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 And here we are, the Mrs Laider/Mrs Laidlaw gansey finished just in time for Christmas. I don’t really have much to say other than that I’m really pleased with it, and it just goes to show how creative you can be in combining patterns and still be confident that the end result will look stunning. And what a great colour Frangipani Denim is, and how well it always seems to show the patterns to their best effect. Next week, a one-off project that has me smirking with quiet satisfaction.
I had my neck scan in Inverness this week. The good news is that the lumps the surgeons spotted last week appear to be perfectly normal lymphy-type things. The bad news? Well, stop me if you’ve heard this before, but while she was looking the doctor discovered a hitherto-unsuspected growth on my thyroid. These are usually benign, she said, but she just wanted to take a sample to get it checked out. That was when my day, which till then was up there with the last act of Singin’ in the Rain in terms of happy endings, suddenly turned into something even Thomas Hardy might have rejected as too gloomy.
 Christmas Decoration Bombing The scan itself was a breeze, though the sensation of the scanner sliding over my neck on its film of cold jelly put me in mind of princess Leia being slobbered over by Jabba the Hutt in Return of the Jedi (I was wondering why they made me wear that gold bikini instead of the more usual hospital gown), or possibly someone about to be devoured by a many-tentacled horror from the abyss. Then the doctor produced the needle… and, look, if you’re at all squeamish you might want to skip the rest, enjoy the pictures, and rejoin us next week.
Still with me? Well, don’t say you weren’t warned. The needle went in at the base of my throat, and only hurt a little thanks to a local anaesthetic. The initial probe for a sample lasted a minute or so and then the needle was withdrawn, and I thought, well, really that wasn’t so bad. Ha! Turned out she was finding it difficult to reach the right spot, and had to try again. This time it lasted several minutes, and I was aware of both a mounting pain and pressure in my breast (possibly, taking her cue from the dwarves in The Lord of the Rings, she delved too greedily and too deep). I started feeling anxious, then remote, then I blacked out.
 Hawthorn & St Fergus’ When I came to I was on my side, surrounded by concerned medical staff. Apparently the needle had touched a nerve (literally: the vagus nerve to be precise). I’d had something of a seizure (gone rigid and bit my lip so my mouth was bleeding) and fainted. I was sweating so much it soaked through my clothes, the bed, the floor and several floors beneath, prompting an investigation in the basement into burst pipes. I felt woozy and weak, and was sick at regular intervals for the next two and a half hours, by which time the novelty had definitely worn off. I was finally allowed to leave around 4.00pm, pumped full of anti-dizziness and -nausea drugs; given that I’d turned up at 10.30am for a 30-minute appointment, I pretty much felt I’d had my money’s worth. Oh yes, and the icing on the cake? The doctor who checked me over cheerfully opined that I had Menieres disease, which I must say didn’t improve my mood as much as he may have hoped.
 Sunset at Loch Watten But really, what does it matter? The trauma’s already fading, the bruises are too, and I can go into the new year with cautious optimism and only a biopsy or two to worry about. So now let Margaret and me wish all our readers a very safe and happy Christmas, and especially all those health care professionals who’ve kept services going so heroically over the last couple of years. See you next time, and happy knitting!
 “There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something (or so Thorin said to the young dwarves). You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.” That’s a quote from JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit, and it’s been running in my mind these last few days. I’ll explain why in a minute.
 Waves on the Wall I had my microlaryngoscopy—and what a wonderful word that is; if only the procedure was too—down in Inverness last Wednesday. They phoned the day before to say it was being put back four hours, which at least meant I was able to eat an early breakfast at the B&B (not that I had much of an appetite). Then it was a matter of killing time till 11.00am, when I made my way to the ward. I was led to a chair beside an empty bed, where I sat and waited till just after 2.00pm, having my blood pressure taken periodically, listening to my tummy rumbling, and knitting. Turns out bringing something to knit was a godsend, for not only did it help to pass the time, which hung pretty heavy after a while, it also served as an icebreaker for the succession of medical personnel who dropped by to talk to me: an anaesthetist, a surgeon and several nurses (the top two questions, in case you ever find yourself in similar circumstances and wish to be prepared, were, “What are you knitting?” and “How long does it take?”). And all the staff at every stage were great: friendly, informative, sympathetic, attentive and helpful.
