A knot tying impediment and hiatus...

It;s been a few months since my last blog post back in January. These zipper pulls were the last knotty items that I had tied and had intended to do a tutorial on before I got very ill.

I used some saved paracord trimmings from previous projects, pieces that were too short to tie knots with, but still usable in some way or fashion.  I further trimmed the pieces, cutting them down to 1.5 inches in length, removing inner strands if they were still inside, and doing a quick melt of the ends with my torch lighter, to prevent fraying, but keeping the ends open and not pinched or squeezed flat like done for some projects.

I then pulled a centered length of cord (two feet or so, I think it was), using 1.4mm string (#95/Type I paracord used too) through the gutted paracord sheath, for about a 1 inch loop length, and began knotting back up over the paracord with the two working ends of the strands in a Solomon bar/Portuguese sinnet.cobra stitch,

When I reached the top end of the paracord I trimmed the strand ends at the last knot and either melted in place with my soldering iron/wood burning tool or applied some clear drying brush on Krazy glue to secure them in place.

In January I'd developed an infection and it kept getting worse to the point that I went to the emergency room in February, hoping they would prescribe some antibiotics to get it under control and gone.  They instead admitted me to the hospital, putting me in a room, doing further tests, like ultrasounds and CT scans, checking for blood clots.

The doctors told me I also had kidney failure, which kept getting worse day by day while the infection was improving.  During this time my eyesight in my good eye went bad/blurry.

The vision in my other eye started going bad last year, and eye visits to a couple of  eye doctors diagnosed me with proliferative diabetic retinopathy and macular edema and nerve damage.  So, now I see everything as blurry and distorted wih the color being off.

The doctors let me leave the hospital after nine days when my kidney function had improved to about 30% function.  I had gained about 25 pounds of fluid weight while laying in the hospital bed, even though I'd barely eaten anything the whole time because of constant nausea.

I've been going to see a kidney doctor every couple of weeks and getting blood/urine tests in between.  The doctor had prescribed diuretics to help get rid of the excess fluid, which has my legs, feet, torso, and hands swollen like water balloons.

At first my weight started to go down, but that changed and my weight and the swelling got worse as I went up about 70 pounds in just a couple of months.  I could hardly walk, breathing was difficult, and the swelling stretched the skin out on my legs so much that blisters developed.

With taking three different diuretics at the same time to make my kidneys work harder (not very good for the kidneys), I dropped about 40 pounds in two weeks, so the doctor had me go back down to two of the diuretics, and I lost another 25 pounds in the following week.  At this point I still have some swelling in my feet/legs and some blisters and my weight is waffling up and down ten to fifteen pounds every few days.

Some additional blood work that I had done by my primary doctor had them concerned, so they sent me to a gastrointestinal specialist that had me do more blood tests.  They said there's some possible liver issues now.

The nurses keep asking have I had a colonoscopy when I see them at each visit as they check vitals and whatnot, and I keep telling them no I have not and I don't want one.  Cancer does run in my family and the doctors keep pushing on that colonoscopy recommendation, but I'm still thinking nope, screw that noise, lol.  I'm already taking about a dozen medications/supplements with insulin, and with no health insurance I'm not looking to add more stuff to the list.

I have to sit with my head between six to twelve inches away from the desktop computer screen (almost two foot diagonal screen size) to be able to make out any text for reading with enlarged text/display settings.   It's uncomfortable to sit in that poor posture position for very long before my neck and back start aching.

I cannot read books, magazines, or newspapers anymore, or see the closed captions/subtitles on a television across a room.  I can read some things with a magnifying glass if the print isn't too small, but with my blurred/distorted vision, it's slow and hard trying to make out words a letter at a time.

It took me hours to do this blog post, with the taking of photos , not being able to read the camera settings, and not being sure if the snaps are sharp or blurry for you the reader (it's all blurry to me now), and trying to type and proofread as I go seems to take forever.

Because of my diabetic peripheral neuropthy (nerve damage) in my hands, my typing ability has declined as well, so I'm down to mostly typing one letter at a time with my index fingers, and I still make typos.

That's enough for now, but I do want to keep the blog going.  I have a few knot, string, and paracord related items that were sent to me to try out and review, so I want to get to those, eventually...