I had an uncomfortable night with pain but I still got up at 6:30 AM.I took my normal pills and I wondered if I would actually go swimming. After I had done my banking and e-mails I was still feeling very sore took some more morphine. This means that I took double the usual amount.
By the time I got to the pool I was feeling okay. The real surprise came when I got into the pool. As soon as I started to swim I felt no pain or strain at all. Only at the end of my 50 min swim did I feel as though I had been doing something though I was still not sore, just a little discomfort in my left thigh and hip.
It seems to me that what I have considered normal, the pain and strain I normally experience when I start to swim which I get used to the longer I swim, is perhaps not normal after all. I am thinking this because the double dose stopped it.
I do not intend making a habit of taking a double dose. I can cope quite well with one dose but at least I now know that on really difficult days all I have to do is take double.
John, my friends, and my doctor, all think I have a high pain tolerance. I do not know if I do or don’t. I certainly know that it took me an awful long time to take paracetamol and tramadol as a matter of course to stop the pain building up. I found it very difficult to do because it felt wrong to take painkillers when I wasn’t in serious pain. I learned the logic of it though. By taking a regular amount of drugs it stops the pain building up. As a result one needs less medication to do the job. I also found out that constant pain causes nerve damage and makes it much more difficult to treat.
With the morphine I am never sure whether I am just mentally feeling better for taking it or am I mentally feeling better because I am physically feeling better? As I write this I now remember that on our holiday when we were in Nuremberg I felt really sore and ill late afternoon on the Saturday.I took my morphine and although within half an hour the pain had subsided I actually still felt ill so other than dialling down the pain it did not make me feel any better and we went back to the hotel. This is one of the benefits of writing – one can often answer one’s own question!
I did some dyeing last night and I have done some this morning. When they are dry I will photograph them and post them.
I have found a gardener with very reasonable rates. I cannot do the garden myself and John works all week and is tired at the weekend so he can well do without having to do something like the gardening. The man I asked to come and give me a quote for clearing up the garden also told me that he will come every two weeks to keep it in order and his fee is one we can afford.I was surprised at how low it was. With the strange weather we have had, whereas normally the weeds and grass will not be growing now, both have overtaken the garden and it is now just too much work and because it is so wet there is little point in spraying poison on the weeds because it has to be dry for a least 12 hours after spraying. We use a non-toxic to animals and humans spray.
I am thinking of closing my Yahoo group which was set up with the intention of teaching people my sock construction method. It has 700 members but very little traffic. It is not being used for the reason it was set up. It would seem that I am not a good teacher and people do not understand either the method or my responses when I answer questions. Matters are made worse by people answering questions when they do not know my method themselves which of course just adds confusion and frustration and I am the one who gets blamed for it. I am very disappointed that it has turned out like this. My method is really very simple (even saying this has led to accusations that I think other people are stupid for not understanding when my intention was to help them stop thinking that they are too stupid to understand! It seems one cannot win no matter what one does or says!) and it produces a very well fitting sock and I really thought others would appreciate this and would jump at the chance of being set free from patterns.
However, it seems that people do not want that because I am constantly asked what the formula is or where is the pattern no matter how many times I explain that this is a method and there is no formula or pattern.
I will think upon this but this is how I feel today. When people ask for toe up patterns on other sock lists they are rarely, if ever, directed toward my method. I am quite certain that if any of the Knitting Queens had developed this method people would be falling over themselves for it. I could of course be quite wrong. My experience on knitting lists over the years has been that often my answers to questions have been ignored or contradicted yet when a well-known female knitter has responded with the exact same answer the response is entirely different. A standout example of this is when people ask how to deal with cashmere. Often my response is completely dismissed with one questioner being very blunt: is there someone else with a more sensible answer? My 30 years of knitting dismissed in a sentence. (I once had the temerity to point this attitude toward me out on a list which resulted in a very unpleasant response and an accusation of misogyny! The accusation made no sense whatsoever but the response rather showed that I was hardly mistaken in my interpretation!)
Oh dear! Is this Grumpy Old Man syndrome?
10 comments:
I know what you mean about having an elevated pain threshold. I occasionally get cluster headaches. That is such an intense pain that it makes just about any other kind of injury or discomfort seem petty in comparison. So because of the cluster headaches I get, I can easily tolerate other problems that would lay other people flat.
