Memorial Day 2016

*238*

  It is O'dark 30 here this morning. Downpours over my head woke me up. There is a tropical something passing by today. The garden will be very very happy. It sucks for any cookouts or parades but we here needed the rain. Crossing fingers the basement doesn't flood. Not in the mood.

  Today is a month on a low carb way of eating. Yay! I have lost the 7lbs I gained plus like 3 more so far. I stalled a little bit so I had to adjust my macros. When you eat this way, you eat low carb, moderate protein, and high fat. I was not eating enough fat and too much protein. I should start seeing a difference in the weight loss. The endo gave me permission to fiddle with my insulin. His assistant told me that if I kept my shots as they were, I would end up with low blood sugar reactions. So I got that going for me.  I feel a lot better. I am not always hungry and I have had some unintentional ketosis which is good. It was so hard to achieve the last time I tried. I am not trying this time but I am sure I am in fat burning. I don't have proof but I just can feel it. 

  C-diff sucks...the end. I am all done with the Dificid. But my gut still feels wrecked. I keep being told that I will overcome it. It will go away. Right now, I feel like I have no hope for that scenario. Some days I am okay, some days I have pain. I see the gastro in June and I am due for an upper endoscopy. They will see how my ulcers and esophagus are doing. I feel like the meds have helped with it. I don't get the searing pain anymore but pics will give us a clear idea.

  So far we have had one hiccup in the garden. The beds have a case of leaf miner. My Swiss chard had to go in the trash. I was able to replace with three types of eggplants and some Anaheim peppers. Leaf miner effects chard, spinach, and beets. A couple of us will try again in the fall. My butter lettuce at home is not doing well. But the ones at the garden are ready for harvest. I will bring the ones from home there and switch them out. I will post pictures when I go to harvest on Tuesday. My buckets of sugar snap peas and beans are growing so well also. I need to twist some twine around the cages to give them more stuff to grab and grow on. I planted three bleeding hearts this Spring and they are all growing nice. Except for the killed chard, it has been a good kick off to the season. 

  Lu is doing okay. The antibiotic helped her. Her gum infection is at bay and her cough is much better. We just have to dose her ever few months to beat the infection back. Perla the chichi has to go on Friday to the vet. She also has a tooth infection that needs some syrup. She absolutely hates it. It is like mostly alcohol so she fights me every time but for her it works good and longer, she took it like 6-7 months ago so it lasts longer.  Lu actually likes the *vodka*. She slurps it down out of the dropper. Little booze hound. 

  Yesterday night we went to Walmart and picked up the very last 10k btu air conditioner in the store. The price was right and we were very lucky to get it. We will drag it inside after the rain ends later and prop her in the window. I hope it doesn't kill the man's back. Lu and I cannot survive another summer without a swamp cooler. I tried to be all 1976 economical but my IIH demands cool air on some days. I have said we won't abuse it. If it is in the 70s, don't you dare turn it on. No sense and I will be pissed at the electric bill. So yeah, we did a adult thing and bought a big appliance. Feels good that the economy of the house has gotten a little better. 

  I am going to try to make something called Fathead Pizza this week. It is a low carb crust made from cheese. If it is good, I will share pics and the recipe. I miss pizza sooooo much. If I can find something satisfying to me, it will make me very happy. I tried the cauliflower crust and I just didn't like it. There are alternative flours i can use in baking. Here is coconut and almond flours. I have to make a trip to the store to get supplies. There is also a sweetener for baking called Swerve. I have never had it but it supposedly tastes just like sugar hut without the aftertaste of Stevia. We shall see.

  We don't have a grill, yet. So even if it wasn't raining, we wouldn't be cooking out. *insert sad face*. We only had air conditioner money. Maybe next month we will have enough to get a grill. It will happen before the 4th, hopefully.

So that is about it. My head is feeling the effects of the storm. I am gonna roll over and try to go back to sleep. It is 517am. I think I will just have to nap later instead. 

