Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
Post 3320: Thyroid matters!
It appears that 2026 is going to be all about health-related stuff if the first six months are anything to go on. That being said, I’ve just come back from seeing my surgeon in a follow-up from having half my thyroid removed on June 8th, and it appears that all is well there despite the fact there was some (low risk) cancer in the pathology report. So perhaps I’m in the clear for a bit?
I first wrote about my thyroid here back in 2012 when I was cleared of thyroid cancer following a series of needle-aspiration biopsies which were triggered by my doctor at the time observing the growth of a goiter on the left side of my neck. I was sent to a surgeon who was so gung-ho to operate that he told me I should have my whole thyroid removed if there was “even a 10% chance” of cancer. He was so eager to find that cancer that he sent me for multiple ultrasounds and 3 biopsies, the final one refused by the biopsy doctor because he thought I was being overtested for something of minimal risk.
Because the thyroid is an important gland, I was in no hurry to have it removed, even if I did have an unsightly bulge at one side of my throat. I did a bunch of reading at that time and discovered that the majority of thyroid cancers are very low-risk and develop very slowly over the course of a lifetime, never becoming deadly. I had decided for myself that even if cancer was discovered, I would take a monitoring and assessment approach rather than moving right to surgery and chemically invasive procedures.Despite my surgeon’s eagerness, I could find no reason to radically alter my body’s bio-chemical mechanism for what seemed to be mostly cosmetic reasons.
I moved to Gabriola and cut ties with that surgeon, opting for an annual ultrasound to monitor the growth of nodules and swelling. About three years ago and I noticed that my goiter was getting larger, and I was getting a strained voice when I sang and also could feel the pressure of my thyroid when I swallowed, at the same time I got some funky TSH levels that indicated hyperthyroidism (though I had no symptoms of any kind). This lead to a (what I think is now incorrect) diagnosis of Graves disease and some extra scanning of my now-much-larger thyroid. There was no indication of any cancerous growth, but the new surgeon I was referred to told me that removal of the left hemisphere of my thyroid could make things more comfortable and prevent problems later on as continued growth was likely. At this point, I was in agreement with having half my thyroid removed and put on a long wait list (because no cancer was suspected, the surgery was treated as elective).
Two years later and I got a call quite out of the blue that there was surgery space in 10 days time and could I fit it into my schedule? Given the fact I really wanted this done, I *did* fit it into my schedule, and on June 8th I underwent surgery, staying overnight in Nanaimo General Hospital with discharge by noon the next day.
Despite the fact that the wait is long and our facilities are crowded – I had the most excellent care. And I mean, phenomenal. My surgeon, the anesthesiologist, the recovery room nurses and my morning nurse were all incredible – compassionate, caring, professional, personable – the works. I cannot say enough good things about the experience once I finally got a date booked.
The immediate recovery period was a bit rougher than I expected, but that’s just because I assumed I would come home and feel totally normal within 48 hours! That was not the case of course, and I took a week and a half off work during which time I puttered in my studio and sewed a bunch of summer clothes for myself. Last week I went to Ottawa to see a concert and had some more days off work, just wandering about. I’m now three weeks out of surgery now and finally feeling pretty normal except some soreness around my neck wound which is still healing.
Yesterday I went back to my surgeon for the follow-up visit and he told me that one of my thyroid nodules did, in fact, have cancer but it was exactly as I had learned all those year ago…. low-risk, slow growing, and requiring no follow-up of any kind. Removal of my left thyroid hemisphere removed all the cancer, and there is no need for any more treatment. He also affirmed the fact that I could have done nothing about it at all, and that if they knew there was cancer going in, they would have followed exactly the same course of action. The only thing knowing about the cancer would have done was bump me up in the priority queue for the surgery – but honestly, I would hate to take a spot from someone who was really *in need* when I was just experiencing discomfort.
As for the Graves – I have never been convinced by this diagnosis and believe the test results were strongly influenced by a combination of my thyroid swelling and perimenopausal fluctuations in the body. Since the initial diagnostic period I have experienced no symptoms of it, and my TSH levels returned to normal shortly after testing. My surgeon agreed that a false positive here was a definite possibility, especially because my left thyroid was so swollen by the time it came out. Fingers crossed this is the case and we won’t hear anymore about that!
So now it’s just life back to normal for the most part. I will test later this summer to see what my TSH levels are doing and whether the right side of my thyroid picks up the slack on its own or needs pharmaceutical help, and more ultrasounds will be done in the next couple of years. These tests are already a standard part of my medical care and have been for years.
I have been walking a ton in the last week, but won’t return to weightlifting until mid-July since on Saturday we are off to music camp and then our cabin in the interior after that. My energy level is pretty good all things considered, and I’m looking forward to some times playing tunes by Shuswap Lake. So glad I could get the surgery and follow-up out of the way before the true start-up of summer.