 Riverside Hawthorn At last I was taken down to the theatre, a high-tech room that resembled the bridge of the Starship Enterprise with the addition of comfy beds. The procedure was to remove a sample from the lesion on my vocal cords and make a detailed examination of my throat (though not to actually remove the growth yet; that was my mistake). The general anaesthetic was administered by means of a cannula in the back of my hand, and the last thing I was aware of before I drifted off was a cold sensation creeping up my arm. An hour or so later I woke up in the recovery room (using the words woke and up here in their loosest sense), and after a while was wheeled back to the ward. I was still “nil by mouth” for a couple of hours, but since after a general anaesthetic the most my body is up for is more or less keeping my heart beating, that was fine by me. They kept me in till just after 7.00pm, when Margaret came and scooped up the remains and drove them home, which we reached about 10.00pm.
 Tidepools near the Trinkie And now it’s a few days later, and I no longer feel quite as though I’ve just stepped off a boat after a rough crossing—that’s my fourth general anaesthetic, and they always churn me up like a whisk. And so, other than waiting for the results of the biopsy, what happens now? Well, that brings me back to my Hobbit quote. For while they were looking, unfortunately they did indeed find something, or something that looks like it might be something; but until they do some more tests they won’t know what it is, or whether it’s anything to worry about. So it’s back to Inverness this week for a scan of my throat. I probably won’t know the results for a while, and at the moment anything is possible; and so it seems I might be going into the New Year, in Yeats’ eloquent phrase, “dreading and hoping all…”
 Well, this is all happening very fast. The operation to remove a growth on one of my vocal cords is scheduled for later this week in Inverness. With luck I should be out the same day, unless there are complications—the anaesthetist tickling the surgeon at an inadvertent moment, say. I’ve been looking for silver linings, and have realised that at least this means I’ll miss the office Christmas party. (Last time I was regrettably detained with a migraine; next year I may have to fake my own death.)
Snowy fields by the A9 The inner workings of my body have been pretty much a mystery to me since my schooldays. I first realised biology wasn’t for me when I came into class one day and was presented with a scalpel and a frog I hadn’t previously been introduced to, and was instructed to get creative. After seeing the consultant I wasn’t sure what my vocal cords were, or even exactly where they were, so I looked them up online. This proved to be a big mistake, especially when I added the words “growth on” to the search. The images resembled a couple of eels wrestling in a bowl of pink blancmange, the kind of thing that normally only appears above the caption “Alien Autopsy: The Pictures They Didn’t Want You To See”. I hastily closed the browser window and made a note to tick the box on my medical consent form marked “Blissful Ignorance Y/N”.
 Rose Street Christmas Lights, Edinburgh And so I’ve been cracking on with the gansey, not least because it’s a present and has to be finished, washed, blocked and posted in time for Christmas. But I’m also grimly aware of how badly I was affected the previous times I’ve had general anaesthetics, and can’t promise I’ll be able to hold a needle for a couple of days afterwards, let alone knit with one. Still, that’s one sleeve down, one to go, and I continue to be delighted with how well the patterns complement each other and show up in this colour.
 Display on the Mound, Edinburgh I had my pre-operation assessment last Thursday, and the best thing I can say about it is that I’ve apparently got an excellent body mass index. (This may be the only time the word excellent has ever been applied to my body, though I do treasure the scornful reaction of one nurse a few years back when I said I thought I was putting on weight: “I’ve seen more fat on a chip”.) So it looks like it’s all systems go for the op. Meanwhile I’ll continue to follow Polonius’s excellent advice to all laryngitis sufferers, “Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice”. And I’ll leave the last word for now to the Great Dane, Hamlet himself, facing up to his own microlaryngoscopy operation: the rest is silence…
 Can it really only be five weeks that I’ve been knitting this ganseyette? Apparently it is, yet here we are already on the first sleeve. (Sooner or later I’m going to have to knit again for Big People, and it’s going to come as a shock.) So that’s the front and back finished and joined, the collar done, and the pattern band at the top of the sleeve almost completed. Ideally I’d prefer the pattern to be maybe another inch deeper, but I’m restricted by the size of the tree I used on the yoke; I’ve tried to extend it unobtrusively by adding a couple of blank rows before the ridge and furrow band and I don’t think it looks too bad.
 Rainbow over Wick It was Winston Churchill who in 1916 described Admiral Jellicoe, commander of the British fleet, as “the only man on either side who could lose the war in an afternoon”. This phrase has always stayed with me as a reminder of how quickly and dramatically your life can change. Sometimes in as little as twenty minutes. I went to the hospital this week to see the consultant about my persistently hoarse voice. If I say that having a metal tube with a camera on the end inserted up a nostril and fed down my gullet so she could examine my vocal cords wasn’t the worst part, you’ll get an idea where I’m coming from.
