~The Healing has Begun~

The surgery is a week behind me today - THANK GOD! All went well from what I'm told and after a very long morning of waiting last week the surgery was finally performed at 2:15 ~ I was scheduled for 12:45, but the operating room was tied up - UGH! 14 hours without anything to drink was brutal and caused the vein in my hand to collapse when the IV was inserted, but they put it in the bend in my arm. This didn't cause a problem until later that night - every time I dozed off and moved my arm an alarm would sound - good lord - it was incredibly loud! I came home Thursday and have been doing very well - so I'm told. I stopped the percoset's when I came home (I am NOT a pretty picture on drugs) and have been taking the prescription strength Ibuprofen. It takes the edge off which is good enough for me. One of my biggest fears was that something would happen to my Mom while I was incapacitated and the phone call came yesterday morning as I was leaving with dh to have my staples removed. Mom fell and was being taken by ambulance to the hospital. She fractured her wrist, and is very bruised, but considering the fact that she is in the end stages of her disease, the wrist was a blessing. I shudder to think of what would be if it had been her hip or her ribs! My heart breaks now because I am of no use to her or my Dad at the moment, but she is at home again and the Visiting Nurses will take good care of her under my Dad's watchful eye. I have started knitting the French Market Bag from Knitty. I had some Reynolds 100% wool in the stash and figured it would be a good mindless knitting project - easy to pick up and put down. I do have a few questions regarding the felting process. I now have a front loader washing machine have any of you felted using one of these machines? any advise? tips? warnings? What do you do to protect the machine? do you put the item to be felted in a pillowcase? Any input would be very much appreciated. And since I have no pictures of said knitting to show at the moment, I'll share some pictures of some of the gorgeous flowers I received while in the hospital. Positive thoughts are welcome for Mom and my upcoming Nuclear Thyroid Scan and possible biopsies. Hopefully, this scan will put an end to the health issues here in my Tightly Wound World!