all photos in this post copyright Frog Delacroix 2012
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned Raglanify to you all yet. Have I? Oh, yes, I have too. Remember, back here?
Well, it’s done and dusted, and I’ve been wearing it so much that I’m sure everyone’s sick of the sight of it, let alone the sound of me saying, “I knitted it, from my own handspun, did you know?” You could say I’m more than a little proud of it.
There’s something of a funny story associated with it, too. You see, I’d taken the day before our June knitting retreat off work, ostensibly to chill out, pack and tidy the house and so on. (Really, I just wanted to finish this sucker and get it blocked and ready to show off at the retreat.) Well, I spent a good six hours or so on the couch that day, knitting frantically (go on, visualise that. I’ll wait.) to get that bloody neckline done. There’s a lot of stitches in a v-neck, did you know that? And the Raglanify directions for the V were unsatisfactory to me, so I had to wing it as I went along.
Well, I got it done, and that night when my girlfriend got home, it was there, blocking happily in all its glory. The next day, I put it on ever so proudly and wore it with such a spring in my step as we packed the cat off for boarding over the weekend, stocked up on snacks for the long hours of knitting to come, and took a leisurely drive through the very civilised regions surrounding Perth on our way to Toodyay and the blessed event.
All day, not wanting to put any kind of damper on this most anticipated of days, I quietly ignored the growing pain in my chest and shoulder. It got worse and worse, right through the left side and spreading up into my jaw, until I finally mentioned it to my girlfriend around 6pm. She looked a little concerned, but the guilt I felt at worrying her paled in comparison to the rising fear I was, myself, experiencing. A discreet enquiry of the function centre owners revealed that the closest hospital is, as we thought, in Northam, about an hour’s drive (in the dark, on unfamiliar roads) from Toodyay.
About 9pm, we agreed that even though it was horrible, a trip to the hospital would be the best course of action. So with her driving and me trying not to freak out in the passenger seat, and trying very hard not to put the words “heart” and “attack” in the same sentence, we got me to Northam, where I was whisked immediately into the ER. They don’t muck around when it might be your heart, and having recently had a very unfortunate death as a result of a misdiagnosis hanging over the hospital’s metaphorical head, they were taking even fewer. I was undressed with little ceremony, hooked up to All Of The Machines (with my boobs swinging in the breeze) by All Of The Electrodes, and had blood sample after blood sample drained from my arm. They fed me aspirin, monitored all the vitals, kept me and Frog nice and calm…and eventually, a couple of hours later, deemed that I was not, indeed, having a heart attack. I’d pulled a chest muscle.
Knitting.
