10 Things I've Learned This Week

Knitting is excellent physical therapy for a recovering rotator cuff. By end of day today I will be done with the base body piece for Tangled Yoke, in a lovely rose Rowan Felted Tweed. My shoulder is sorer than it has been in a while, but the pain feels muscular and good. A little exercise while I sit in hospital rooms.

Spring weather is unpredictable in the Midwest. I packed for the predicted highs of 45 to 60, and showed up to highs in the 30's with snow. I am wearing my overcoat everywhere, and look like a masher.

Running without good gear in cold weather is crazy. I didn't even try. My sis has a suitcase full of thin warm socks, head gear, and body-warming fabrics. I have one pair of UnderArmour tights, no hat and cotton socks...not gonna cut it. I'm going to have to run hard when I get home.

Nurses are lovely people, competent and calm and strong. You want them on your side when you're sick.

Sharing a bedroom with your sister is more fun when you're a grown-up. She's hilarious, doesn't snore or take up too much bathroom space, and likes everything exactly the same way I do (lights off at 10, room cool and dark).

Beauty pageant contestants have bigger breasts than they used to. (That became clear during the Miss USA contests on Friday.)

The pollen count is much lower in Cedar Rapids, IA in mid April than in Alameda, CA. Blessed relief.

The hospital I work for has a really good cafeteria compared to Mercy Hospital's in Cedar Rapids. Really, really good.

Panera: not bad, works with the WW program. If you go to Dottie's Weight Loss Zone, you can even get all the point values for their food. It's next door to our hotel, we've eaten there at least once a day.

Best of all: my grandmother is amazing. She had decided to stop receiving nutrition and fluids through her GI tube after a stroke, and moved in to hospice. We all came to say goodbye, and many tears were shed Wednesday night and Thursday morning. Many. Then Thursday afternoon she decided that it was taking too damn long to die, dying was boring, and she might as well get back to rug hooking and wood carving while she waited. And to do that, she was going to need to eat and be hydrated.

So she's out of hospice and at Mercy, preparing to go back to the skilled nursing area of her home in a few days. She's working on physical therapy (hard), swallowing (not as hard, but going to take some time), and in general being pleasant, funny and ornery as the day is long. We expect to be visiting her back in her own independent living apartment in the not too distant future, and she'll probably preside over all of our funerals. She is, truly, amazing. And I'm so delighted to continue to have her in my life.