Post 3319: Gifts
I’ve been having a strange time of it lately. I am out of the post-illness slump of March – back in the gym 4 days a week, walking in the mornings, eating properly and all that – and yet, I find myself strangely uncoordinated, at odds with the world, and mildly depressed most days. I expect it’s hormonal, that I’ve entered another phase of this journey through perimenopause, and that I should adjust my HRT in some way – but I’m holding off a bit to see if its just a bit of depression that will lift on its own.
In the meantime, I have cancelled some activities in order to ensure I’m not prolonging this state by draining my energy, and I will continue to uncrowd my life over the next little while to just give myself some space to rest and work on the garden and in my studio. That’s really the only place I want to be right now, in the lead-up to a bit of summer journey-ing and parties and so on.
On Thursday I went for a walk to clear my head after work, and as I walked, I let my feet choose the direction without thinking about it too much. Up I went into the neighbourhood above ours, across, and then back into the forest on my way towards home again. It was a beautiful day, and I ran into no one as I walked (two cyclists who passed me at one point, and that was it for people – in 5 km – this is one of the things I love about living rural).
As I came down through a drainage area, I stumbled across what might be the largest trove of oyster mushrooms I have ever seen in one place growing on some logs which had fallen across the trail at some past point. Trail fairies had cut the logs on the trail to keep it clear, but the remaining dead wood was left on either side – creating a perfect fruiting environment.
It was truly a moment that felt like a gift, my funk had already been lifting as I walked, but the discovery of the mushrooms felt like the delivery of a message – the surprising capacity of the natural world to deliver wonderous moments, even in places one has been a hundred times before.
I had no way to collect the mushrooms in the moment, and so I took one along as I continued my walk, noting that the mushrooms had colonized many logs in this one small area and that there were so many that foraging some would not be a problem.
So, yesterday morning I did just that – rode back on my bike to the spot which was not far from my house, and collected about 5 and a half pounds of oyster mushrooms – which was only a third of what was there.
Afterwards I cycled home, picked some walking onions from the spring garden, and made the most beautiful lunch omelette for my partner and I before soaking and processing the rest of the mushrooms for the freezer.
Though I walk in the forest often, I do not do much in the way of mushroom hunting or foraging. In the fall, so many spots get picked out, and I don’t have nearly enough time in my life to get into the woods the way true foraging requires. This discovery though was so evident, right on the trail, it was surprising that no one had harvested before me – perhaps because no one thinks about mushrooms in the spring? Or because no one who passed them recognized them for what they were.
In any case, it felt as though the forest was offering something to me on day when I needed a little left, and I thanked the Gods of the forest as I harvested and ate these beautiful gifts.
Post #3318: Un-thawing for spring
Between the flu, dental surgery, and another cold – the last month has been a bit much for me. I’m finally feeling energetically here, and I plan to return to my gym routine this weekend – I’m feeling stiff and like every part of me needs to come back online slowly over the next little while. It’s very in keeping with the oncoming spring here.
Despite all of that, I have been weaving a lot and also tending to my studio. A power outage this week gave me a day off work in which I got some more studio organizing done, and also prompted me to get serious about putting a small woodstove in there. After ten years in which we’ve had regular outages (some for as many as 5 days), I’ve decided it’s time to put an alternate heat source in the studio so I can work there without freezing when there is no electric source. I also like the idea of using wood heat up there more often as in the winter months I find it hard to keep warm with the small electric wall heater. I will share some photographs of that project at it progresses, but at the moment I’m working on downsizing some materials and moving furniture to create the space for the stove to go.
In other life news, the budget implementation bill (C-15) received royal assent yesterday – this contains the provisions that will allow me to retire early. If everything goes as I’ve envisioned, I will retire in seven months. I still have to be approved for the program once it opens next week – so it’s not a done deal yet, but another hurdle out of the way. And honestly, it can’t come soon enough – work has been a real drag lately for a number of reasons (not the least of which I have no patience for another project gone off the rails because of a total disregard for my advice).
The next little while is going to be busy with visitors, family commitments, and workshops that I’m giving in April (one on Advance Care Planning, and one on Japanese Bookbinding). In May I have three separate trips to Vancouver planned for different things, not to mention three house concerts at Birdsong.
I’m hoping that despite the busyness I can find time for sewing some new wardrobe items – I’m really feeling the need for new clothes right now. I would also like to push my weaving a little and am thinking about creating and entering a piece or two for sale in a juried show here in May. That would mean getting to the end of my current sample warp this weekend, and getting something else on the loom on Monday/Tuesday of next week (chop chop!)
Also, today is day 34 of the 100 day project, and I have been faithful to my goal of doing something weaving-related every day since February 22nd! I am a third of the way through and honestly it has been an excellent exercise in focus – something I really needed to get back to weaving (which I had forgotten how much I like – it had started to seem impossible).
Clearly I am channelling all the popping up energy of the season, and am going to get moving outside of my studio again soon!
