Journal

2024 - Week 23 Cooking Results

Sausage

Good pork, makes good sausage.

Burger

New offering from Crooked Gap, pork and bacon burgers, quite good.

Stir Fried Beef and Bok Choy

I don’t think I’m ready for beef yet, so I put the beef in the freezer.

Buttermilk Pancakes

Let us just claim this was going to be on the day I got permission to stop wearing my brace. I took a nap after work and it was a hard nap. As I was able to sleep on my back, so I did, but without the CPAP machine, this was a bad idea. I should’ve slept mostly sitting up like I have been, which may not be as restful as the full CPAP experience, but quite a bit better. After I woke up it took a while to get going, so I made scrambled eggs with toast, instead.

Hot Honey Peanut Noodles

Skipped the crushed peanuts, and tripled the recipe. Good meal.

Chorizo and Sweet Potato Quesadillas

I used the food processor to get the shredded sweet potatoes. I couldn’t find the piquillo peppers so I just used some jarred peppers I already had. Things came out pretty good and it made for a nice dinner. I had a leftover the next day. It was nice.

The Play that Goes Wrong - Des Moines Playhouse - 6/8/2024

We saw the Broadway tour of this a bit ago, and I know we’ve seen, perhaps not all, but a good chunk of items on the British show. This was different, but still quite good. I’m quite impressed, again, with the technical details and effects. Acting was good and enjoyable. We have plans to go to another show later this year.

2024 - Week 22 Cooking Results

Sausage

Back to Hereford goodness.

Egg & Sausage Sandwiches

Easy Meal, good things.

One-Pot Shrimp Piccata Pasta

I tried to up the recipe to use the whole 14 ish oz of pasta that I had, and I don’t think I reduced the broth quite enough, but it still worked out and was pretty good.

Thai Style Chicken and Sweet Potatoes

So on the list of things that should be ok to use is the sweet potatoes. A bit of chicken a lot of sweet potatoes and some flavor boosting items that made for a good meal, that sat pretty well in my body.

I am still generally tired and it’s hard to do much when my GI track is generally untrustworthy. I’m rethinking my personal diet a bit and will make some adjustments until such a time that things get better.

I had a huge internet outage last week, along with good chunks of Central Iowa, so I’m going to get a second backup internet provider, also fiber, which will be interesting. They’re coming Tomorrow and I’ll have to make sure they are aware that they are a backup and if they disrupt my primary, I’ll not be pleased.

During the outage, after trying for hours to get a hold of someone, they tried to up-sell me to “quantum” fiber which, I was like I have fiber. it seemed vaguely absurd.

2024 - Week 21 Cooking Results

Sausage

While I was able to get my Crooked Gap brats this week, not in time for this dinner. Still skinless, which is what my wife prefers, me too, and should be easier to digest, in general. So they were ok.

Beef Burgers

Bit of Momofuku salt, crooked gap beef. Good things.

Taco Salad

So this was a mixed experience. I made things more simple, because of recent events. But even so with the beans and the chips they ended up being…unpleasant later on. Spice as well. So I’m gong to claim I’ve learned my lesson, but somehow I doubt it.

Pizza (sourdough crust, for real this time)

I left the pizza dough out a bit of the down to allow it to grow a bit. and it did, to some extent, but not to the same extent that my yeasted version would go. It made it ok to work with, but I wasn’t as much as I expected. So it was a bit smaller than I would make. To make a concession I used tomato sauce instead of pureeing whole canned tomatoes, to avoid the seeds. And this mostly worked out. However, I added to much sauce and to much cheese, which overloaded everything. Even so it was a good attempt.

Thai Style Chicken and Sweet Potatoes

Delayed a bit.

Spicy Chili Coconut Shrimp Noodles

Less spicy, but easy to eat and digest, not a bad dinner.

I mowed the front and side yards on Friday, and then the backyard on Saturday. Friday I was fine, but tired, Saturday, with a Costco run, I was just exhausted by the end of the day. I fell asleep during the new South Park feature and after “making” dinner (purchased egg salad, where I effectively sliced cheese and setup plates for dinner). After we watched the Bob Marley movie, I just went to bed. I feel a lot better this morning, since sleeping from 9:30p to around 7a. So here we are, knowing I have limitations again, of not only food but the amount of effort I can put into a day.

2024 - Week 20 Cooking Results

Sausage (case free brats)

They were fine. Because I wasn’t able to make the cheese shop, I wasn’t able to get my normal Crooked Gap brats. Thus these.

