He waits patiently.
Sad kitty….awww!
This is all he wants for now. He’s my kitty!
Of course! Time for a kitty nap.
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Good grief! My heartbeat exceeded 100 after petting Andy! And my oxygen went down four percent. Being a kitty person has a price I guess.
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Kristen the hospital dietician brought our blood reports to us at dialysis yesterday. I had some low points, some of which are indirect consequences of diet, others that can be affected by medication dosage, and the simple one that just means I need to add more protein to my diet.
Confession is good for the soul.
The latter, protein in diet, I confess is hard for me because I don’t like a lot of meat in my diet so try to get it through yoghurt or plant protein. Clearly, that’s not working so I decided to try my favorite restaurant-sourced protein, a half-roasted chicken with velvety, perfectly prepared and seasoned mashed potatoes and the vegetable of the day for yesterday, a corn prepared with a hint of blackened chiles and just enough salt and pepper to bring out the yummy qualities of the kernels.
What else? A loaded Bloody Mary. (I should have gone with a simple lager beer). It came with a stalk of celery, a vegetable that the strings sometimes causes me problems, though this stalk had been crisped in the refrigerator and was crunchy, cool goodness! On a skewer: a shrimp (yummy!), a pepper (I left it there), and a couple other things I forget but ate. The Bloody Mary, unfortunately, was too spicey, something I forgot about this drink I haven’t had in forty or so years.
I savaged the crunchy-coated leg, first with a knife and fork, then by picking up and attacking like a caveman! Yum! I always take off the skin or buy skinless chicken parts at home, but this was a celebration of naughty variations on a food so, well, “skin and all”!
The thigh I tried to return to civilization with knife and fork, but finished with the caveman approach when I saw too much meat left on the bone. Likewise the wing. Well, not the wing, which I just said to heck with civility and chomped down on with gusty till every tasty bit of it was in my tummy!
What about the breast – this was a half of roast chicken after all? Sadly, it was a bit tough and I tried to eat most of it but gave up halfway. I hate to waste meat because some creature sacrificed its life to sustain mine. In part, that’s one reason I don’t eat a lot of meat.
I tried vegetarianism a few times in my life, yet, as a son of the West, this is cattle country; my town used to be the Cattle Capital of Nebraska; the police badges used to feature a bull and that slogan on them; lots of cattle were sold and shipped from the stockyard where the railroad now has a repair shop; my best friend’s father was an auctioneer who helped sell those cattle; and one of the world’s best pastures, the Nebraska Sandhills is east of here… Yeah, I like beef! Chicken is fine, too, though breast meat typically is two meals for me.
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Not a lie detector, but a measure of the effort it took to tell you my “meat story”. Oxygen saturation up from 95% and heart beat down from 107!
But what about the too spicey Bloody Mary, you [don’t/do] ask?! Don’t leave us in suspense, Doug! Well, I wasted three-fourths of it. It came is a huge 20 ounce/0.6 liter glass, so you do the math! The best part about it was the cool crispy celery stalk, many of which I could have sucked down instead!
Good luck with the diet modifications, Doug.
It takes discipline for sure!
Glad your meal improved your numbers.
Thanks! Me, too!
My wife suffers from gout, but she also had her gall bladder removed which caused her to gain weight. She tried doing a keto diet which has very low carbs but is higher in fats and proteins. This worked and helped her lose weight, but the added meat consumption made her gout worse. It’s like you’re dammed if you do and dammed if you don’t.
No kidding on that! Many complications come out of the medical treatments necessary to care for conditions. A drug (Cytoxan) I took as part of the initial treatment for WG/PGA in 2003-2004 has a lifetime limit because it stores in the liver and never leaves the body. That’s just one of my examples.
I guess that’s like cortisone. It relieves pain but the more you take the worse your condition gets.
It does help reduce pain, but its primary purpose is to close down one’s immune system since WG/PGA is an autoimmune disease where once’s immune system tries to wipe out small and medium sized blood vessels.
The cure is as bad as the illness.
Cytoxan is, as noted, a literal poison! On the other hand, when the body is killing itself, the poison worked. Also, after dialysis to remove substantial fluid, I had two sessions of plasma pheresis to remove all antibodies (protection…!), including cANCA from my system. For a time at the start of my treatment for WG/GPA, I literally had no immunity from natural disease. Current procedure involves a milder, slower approach with an infusion administered once a month. Of course, when I was diagnosed, I had the disease in a very active stage from around the end of March 2003 to the end of December of 2004: I should be dead!
I’m glad you are not.
I agree, of course! I’ve had a solid 20 extra years of life, and doing fairly well, and count my blessings!
Love the first photo!
As to keeping the balanced diet, it might be challenging, grant you, but it is still doable – speaking from years of experience. Good luck, Doug!
Yes, discipline is a bit hard some days.
Quite understandable.
Your blood oxygen is great, I use a meter like that too. Yummy chicken, everyone loves chicken!
Chicken has the ability to be used in so many ways!
Cute moments with Andy! May not be your cup of tea, but for quick extra protein, they do make these whey protein mixes that you can add to water or milk … They come in chocolate and other tasty flavors.
I may have to go that way. I’m sure my doctor’s got that on mind just now.
When I used to make cross country trips from Minneapolis to the Pacific Northwest where my kids were going to school, I had trouble finding places that served food that was even remotely vegetarian. (I once stopped at a Wendy’s in Nebraska off of the I-80. They had a salad bar, to my relief: as I was ladeling some pasta salad onto my plate, an employee walked by and commented, “Ew.” I’m not sure why, but I wondered afterwards if she knew something about the preparation that I didn’t. It wasn’t very good, though happily, I didn’t get sick.) Nebraska was bad, but Montana was the worst, with steakhouses and burger joints lining the interstate. We did discover a Japanese restaurant in Bozeman, a college town, and a sort of hippie organic cafe in Lincoln, another college town: but outside of those, I usually had to choose between a fish sandwich at McDonald’s, fish being my alternative when there was nothing else, or a veggie omelet from the breakfast menu, if I was lucky enough to find a 24-hour breakfast place. (Chains like Denny’s and Perkins became my go-to.) Anyway, it sounds like you had a delicious dinner! I’m glad you’re feeling so well you can demolish a roast chicken with your hands.
I’m doing well enough, though I am very weak some days.
👍
I’m sure you will strike the right balance but your writing about it won’t necessarily be as entertaining
One can only try! Your writing is an inspiration, I not, Derrick.
Thanks a lot, Doug
My pleasure, literally!