STITCH ‘N BITCH

Stitch ‘N Bitch is an exceptionally appropriate book I have been lent. “It’s the essential guide for chicks with sticks”. As well as providing Christmas and Chanukah presents without having to grapple with the gaggles of citizens who morph into monstrous creatures around the festive period, knitting is an exquisite form of pain management. I also believe it has helped to control the cabin fever that did, at times, overwhelm me. The optimal concoction for distraction is for me to be furiously stitching and for a friend to be bitching ad infinitum. How could one possibly remember trivialities, such as degenerative intervertebral discs and major surgery in one week, one day and 17 hours 30minutes (to be approximate), during the former combination?

As I am wheeled off to the operating theatre, my mother will tease my needles from my hands, only for needles to be replaced in my hands minutes later by the anaesthetist. Stitch ‘N Bitch is, in fact, probably exactly what the surgeon, anaesthetist and team will be doing. Surgery is, in effect, just a slightly more highly regarded form of needlework and everyone knows, due to the accuracy of information in TV programmes such as Grey’s Anatomy and House, that all conversation during surgery is gratuitous gossip and bitching. It is therefore a logical conclusion that supplementary to the role of knitting in my life as a form of analgesia, knitting is a necessary and useful preparation for my potential surgical career!