It happened at QuiltCon

My friend Delia and I love going to QuiltCon together.  It is a quilt convention that comes to Austin every other year.  I have made a few quilts, but I have to admit that quilting is not my love.  My sewing loves are machine embroidery and bag making.  If I can combine the two, that is even better.  While at QuiltCon, I discovered there is a charity where I can make simple bags, they get mailed to Africa, then a company there will fill them with non-disposable menstrual supplies and hand them out to the girls in the villages so they don't have to miss school.  They even give you the purse pattern.  It is a pretty simple pattern, so I plan on using a lot of my scraps to make purses and send them to Africa.  Here is their website if you want to check it out -https://sewpowerful.org/ .  I'll try to post some of the purses I make on here.  Since the patterns are simple, I plan on using my creativity to have some fun with it, maybe even combining it with embroidery.

After we checked out all the shops, we went through all the display quilts.  There are some really cool ones.  Some were done by hand and others by machine.  They were incredible.  I will never have that kind of talent with quilts, but since it isn't my passion, I'm ok with that.  When we were looking at the last row of display quilts, my feet felt like they had gone to sleep.  They were just resting on the footrest of my chair, so they shouldn't have felt that way.  I knew what was happening.  I tried to wiggle my toes, but they were paralyzed.  We were finished with QuiltCon anyway, so we headed to the car.  I hadn't told Delia anything yet but when I got to the car, my legs were totally paralyzed.  I had some trouble transferring over to the driver's seat.  Delia was a little freaked out.  I was able to drive home though due to my hand controls. 

When I got home, I told Stan what was going on.  We no longer rush into the hospital.  I ate lunch, packed my bag, we watched some TV and did a dressing change on the cat's leg.  I decided it was time to go to the hospital when the paralysis moved up to my torso and I was having trouble transferring in and out of my wheelchair.  I was admitted and got up to my room around 1 am.  By  8 am on Sunday morning, I was totally paralyzed except my head.  It took it a little longer for the paralysis to fully set in.  It has been very slow to resend.  I first got a little bit of wiggle to my fingers yesterday morning.  Usually, by the end of the day, I can raise my arms and feed myself.  I didn't start feeding myself until this morning and I can still only raise my forearm.  I was able to sit on the side of the bed today and was able to hold myself up.  Yesterday, I kept falling over.  I should be going to the rehab hospital tomorrow.  I suspect I will be there longer than last time (only 8 days) since my strength just isn't coming back as quickly as it has in the past.  We will see what happens once I start moving around in rehab.  Hopefully my brain will remember how to send the messages properly once they can get me up and moving. 

I'm trying really hard to stay as much on my diet as possible.  My diet goals are to get as many vegetables as possible and not get any sugary foods while I am here.  It is impossible to avoid carbs, but I will just start right back on keto as soon as I get home.  Part of keeping this weight off is going to be learning how to manage eating on vacation, in the hospital, for holidays and birthdays, then being able to go back to the strict keto diet as soon as those things are over.  I think I am finally getting the hang of it.