Egg, Sausage (case free), English muffins

Another simple meal, done.

Ramen, Veggies and Eggs

Half an onion, a red bell pepper the sauce from the packets. Combined with the ramen noodles and topped with an egg. It was ok. I had thought about adding toasted sesame oil and forgot. I pondered chili crunch, but seeds and fresh off on infection this seemed like a terrible idea. I ended up topping mine with the fermented sriracha that I use.

Bison Burgers (saw these in the freezer looking for something else)

I couldn’t them again after looking so, Pork!

Peanut Butter and Jelly Melt, maybe just toasted, since butter will probably be better, but, avoiding.

I did end up frying them in oil and it was good.

This is where I noticed that my jam selection had become all based on one note. I have several rhubarb only jams, then rhubarb and one other thing (usually strawberry), with this, I have made an effort to restock with things that Shannon prefers. So I got some from the Cheese Shop, some from Iowa Food coop and one from Blue Gate. I’m making progress, and I also need to eat more of the rhubarb based jam.

Another hospital Trip

Things that may have contributed to this issue. I have been using an air dyne type of bicycle for years, this seems to physically help keep me regular. However, with a broken arm, I couldn’t see how I would do this. So I have been taking a break from it, which, if I’m honest, probably not a good choice. I have been letting myself eat a bit more than I should, especially meat wise, which would also be problematic, and not eating my salad lunch, but instead having meat and cheese. I had also been skipping fiber supplements, since I was in the care of physicians here and there. My normal walking activity is hard, as I still have bruises on my feet (especially my right one, from the fall/tiger fight that broke my arm), so I’ve been avoiding wearing shoes and wearing my sandals instead.

Sunday:

Things were fine. We went to a show, I did the shopping, and generally things were going OK.

Monday:

I felt a bit constipated. Usually this just means that I’m off balance and it’ll make me take a bit of time to recover. Eat more fiber heavy items. I usually don’t try to fix things without medicine or adding more non-natural resources (drugs to “fix” things) as these set you off balance in the other way. so I took it as a warning and started my normal pathway of recovery. By the evening I knew this would be a challenging one as it because bit uncomfortable.

Tuesday:

As the day progressed, I felt more and more pain in my stomach, until such a point where I was asking Shannon to go to the Cheese Shop for me. As this is a regular Tuesday activity, she then insisted that I go to urgent care. I booked a time shortly after a meeting that I had to attend, and after that meeting was over I went upstairs, bent over a bit, cause it was more comfortable that way. After a bit of a waiting I got put into a room and they started to run some tests to figure out what was going on. This included a blood draw, x-ray, urine test. The staff scheduled me for a CT scan the next day, as it was late enough in the day they were no longer taking appointments for that day. So thinking this was something probably less important, I relaxed a bit.

I saw that my white blood cell count had spiked, due to the portal reporting results to me.

However, after the radiologist read the results and the doctor confirmed, She told me to head off to the emergency department to get a CT scan as soon as possible.

While waiting for final checkout items, I was able to re-schedule my OT, or at least I thought so, and post surgical checkup related to my arm.

After paying off the rest of my balance from this visit and the broken arm visit for the emergency department, I headed over, stooped a bit more, to get that CT scan. I drove myself over, and getting in and out of the car was painful and definitely worse than when I had driven down there.

So as far as I knew I was getting a CT scan to clarify the air (or other gas) pocket they found during the x-ray. In texts back and forth with Shannon I speculated that it could be an infected diverticula, appendix or something else. While we were chatting my phone got down to 30%, so we chatted less. It went down o just updates rather than chatting on speculation. This was not a planned leave, so I wouldn’t normally leave the house with less than 80%.

I was taken into triage, and re-described my symptoms, referenced the urgent care, told them what I was told I needed and after that back to waiting for time in the CT and contrast dye person. Shortly after this, Shannon was done for the day, and joined me in the ED.

After a bit more waiting we were roomed.

After an initial checkup by the ED doctor, he did a check for drug seeking behavior (eye dilation) and initially I was offended, but frankly it makes sense. Non specific pain (lower abdomen), recently broken bone and recent prescription for opioids. So I get it. I refused painkillers.

After the CT scan, we got the previously partially guessed, perforated infected diverticula.

This is where the transition from ED to Hospital began. Surgery as a possibility was mentioned.