C-difficile. The gift that keeps on giving.

*239* according to my scale. *229* according to gastro`s scales (i tried both)

  I have C-diff again...ongoing but I have the dreaded runs. I am being put on the last bastion of meds to kill it. It is called Dificid. Thank goodness we reached our deductible. It is some expensive shit..no pun intended. I was at the ER last night because I was dehydrated and my pulse was a bit fast. I am better now in that regard. I have to push the water. And hope for the best. I am in pain but that is just the way life goes. It doesnt stop me completely.

  We sure are having a nice cold and slow Spring here. It is May 17 and  I wore a sweater for parts of the day. It is good for some of the colder plants. My lettuce and greens are growing nicely. This weekend is the plant sale and I am hoping for some tomato, pepper, and basil plants. If I can get some Japanese eggplant, that would be good also.

   I am on my 2nd week of low carb and I am doing fine. Kid #2 and I went for ice cream. It was diabetic friendly Butter Pecan. My sugar only rose slightly. I have a treat! A real treat that tastes bad but it is good. It is the little things.If I could find carb free chips, It would be IT!

   I am in pain from sitting so this is brief today. I will check to let you know if the meds worked.
Toodles!

Friday the 13th

*239*

   Wah Wahhhh on the computer.  There is something wrong with it. It doesnt have a virus or malware and  I deleted Adobe Flash. Still slow as constipation but it almost has full memory and such. That is as far as my abilities run. I have to get hold of our computer geek. He works 3rd shift so it will be interesting how we coordinate. It will get done though. So I am still using my mouse to paste the fucking letter n.
  
 For those that have read here for awhile, I have been battling my weight for more then the 6 yrs that I have been whining on here. This week I was placed with a dilemma. I had my 3 month diabetes checkup Monday. It wasnt good. I have to up my night time insulin by 5 units and my mealtime insulin by 6 units. THAT IS ALOT!  To jump from 20 to 25 is alot at least for me. He said that I am at a crossroads. I have to either really change my eating or enter a vicious cycle. The more insulin you take, the more weight you gain, and then you need more insulin. 
I choose life.  
  I have been eating low carb since Monday morning. I have walked 3 times this week with kid #2. I REFUSE to gain the weight back. I basically eat everything except wheat, bread, pasta, rice, beans, white potato, sweets, sugars, junk food, etc. Lots of veggies, eggs, meats, fats, and minimal fruits. I have to go look up the glycemic index to see what grains I could safely eat at all.
 I am staying on my old insulin doses for now. If I have stuck to this for a month, I will call the office to let my endo know what is going on. I post my blood sugar levels on IG as a accountability to show myself that I am sticking to it. I had gone up to 244 but as you can see, I am back on track. 
  My body is treating foods differently now and I have to control that or turn into a fat diabetic blob that is eating her Hershey bar.

  My dear friend`s, A, mother passed away this week also. So much death this year. She had end stage emphysema.Very sad end. A wants to be left alone. It is killing me cause I love her and I have a need to make her feel better.
 
I did plant and there are pics and videos on my IG. Please take a look if you would like. I have to get going here. It is Friday and I have stuffs to do. 

I got a new computer!!!

OMG!!!!!!

 Okay, it is new to me. It is not completely new but it is. My friend, A, had bought her mother a computer when she moved in with her. The woman never used it. And when I say never, I mean never. Her Mom went into a nursing home recently and we had to clean out all of her Mom`s hoard. Today I asked if I could buy the laptop off of her. I needed it badly especially now that I am working on helping her sell off the hoard. She said take it. *Are you sure?* *Yes, bitch!*

   TWIRL TWIRL TWIRL TWIRL

I have a letter N! NNNNNNNnnnnnnnNNNNNNNNnnnnnnNNNNNNNNnnnnnnNNNNNN!
   