Post #3317: Moving slowly
For the last ten days or so, I’ve had the most terrible flu which I can only liken to a combination of strep throat, norovirus, and bronchitis. I was off work all last week, and as of today (Monday), I am still not back at it. Although my acute symptoms have passed, I am left with an exhaustion and brain fog that make doing my job next to impossible, never mind the fact I can’t sit up for more than an hour without needing to take a rest on the couch again. I am grateful for a large bank of sick leave, and the fact I’m at the point in my career where I do not feel the need to prove myself to anyone by showing up in shambles as I did when I was younger (I shudder to think of all the illnesses I spread in the office in those days, but it was the way back then).
Fortunately, I’m now just well enough to make a few slow attempts in the studio. Yesterday, between stretches on the couch listening to podcasts and watching Netflix, I returned to the loom I’d been working on a week ago. In fact, the day I finished warping it—last Monday—I was already feeling unwell: achy and tired. As I worked to balance it for weaving (a process I think of as tuning the loom), a fever came on hard. I had to abandon it entirely, take to bed, and I didn’t really get up again for the next five days.
But yesterday afternoon, I felt the energy to return to it – and so I put the pins into the jacks and went through the balancing process piece by piece until it was done and I had a clean shed on my warp. From start to finish, this took less than an hour. I then started weaving my shawl, and made some headway before exhaustion overtook me and I had to lie down on the couch in my studio. Later in the evening, I got some more weaving done, and the meditation shawl is on its way to being woven (plus, it looks like there will be some extra fabric which I will turn into a cowl or some other yummy thing).
As is somewhat obvious from my last couple of posts, I’ve been bitten by the weaving bug again after a long absence from the loom. This coincides with the annual start of the #100dayproject, which I think could give me the structure for a bit of a deep dive over the next little bit. And so I’ve set up a page here to track my goal and outputs for the hundred days – my plan being to do something weaving-related every day, no matter how small. It could be a bit or reading or researching drafts, colouring sketches for projects, designing a new weaving draft, or sitting down at the loom to get some yardage in. Anything that furthers my goal of becoming more proficient as a weaver and designing textile projects.
While I’m still sick, I don’t expect any big leaps in progress on my projects, but I’m making a list of all the things I do want to explore over the next hundred days, starting with some finishing techniques on the piece of fabric in the photo at the head of this post. When it’s finished, it will go into my samples catalogue – something I use for planning future projects, and also sharing with others interested in learning more about weaving. After that, the shawl will come off the loom and I’ll have to figure out what goes on next according to both interest and overall energy.
Post #3316: On the loom again
I completed a piece of weaving this week, for the first time in about a year. It’s not that I haven’t had anything on one of my looms – I do have some tea towels I put on the smaller Julia loom ages ago. But the warp went on poorly, making it an inconsistent and frustrating weave, so the towels are as yet, undone. The larger Berga loom seemed daunting to me, and until recently was being used as a repository for other projects (the loom bench makes a great resting place, the upper rails are too convenient to hang things from).
But in a flurry of “I can do this”, I agreed to weave a piece of material for a waulking workshop later this spring – and for that I needed to weave a sample using materials from my stash.A sample serves to orient me to the kind of fabric I might want to make, and in this instance, I needed to ensure I could get myself through all the steps of the warping and weaving process on the big loom again.
The good news is that I still know how to design, calculate, warp, and weave a piece of cloth! Not only did the warp go on without *any* problems (a small miracle), but it was a lot of fun to weave – using some of my favourite colours, and switching up the twill weave pattern throughout. Using a heavier weight yarn for this helped to make it a fairly quick project, easy to thread and satisfyingly fast to weave off – 2 weeks start to finish – about 15 hours in total.
As much as I like the texture and pattern of this fabric, for the final piece, I’ll end up doing a plain weave instead of a twill. I would like to be able to turn the finished cloth into shawls and cowls to sell as a fundraiser, and the twill at this yarn weight is just a bit too dense for that. I’m also going to weave something in lighter, springier colours in keeping with the time of year we are doing the workshop. This is why we sample!
I will have to order more yarn for the piece I want to weave, and that’s going to cost some money. So in the meantime, I’m warping the loom again to weave a meditation shawl. You can see that warp in the header photo on this post – it’s comprised of a fine weight alpaca yarn in silver, which will be woven off using black merino wool of a similar weight. Both of these luxury yarns have been in my stash for a number of years, so it feels like a free project!
In the end, it will likely look a bit plain compared to this week’s plaid—a simple grey-and-black weave—but it will serve me well in the Zen meditation hall, where dark, unpatterned garments are the norm.
I’m in the process of threading right now, at 16 ends per inch/28 inches wide, that 448 ends that have to pass through the heddles and sleyed into the reed before the warp can be tied up. Though this is somewhat time consuming, I don’t mind threading and sleying — it has a certain mindfulness quality to it, and if the warp is properly organized, it goes smoothly. (For the weavers in the crowd: every since I started using the AVL warping wheel on my sectional beam – my warps are always properly organized.)
Slow going, but very satisfying. And getting some cloth off the loom this week reminded. me of the magic that is turning string into cloth. String into Cloth!
I’m back at it now, another 224 ends to thread and then I can get the beater bar back on the loom and pass all the strings through the reed. By the end of this weekend, I should have a warp to start weaving!
Red Cedar 