Last monday, a week ago today, I took Shorty and Tiny out for their afternoon walk about four o’clock.  Half way down the block I slipped on a mossy patch of sidewalk, my right leg went up and I came crashing down on my left kneecap.  Luckily there were three men close by who heard me screaming and came running to my rescue.

Harborview Hospital is the major trauma hospital within four states and a five minute drive from my house, I was at the emergency room within a half an hour and in surgery first thing the next morning, barely twelve hours later.

Half of the bone of my kneecap was crushed and had to be removed.  They were able to sew the ligaments back to the remaining small piece of bone.

You can see in the x-ray clearly what I did.

This is my first broken bone in my life.  And I’m so darn healthy I know I’m going to heal very fast.  I’ve been home for five days on the couch and I’ve had way to much time time to ponder the meaning of life.  I’m so grateful that I didn’t break my arm, for one thing!!

I’m so grateful for my children and my husband and my friends and my dogs.  Hess slept on the chair by my bed for two nights and didn’t leave my side for 48 hours.  The doctors and the nurses at Harborview were like angels in a dream.  My friends are bringing me food and cleaning the house………..I’m so grateful!

And work, let me tell you about my project this week!!

I’ve told you about Keith Miller before and the window cornices we made in a previous post.  Keith brought me this antique french chair about three weeks ago. His client would like the chair to fit into the color scheme of her home which is not blue.

Keith wanted to know if I could take out all the blue background stitches and replace them with green.

Why not?  There’s nothing I love more than a challenge!

First I took off the back panel and spent one day, about ten hours removing stitches.  From there I felt that I could estimate that it would take me about 50 hours to take out all the background stitches of the needlepoint.

This is what I finished before the fateful day.

I’m about to be released from the hospital and it’s time for the drain to be removed!

I think blog-writing people save their most flattering photos of themselves for the world to see……………..this may be the first photo of myself that I’ve shared.  Certainly not the best I’ve ever looked.  Getting old is hard.

She didn’t tell me it was about ten inches down in my leg!!  What a surprise when she yanked that thing out!!  Looks like I’m having fun, doesn’t it?  That’s a morphine drip for two days that I could access every eight minutes.

I’m grateful to be home and on the couch.  My friend Macklin came to visit and he brought me some really good homemade cookies.

Three more days of stitch picking and all the blue is gone.

I’m going to see Keith, hopefully today, to look at the green choices of needlepoint yarn.  We had an appointment on friday to meet but I passed out and had to cancel.

What a week!!

Kathi