We were moved, and ended up in a room with a shockingly good view. I think we were facing a bit to the east of north. After watching the view for a bit, Shannon went off to get me the various things I need to survive (chargers, CPAP, clothes) and I was hooked up for the run of IV fluids and IV antibiotics. After settling into the room with my phone on low power mode getting setup I started to relax a bit more and was able to allow myself the idea that I should be a bit more comfortable. After a request, I was put on nerve pain medication and other than a spasm on my abdomen here and there, and getting up and down, things settled down quite a bit. I was able to find a sort of sweet spot where I was able to feel ok.

I was expected to pay attention to what came out of me, as they tracked what went into me. I would need some help here and there getting up as I still have to treat my left arm as if it is healing, because it is healing, and my right arm had the IV into it, making not fully useful either.

Eventually Shanon headed home with directions on what to bring back the next day.

In the overnight I had help getting up at one of the check ins, but then remembered how I got out of bed before, by using the bed itself to get me as close to sitting as I could stand, before pulling myself to get my legs down to the floor and using those to stand up.

After some fitful sleeping, though with less general noise then where I stayed last year, I was up again to no food, no water, and having most things lifted out of my control. Which in this case may have been for the best.

The routine started on Wednesday. I’ll be woken up at some point in the morning (3-5 am) for a blood draw. Then, if wasn’t already away, 6-8 a for fever control and pain killer, Then my normal pills from 8-10. Shannon would come around 8. Eventually as the pain died down, we’d take walks around the hospital floor. Shannon would head to lunch a bit early to beat the cafeteria rush or out somewhere to run required errands (like picking up the whiskey I ordered online). They checked my vitals at regular intervals. Swapped between fluids and antibiotics (more than one type) with fluids for my IV. Occasionally placing and IV bag with additional nutrients that I was lacking. I did my stretches and exercises for my arm. We’d watch news and shows on my iPad.

For the first part, I was tired, in pain and a bit bored. As I got better I was just bored and a bit antsy. Even though I was down a bit of red blood cells, laying around and doing nothing makes you think you have an abundance of energy even when you only have a little.

Full Liquids, then food was introduced, and was as disappointing as expected. I suppose unlike last time where I hadn’t eaten anything in so long everything was good, this time I remembered.

There were several jokes with the staff, where I suspect some were probably just polite laughs, but there were some nuggets of truth in there. One was when the day nurse was getting my pills and going down the long list, and I stated, that was the one that turned me from an angry spiteful person I was to the generally pleasant person I was supposed to be (or something like that) and she stated that she’d not forget that one.

On Wednesday, Brandon stopped on his way to work to drive my car home as to avoid a tow and free up parking around the hospital. I got balloons and a very cute cow from Shannon.

Thursday, I got some balloons from my co-workers.

Somewhere in there I had a pretty in-depth conversation about medical record interfaces with one of my supervising doctors (which I related back to my leadership), which included the amount of testing that was involved in the variability.

On Friday the talk about me leaving increased, and I had dodged the surgical option, it appeared. Unlike last time, I learned to ask about the time frame, so we packed and cleaned up getting ready to go back home.

We were released, and to create a bit of joy I took a picture simulating the dog outside the window for my oldest sister, when I announced I was going to get free.

After we got home I was able to run off to get bread and pie that I had previously ordered. I picked up follow up antibiotics (waiting for them to be filled so I didn’t miss a dose). I felt useful.

One antibiotic is a “do not drink alcohol” while you are taking this, which was fine since I’ve been taking a break since I broke my arm. The other I got mixed messages on what I could eat. Pharmacist said no dairy, but the summary with the drug made no mention of this. Online, since search is getting trashier, gave me diametrically opposed statements (no, to it’s fine). I skimmed a research paper about the drug and with that decided that it was probably better to not eat dairy, then to use it.

Brandon came over again on Saturday, and mowed my lawn, much faster then I can, and also better then the professional I paid last year (though I did tell the professional I didn’t really care), even trimming spots nice and clean.

However, it was clear I was still recovering when I left the grocery store to leave Shannon to check out as I was really tired. And this has been continuing off and on during the week depending on how mentally challenge work is and how much sleep I get. Monday I took a short nap around 4, Tuesday, no nap, Wednesday hard long nap, Thursday no nap, and Friday Nap. My red blood cell count is recovering without much help.

Generally I feel a lot better, I’ve got a few days left of antibiotics, have had a few follow up appointments and have one more next week. Like the arm, I think I squeezed through the path of since it happened, this was probably the best outcome.