 Riverside hawthorns The tubey-camera part didn’t hurt at all, though it was cold, and I was definitely aware there something metallic inside my face, the closest I’ve come yet to joining the Borg Collective. This was so distracting I forgot to breathe, and had to be reminded by the doctor. She had a student in attendance, so not only did I have to sit there, breathing and making a variety of farmyard noises so she could see my vocal cords in action, I had to do it all twice for the benefit of the student (“Say heee—look, it’s vibrating, do it again!”). Afterwards she told me what I’d suspected, it was acid reflux interfering with my voice box, and the only mitigation is really to eliminate acidic foods from my diet. Doesn’t sound too bad, I thought. Ha. Alas, it means no more tea, coffee, cocoa, chocolate, onions, tomatoes or orange juice. (It also means cutting out fatty bacon, but after being vegetarian for 30-plus years I’m pretty sure I can live with that.) Not even peppermint tea makes the cut. I asked her what I should replace them with and she said, in the tone of a member of the Inquisition telling a heretic they were going to be burned at the stake for the good of their soul, “Water”. Death, one asks, where is thy double-shot latte with sprinkles and extra cream?
 Winter Sunset But even that wasn’t the worst part. Apparently there’s a small growth on one of my vocal cords, which she said is probably benign but needs to come out asap. So that means a trip to Inverness, and another assignment with my old military nemesis General Anaesthetic. It’s a simple procedure, you’re out the same day, but you can’t travel far in the immediate aftermath which means an overnight stay somewhere local. (“You can always stop with friends in Inverness” she said helpfully, to which I said that I didn’t have any friends before hastily remembering to add, “Er… in Inverness”.) So there we are. I may not have lost the war in an afternoon but, sitting here cradling my mug of cinnamon tea* and trying to remember to breathe, it doesn’t exactly feel like victory either.
[*Actually coffee. My current plan is to join a Trappist monastery and that way I get to still drink coffee and not have to speak – honestly, it’s win/win.]
 We had our Covid booster jags the other day. It was down at the Assembly Rooms, and ran like a military operation—unsurprisingly, as several army medics were taking part (dressed in desert camouflage, which I can’t help feeling isn’t going to help them much if a foreign power decides to invade the far north of Scotland—a country not, to my knowledge, noted for its hot, sandy terrain). As I stood in line to get in some people happened past across the street, and a lady ahead of me in the queue, who obviously knew them, shouted out a greeting and asked if they’d had their jags already. They said that was the case and, clearly uncomfortable to be accosted in so public a manner, started to move on. Whereupon she called after them (to much hilarity), “Aye, rank has its privileges, right enough!”
 Late afternoon on the path Inside the hall I was met by a nurse with an iPad and a list of questions. I was rather nonplussed to be asked, “And what can we do for you today?”, but it turned out they were offering a flu jab as well the booster, presumably on the ‘buy one get one free’ principle. Well, in for a penny, I thought, and was directed to a table where another nurse was waiting. I duly got the flu shot in one arm, the Covid one in another, and then I was directed to the seating area to wait fifteen minutes before I could leave. Here I was amused to observe that most people after about five minutes realised that (a) just sitting around in case bad things happened is very boring, and (b) no one was actually watching, and so they furtively snuck out whenever the nurses were otherwise engaged. I shook my head at their folly… until I too got bored after five minutes and sheepishly followed them outside.
 Lichen & Haws Meanwhile, the back of the denim gansey is finished, and I’m onto the front. It’s zipping right along, and obviously the secret of fast knitting is to aim for the more svelte type of figure. It’s going to be a seven-and-three-quarter-inch armhole, though these things are always something of a lottery. And what a great colour denim is: it’s no wonder so many people choose it. Next week I should have the front finished, hopefully even the collar.
 The Lighthouse, reflected Speaking of svelte figures (or not), as I’d stripped for action back in the hall the nurse had cheerfully regaled me with anecdotes of the various men who’d passed through her hands earlier that day—specifically, how long they could hold their breath and their dignity and keep their waists sucked in until gravity inevitably reasserted itself. This turned out on average to be for the duration of one jab but not both (“like a bouncy castle deflating” was how she described one poor chap who’d had to let it all hang out). No man is a hero to his valet, as the saying goes; neither apparently is he to his nurse…
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And here we are, the Mrs Laider/Mrs Laidlaw gansey finished just in time for Christmas. I don’t really have much to say other than that I’m really pleased with it, and it just goes to show how creative you can be in combining patterns and still be confident that the end result will look stunning. And what a great colour Frangipani Denim is, and how well it always seems to show the patterns to their best effect. Next week, a one-off project that has me smirking with quiet satisfaction.
