My dad called me on my way to work yesterday, telling me his heart was 'acting up.' I asked what he meant by that, and he said it was just beating way too fast, and erratically. He said it had kept waking him all night, and he felt awful. He just wanted to go have a lie down and hope it went away. I, on the other hand, panicked.
Last fall when he was in and out of the hospital for several weeks, the doctors told me that his heart was very weak (only at about 10%) and was in a very fragile state. So hearing that it was acting like that really freaked me out. I called his heart doctor, who said he should get to the emergency room. I talked him into calling an ambulance, then I left work and met them there.
They ran tests for about 4 hours. My portable knitting happened to be the dishcloth I'd started at the Irish music session in Sharon last weekend. I'd only gotten about a third or less of it done then. It turned out to be really good ER knitting. It's small and easily portable. Since I had a simple pattern, it required just enough attention to keep me from chewing through the chair arm, but wasn't so difficult that I'd bugger it all up (too much ... only a couple of minor rip-backs). And I was able to finish it in an average ER room wait.
They let dad come home. Turned out it wasn't his heart, exactly. He has a viral infection which caused inflammation in the lungs, which then caused his heart rate to go all wonky. They said all his tests turned out good, gave him a prescription for antibiotics and sent him home. I'm really glad it was a false alarm.
I'm not terribly happy with the dish cloth ... I just picked a random pattern out of one of the Barbara Walker stitch books. When I first started it, I tried doing two repeats across, but it was too big. I had ripped it out and tried just one. The pattern doesn't look as good with only one repeat, and it turned out a little too small, so I added a couple extra strips down the sides. But ... I'll use it. I do like the yarn, and there was half a ball left, so I started a second dishcloth. Hopefully I won't need to go back to the ER to finish it.
It's inhumanely cold here this morning - like, 2 degrees. I wish I could just stay in bed, but I have to take Tyler to the groomer's at 8:30, go in to the office for a few hours to make up for missing yesterday, go to the grocery store, and stop at dad's to take him his prescription. Once I do all that, I can hibernate in the house for the rest of the weekend.
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