Nah - you're not grumpy. You're stating the obvious and truth. Maybe you should make a compilation of the good stuff from your Yahoo group, along with your method(s) and just post it on a static page so people can use it, or not. You could add a disclaimer that you can't answer quetions, if you don't want to do so. I've used your method and I like it. My problem is that, even doing them 2 at a time, I never finish. The difference is, I then stop at about the half way point after doing the heels (which is the part I like). I'm a lost cause.
I wasn't aware that constant pain causes nerve damage. That's good to know.
I would love to know the method for your socks! Toe-up socks are one thing I have yet to master.
I don't have chronic pain, but I have taken morphine for acute pain. In my experience, it doesn't actually stop the pain; it just makes you not care about it.
Yes, Suzanne, I know what you mean: some do react like that. My pain definitely is reduced significantly. I have smoked MJ in the past and I know hat feeling high is like and this is not it.
Oh Colin: IMO you were very brave to try to set up a group to teach a method, not a pattern or formula! People seem to want guaranteed, thought free instructions. This kind of teaching is the one thing I shy away from online: it's hard enough to teach one-on-one but to write it all out in question and answer form is mind numbing to say the least. I'm sorry the yahoo group has not gone as you hoped. What Ms Iris suggested is a good idea but then I'd add that it should be available as a download for a small fee. You put great amount of your valuable time in developing the method, the "learner" should put some value to the process they wish to learn. Money is the medium of exchange and adds value to both parties. I would never "give" a pup to someone without they making an investment that would protect the pup's well being, if you follow my thinking. I feel people will get out of a learning situation what they put in, nothing more and, really, nothing less. Very few people learn for free but they expect everything to be free and easy. Oh dear, is this Grumpy Old Woman syndrome??? eeeek
Dear Colin,
I would like to let you know that I have directed several people your way (one of whom even posts on the list every now and then. Hi Wendy!).
As a teacher myself, I know how difficult it can be for people to get thinking. Instead they just want to hear the answer from me. (and here I can go into a rant about what's wrong with society so we got this far, but I won't). Problem is, there often is no correct answer; just as with your method it takes some calculations to figure out how many stitches and rows are needed, and there is no one-size-fits-all pattern.
Even if you close down the group (and the choice is completely yours, obviously) I will continue to use and teach others the Anderson sock knitting method. It's too good not to.
People learn differently - some are visual learners, while others are verbal learners. Some need to get comfortable with things before they can learn to go without patterns, while others rarely ever follow a pattern. I am running into issues with this last concerning cooking right now. I have some who would like them to give them my recipes - the trouble is, unless I am baking desserts, I rarely use a recipe. The same with my knitting & crocheting. Usually I take a bit from several sources & put it together. Like a sock I made recently - the knit pattern (not the pattern for the socks) came from a comment made by someone on a group about doing a spiral hat - I did my version on my socks.
Sometimes comments/answers can be hard to locate it they are either below or mixed in with the original question. I have had to read things 3-4 times before to find the answer because my eyes just weren't finding it when it was below or mixed in with the original question. This is why I always try to either have my answers above the original or if I feel it will help (as in the case of several questions) I will mix it in, but make sure there is plenty of space around it & change the font color on it to show it is different from what was there originally.
I am sorry that you were this upset by what happened. Hope it turned out to just be a bad day. I know I have had plenty of them lately considering I just found that I am being let go from my job & it's through no fault of my own - just the economy. Which is probably going to make it hard to find something else also. Makes me glad I am one with a stash to work from.
I agree with Mary Beth: Sell the method write-up for a reasonable fee, and people may understand better its value. You could put it on the same page where you sell your hand-dyed yarnsa (to keep all commerce in one place). The rest of us can then direct inquirers to that URL.
(I don't have my login info with me, so I'll have to post anonymously if it will let me, even though I hate to do that.)
Ha-ha... Oh Colin! The problem lies in that almost all knitters follow a pattern to the letter. As EZ said, they are blind followers. She wanted us to be thinking knitters.. and that is much too difficult a concept for most people to understand. You would need to start beginners out by teaching methods, rather than set patterns -- and that may just be too difficult for most of us to do. So you can only do what you can, and those that are able to grasp the concept will and the others will need to be led by someone else.
Yes, you can only teach. It's up to the students to learn -- you cannot do that for them. You can lead a horse to water, and all that. Your job is done.
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