. Although this sounds scary, it's necessary and I am sure I will ultimately walk out of this okay and better than I was before. That's the intention.

Socks and Snow Ball!

So I've been kind of eaten up by school work and future planning--I graduate in just a few months, and I have an important event planned afterwards (there will be a post about this I promise, within the next week or so), so I haven't been making time to blog. It's been busy and I've been going through a lot of stress because of the near future.

One of the things besides my awesome friends that has been keeping me sane is knitting, as always. Right now I'm in the middle of making a pair of socks! Socks are something I've never tried, but I've wanted to for a long time. I actually started a pair about a year but then decided to use the yarn for something else. My inspiration to start socks again was really pushed by me drooling on a sock yarn on KnitPicks. Knitpicks is an awesome site with tons of great yarn and supplies at really cheap prices. I always go on there to check for a sale. I had been thinking about socks anyway, when I went on and saw a really cool colorway (this particular colorway is called "Juicebox") and bought it with the intention of making socks.

This was after my friend Liz told me she was making some scrap socks and decided to give me a pair. She showed me progress and this is what they looked like when they were done:

They look great! So I was inspired to make my own in part from this. I bought the yarn and KnitPicks delivered it promptly as always. I found out today when looking it up again that the real reason that particular color was on sale was because it was in the middle of being discontinued!! Here's hoping that I don't run out of yarn in the middle of making my second sock! That would suck!

This was before I wound the yarn; when I first pulled it out and started knitting, I thought it was too pretty to ball up. Unfortunately, yarn in a hank like this will get tangled really quickly, so I was forced to ball it very shortly after starting the ribbing on this first sock. I finished the ribbing on the first sock, so I was very happy when that was finished. Normally, I don't like ribbing but this wasn't difficult or extremely tedious. Now I'm on the heel and as of last night, this is the progress I have made:

The flash portrays these colors very well. I'm not liking the sheer amount of orange and pink that is showing up in this colorway but overall I do like how bright and cheery the colors are turning out. I also like the red and lime/yellow stripes that winds around the sock. When these socks are finished, I'll do an entire post on it. Also, I'm playing a video game that once I finish, will get a proper review on this blog.

ADDED BONUS

Not related to knitting, recently I danced the night away by attending my FOURTH and unfortunately last Snow Ball dance. A bit of context for most of you reading my blog--The Snow Ball is a dance similar to a high school prom that my college puts on at the beginning of every spring semester. I've attended every year I've been attending college.

Here are some pictures of Snow Ball over the years!

2013

2011

2013

2014

Unfortunately, I couldn't find a photo from 2012 that didn't feature exclusively myself and my ex-boyfriend, so I'm forced to leave that year out. All in all, I've had a lot of fun these past four years dressing up with my friends; some of which I've been lucky to know for all four years, some less than a year but I value all of their friendship equally. They've all been very good to me, and Snow Ball has always been a time for me to enjoy dancing and friendship with some of the best people I've known over the years.

Until next week, everyone!