It is perhaps a little odd to segue from Lifelong Incurable Disease Diagnosis to Dr. Who Scarf, but that is how things go.

Here is the situation: William would like to knit himself a Dr. Who scarf. We have not even WATCHED the fourth doctor (we started at the ninth), but he is acting a little rabid about it anyway. Not only is he currently interested in all Dr. Who stuff, but also a cool high school boy in his Dr. Who Fan Club has such a scarf. HE WANTS THE SCARF.

There are TONS of instructional thingies online, but as my mother (our knitting consultant) noted, the results seem….dissimilar to the original scarf. Like, first we see a picture of Dr. Who wearing a long, thin, woven-not-knit scarf, and then we see the tutorial-writer wearing what looks like a full-body blanket/shawl.

One issue, I think, is that the Doctor seems to wear his scarf doubled or even tripled over on itself: someone trying to duplicate the measurements of the actual scarf might make a 14-inch wide scarf, but then it doesn’t look the same because they’re wearing it flat open instead of almost rolled up.

Also, it seems that the scarf changes several times during the fourth Doctor’s tenure, so both knit and woven are represented.

Here are my questions:

1. Do you know, is one scarf considered more legitimate/representative than the others?

2. How…fervent…might a Doctor Who fan feel about the accuracy of a homemade version? That is, could a person capture the SPIRIT of the scarf by making it narrow in order to approximate the OVERALL LOOK of a scarf that is much wider but is of a different fabric and has been sort of rolled up? Must the scarf be the same number of feet long as the Doctor’s own scarf, or may it be made to work on the height of the person wearing it (while still being, of course, massively over-long)?

We could likely answer these questions ourselves by watching several seasons of the fourth Doctor, but we are a bit pressed for time as the urgent need for a scarf has overtaken someone to the point that he talks of almost nothing else. I could also research it online, but I’m worried about getting misinformation and not realizing it because I haven’t watched the fourth Doctor myself and so wouldn’t know the difference between actual information and someone’s mom who thinks she knows what she’s talking about but doesn’t. I’m hoping this is one of those Access the Hive Mind situations the internet is so good for.

[Edited to add: My mom found this one, and it’s our favorite so far: wittylittleknitter.com]

I was away a day and then sick a day, and boy, there is nothing quite like that to make a person feel that special blend of useful/important (“My goodness, I really DO do a lot around here!”) and resentful (“So, it’s LITERALLY that if I don’t do it no one does??”). It’s also given me a couple of days of morbid-fantasy fretting about how the family would cope if I were incapacitated for longer than a couple of days and also about how I’ll fare in my elder years. Well, sufficient unto the day, etc.

Speaking of sufficient unto the day, we have a diagnosis for Edward. To review before the reveal, he was diagnosed with anemia at age 6 and referred to a pediatric hematologist at age 8. The pediatric hematologist (billing $750 for 20 minutes, which, my dear heaven, my insurance card is now covered in lipstick marks) referred him to the pediatric gastroenterologist. The pediatric gastroenterologist first did an endoscopy/colonoscopy and then an abdominal MRI, with me all pre-embarrassed for how this was all going to turn out to be nothing and look how much trouble and expense we caused for a little anemia issue.

But instead it’s Crohn’s Disease (a disease that can include the entire digestive system from In to Out), and we’re so glad we found out as early as we did: some people find out they have Crohn’s after it’s caused them to miss an important growth spurt, or at the point where they need a large piece of damaged intestine removed. Edward has lost some growth (the anemia was diagnosed after he failed to grow at all between age 5 and age 6), but we hope this nice early treatment will help him not to miss more. The diagnosis explains his anemia, his irregular growth, his tiredness, his picky eating, his low appetite, his stomachaches: Crohn’s can make it difficult to absorb nutrients, and difficult to digest food and to feel good while doing so. Crohn’s is not curable but it’s treatable; he’s started on Pentasa (this is nine capsules a day) and omeprazole, plus two weeks of prednisone, and he’ll likely start on 6-MP at his visit next month.

I don’t know much about Crohn’s at all, though that situation is rapidly changing. Paul got us a book out of the library and it’s causing me to do childbirth breathing. Also, Crohn’s can be quite hereditary, so I’m also worrying about future grandchildren. I’m trying to take to heart Augusten Burroughs’s advice (from This Is How, which I see is currently bargain-priced and which I highly recommend: it’s like having someone ELSE go to three decades of therapy and condense it for you so you don’t have to go), where he says that just because someone has an illness that COULD involve certain things, don’t worry about those things until they happen, because if/when they DO happen, you’ll take it in stride in a way you can’t do when thinking of it ahead of time. OKAY I WILL TRY.