My Mother`s Day is okay. I got some flowers and they are making me dinner. It is not a spectacular display but it is something. I have nothing to complain about for this day is good.
I am gonna go now. I finished with the virus protection and deleted all the game programs my friend added. I want to give her a good defrag.
 So I will post this week. I will be planting veggies so I want to share. OMG I HAVE A NNNNNN!
 
 

I am in utter love!

 

*233* <---that is what the gastro`s scale says


   I am in love for a couple reasons and one of them is not that my Zyrtec is working against the allergens. not!
 First lets talk about these huge pinwheels that I bought the other day. I bought four of them, all the patterns, at 5 below. They were $4 a piece. Yes, I spent $16 plus tax on pinwheels. But they are amazing and they make me happy! 

 Wednesday I got a new phone! Yay! iPhone! Yay! It is not the latest but it is fresh, new and mine. My Samsung was limping so she had to go. Easy transition cause I am used to the iPad.
  Kid #1 got me hooked up with Snapchat. I actually kind of like it. I follow this guy called Cian Twomey. I also follow him on FB and YouTube. Dont judge. I am one of them. He is hilariously funny!

 So I love me some Snapchat. Give it a try and have some fun with it. I wanted to share a widget on here with my snap story but I couldnt figure it out. But I did add my Instagram. I do that almost every day so you can see that at least. Another peek into my soul. It is over there <---- on the left. I also wanted to share a new app I heard about. It is called Couch to 5k. It is a trainer. I have to lay on the couch and fiddle with it. You can find it in your app store on your phone. I want to step up my walking and this might help.

  I am busy cooking and cleaning today. Tonight I am making Rocky Point Clam Cakes with corn on cob, salad, and possibly tater tots. These fritters aka cakes are tha bomb. They taste better then all the local clam places around here. They are so tasty that you could eat them naked...the food is naked. Get your mind out of the gutter. Unless that is your fancy. 

I will be making tartar sauce though cause that has to happen to. I also have a soup in progress cause Kid #1 is over tired from over working. I will post the recipe but I did tweak it. It is Chicken, Lentils, and Rice Soup. 
The changes that I made were a teaspoon of grated ginger, 3 cloves of minced garlic, no mushrooms, a can of no salt diced tomato, low salt chicken broth, garlic powder, poultry seasoning, and 2 bay leaves. I added about 6-7 cups of water on top of the broth. The rice and lentils will soak up with water so you may have to add more.

  I went to the gastro. He is worried that the cdiff is getting a little aggressive. I had to send out a *sample* and I started up Flagyl today. Yuck. I hate that shit. He asked if it makes me nauseated. I cant answer that. When I took it the first time, I was very very sick already. So this will be a new sensation. I am already nauseated, in pain in colon, and have to force to eat.  Hopefully this stuff passes quickly and I dont get a luxury stay at the hospital again.

   Stopped at the pharmacy to pick up the Flaaaaaa-gyl and the pharmacist wanted to have an in depth convo with me about c-diff. He even asked me if I had the time to chat. He had been reading and listening to podcasts. He wants to know more about it because more people are coming in with it. He wants to order different probiotics and I will be the Guinea pig. Not for free, mind you, but he is trying to help. Then he tells me that he wants to help because he heard several times that the longer you have c-diff, or colonization, or multiple reoccurrences..you could end up with slow motility and possible hardening/scarring of the colon.  Like dammit, I came in there with a good mood. He tanked that real quick. It is good to know though. I always want to be informed. 

That is about it. I am gonna poke around to see what i am gonna eat for lunch and maybe take a nap.

Update: As I was stirring the soup, it looked like it needed a few things. I added two chopped potatoes and the last of the frozen spinach which was probably more then a 1/2 cup. I do that. I follow a recipe and then I just twist it around until it is unrecognizable. 

Spoonie soup

Sucks is: When you have a bunch of ailments but you don't really know which one is making you feel like shit today.

   I need to call the gastro dr but I want to see if this too shall pass. So far, no bueno. I did take a 1/4 tab of the diamox and I don't feel dizzy anymore. The leaves are birthing and my allergies are in full force. Oh well. It is life.

