When I first picked up a crochet hook, I had no idea it would become a lifeline. What began as a hobby turned into something much deeper: a source of calm, control, and creativity during times when my health has felt unpredictable.
I have been dealing with pretty significant health issues.
Thankfully, crochet has been an amazing outlet and has given me a sense of accomplishment.
Living with ongoing health issues means dealing with frustrating symptoms and inability to do as much as I want to do. On those days, it’s easy to feel powerless or disconnected. Crochet changes that. With each stitch, I’m reminded that even when my body isn’t cooperating, I can still create something beautiful — one loop at a time.
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My Health Journey
I recently got a diagnosis of hypogammaglobulinemia. My health issues are related to shortness of breath. It all began with COVID. I got severely ill with COVID in January of 2024. It was really crazy how fast everything hit. I literally woke up one morning with severe shortness of breath just walking around my house. It was scary because I had never had any issues with shortness of breath previously. In fact, I would say I was fairly fit at the time. In my younger years, I was a gymnast, then later a runner. I enjoyed hiking, biking, etc.
I went to urgent care and discovered my oxygen was dropping significantly when walking around. I was sent home on oxygen with the hope that I would be on it a very short time. We hoped that within a week I would be off the oxygen. Unfortunately I did not recover quickly. I was on oxygen for several months.
This was a difficult time because even walking to the bathroom caused my oxygen levels to drop and made me very out of breath. Not only was I dealing with severe shortness of breath, but I have 4 kids that I was trying to take care of. At the time, my twins were 2, my daughter was 4 and my oldest daughter was 13.
Thankfully I have an absolutely amazing husband who was supportive and handled things around our house amazingly well. Seriously, he was a complete lifesaver through it all! I can’t say enough about how wonderful of a husband and dad he is. He definitely helped me to get through my illness.
During the time of illness, I spent a lot of time crocheting. I had a lot of frustration about the fact that I couldn’t do the things I normally would do such as cook dinner and do the dishes. Crocheting allowed me to do something productive and have a sense of accomplishment. It is something I genuinely enjoy and in a time when I couldn’t do very many things, I could still crochet.
Thankfully, I did get off the oxygen eventually. It was seriously the best feeling! I felt like I was on top of the world. I worked to exercise and get my lungs back to where they were prior to COVID.
The photo below is an octopus that I made. 🙂
Unfortunately, this year, 2025, at the end of January, I ended up getting sick again and had severe shortness of breath. I tested positive for influenza A. When walking very short distances, my oxygen was dropping low again and just like that I was on oxygen again.
I was devastated. I thought the oxygen days were behind me. I did what I could to get my lungs better. I was given medications plus inhalers, but I just wasn’t recovering quickly. My doctor started doing TONS of testing and referrals to different specialists to help me get to the bottom of the breathing issues. Why wasn’t I getting better? Why were my lungs so sick?
I was referred to cardiology (heart specialist) because shortness of breath is a very common sign of heart disease. Cardiology ordered some tests which all came back normal, thankfully.
I was extremely grateful that my heart was okay, but then what was making me have such severe shortness of breath?
I was also referred to pulmonology (lung specialist) but they were scheduled quite a ways out. By the time I finally got in to see them, I was already in the process of getting the cardiac testing completed so they wanted to have all that testing done plus some lung tests and a CT of my chest. Unfortunately none of the tests that I had done provided answers.
Scary things had been ruled out such as pulmonary embolism. (Blood clot in the lungs). I was happy to hear these things were being ruled out, but it was also frustrating, because we didn’t have any answers. All I wanted was to get back to normal life and without answers, how could we treat the problem? Short answer is, we couldn’t. We could only treat symptoms.
During all of this, my doctor ran a series of blood tests, one of which was my immunoglobulin levels. This came back severely low, indicating I essentially had no immune system and I was subsequently referred to hematology (blood specialist) and also to immunology (immune system specialist).
When I finally got in to see the hematologist, I was surprised to hear that he was thinking I had a condition called hypogammaglobulinemia. It had taken a few weeks to get into the hematologist so the blood tests were repeated along with other tests to confirm the diagnosis and rule out other conditions. It took a few weeks for the results to come back.
While waiting for the results to come back from the hematologist, my shortness of breath problems continued and in April, 2025, I got hit with pneumonia. That was actually pretty scary, but thankfully I did recover. During my pneumonia illness, the hematologist confirmed my hypogammaglobulinemia diagnosis.
There are two types of hypogammaglobulinemia, primary and secondary. Primary doesn’t have a known cause, but is a lifelong illness. Secondary is caused by something else such as a medication, cancer etc. My condition is primary.
In a nutshell, my immune system doesn’t fight well. Normal people have an “army” of immune system cells which will fight illness for you. I have very few “fighters” that can’t possibly keep up. This leads to repeatedly getting sick and when I get sick, I get really sick. It causes extreme fatigue as well because my body is constantly fighting as hard as it possibly can even though it can’t keep up.
So what’s the solution? Good news! I was given IVIG. This medication is actually amazing! When people donate plasma, they pull immunoglobulins out of it. One IVIG infusion can have immunoglobulins from hundreds of donors!
Basically I am getting my immune system “army” from donated plasma from multiple other people. I have to get monthly infusions for the rest of my life.
It might sound daunting to have to have monthly infusions forever, but actually it’s a relief. We finally have answers and my condition is treatable.
When I started IVIG, I improved tremendously. It was absolutely amazing how much I improved. I got off the oxygen and was able to get around much better than I had in several months. I went to a different location due to better schedule availability and was switched to a different brand of IVIG due to insurance preference. They wouldn’t pay for the one I was previously getting anymore.
I was unconcerned about the planned change of medication brand because it was still IVIG and they should be the same right? Wrong. Unfortunately when I tried this new brand, I started getting significantly worse again.
At this point in time, we are working with my insurance to get me back on the brand that worked better for me.
Summary
As I mentioned above, my health issues have made it difficult to do as much as I want to do. Crochet gives me a sense of accomplishment that’s often hard to find when dealing with chronic health issues. There are days when getting out of bed feels like an achievement in itself. But finishing a project — no matter how small — reminds me that I’m capable.
The picture above is another octopus that I have made. 🙂
I can start something and finish it. I can make progress, even on the hard days.It’s not just about productivity. It’s about proof: proof that I can still grow, still create, still contribute — even if it looks different than it used to.
Crochet also offers rhythm and focus. The repetitive motion of stitching has a meditative quality. It grounds me, helping to quiet anxious thoughts and giving my hands something purposeful to do.
In a world that often measures worth by speed and productivity, crochet invites slowness and mindfulness. It’s a gentle reminder that healing isn’t linear, and that beauty can be found in small, steady progress.
So when I sit with my yarn and hook, I’m not just making something — I’m reclaiming a little piece of myself. And that, to me, is powerful.
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