  Every time I make a pot or crockpot of soup, I freeze some. I have a large sleeve of those plastic chinese soup containers with lids that a chef friend gave me. Usually a big crockpot of soup, stew, or chili will yield me dinner plus two-three of those containers. I write what it is on a post it, and tape it to the lid. In the deep freezer they go. Then when I feel like shit, I can heat up some soup. I take the lid off, defrost microwave for two rounds of 4 minutes each. Then it is easy to slide out of container into a little soup pot with a lid. It is the perfect Spoonie lunch or dinner.

   It was a Chicken Kale soup. Into the crockpot, I dumped 1 small chopped onion, 2 chopped carrots or a handful of chopped baby carrots, 3 cloves of peeled garlic whole, all the breast and thigh meat (chopped) from a rotisserie chicken, container of low sodium chicken broth, 2 low sodium chicken bouillon, 1 can of tomato paste, garlic powder, thyme, black pepper and salt to taste. I pour about 4 cups of water to cover. Then topped it with 3 cups of chopped kale. I cooked it on low for 4 hours. I added a cup of ditalini pasta to cook for 1 hour more.

 You could add more veggies if you like. Sometimes I will put corn or peas or cut up tomatoes. The kale makes to soup nice and murky.


  I made that about a month ago. I felt like crap today (still do) but I had something to eat! When I am feeling  good, I should do a bunch of soups at once and freeze them up.

  The phone comes by Fedex today. I think I will patiently wait outside while I do yard work.

Have a great Wednesday!

Stuff is a-changing

*238*


  Against my better judgement, I am drinking my third 8oz cup of coffee with soy creamer and one Stevia packet. I had my sick stomach breakfast of 1 egg cooked in microwave with a sliced avocado. When I am having pain and no appetite, that breaky gives me enough boost just in case I cannot eat till dinner. *burp* Okay..I am gonna pour this shit out.

  Changes are happening. I hope that the positives continue cause we have had our fair share of bullshit. Hubs has been offered and he accepted a new position in his department. He will be a driver. He will pick up and delivery all sorts of small stuff to the different clinics and hospitals affiliated with ours. The guy he is taking over for leaves in 3 weeks so he will have plenty of time to train. He started yesterday and he likes it. This is good for him. He is off his bad foot. He is not lugging big carts of supplies. He still gets to socialize but a whole new crop of people. Plus he is back on 2nd which he likes. I dont have to worry about him as much as I have been.
  
  Kid #1 is treating me better.  She is talking to me. That look of disgust when she had to communicate with me is gone. It is either cause she has grown more, therapy, or a combo of the two. I still want a empty nest but I can tolerate a little longer cause she is more forthcoming towards me and vice versa.

   If you totally ignore my stomach issues right now, I am doing pretty good. I have had some depressive moments but I rolled with it and I am ok now. Bipolar sucks ass, I tell you. Thankfully I am of the 2 variety so it is not as intense as what I grew up with living with my Mom and Sister. They were/are 1s and that is not a fun thing to have.  I have tried to do more. Get moving. Get Doing. Try new things. I tasted beef tongue a couple weeks ago. Scared of it but I ate it with Hubs in a taco. It was actually pretty good. It was not at all tonguey. It was really like shredded roast beef.

  I have been making TO DO lists that are pinned to the wall for me to see. I scratch off when I get something done. It gives me motivation to finish that list! So I have to get moving to finish my clothing. Cause then I can scratch off Finish Sorting Clothes and Bring Donations to Jonnycakes. I have to move my bedroom around (on the list) but I have to finish the clothes!!!!!!

That is my goal today. Drop off the *children* to their destinations (it is raining) and finish the summer stuff. I am not ready to call the gut dr yet. I will give it a couple more days. It might just go away on it`s own. Why I worry a tad is that it is making me feel low blood pressure symptomatic. Or I think it is and it freaks me out. We shall see.

Have a great Tuesday. Hopefully there is sunshine for you.