Slept better. And I realized that my new thyroid med liothyronine (boosting my T3) can cause… insomnia, racing heart, worsening arrythmia, and worsening atrial fibrillation. Sigh. So I messaged my endocrinologist and got permission to skip those pills for a few days and see if my heart settles down. I also have permission from cardiologist to increase my Amiodarone back to 200mg, but I’ll wait on that till after the liothyronine experiment. Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Too many docs, too many drugs, too many side effects.
Bad sleep, woke up too damn early with stomach issues and terrible rib pain. Felt awful all day. Today’s doc visit pointless, as there’s nothing they can do for bruised/cracked ribs but let them heal (slowly, argh), and no one knows why I can’t gain weight (100lbs fully clothed), and I need to follow up with my cardiologist about my racing heart and low o2 saturation, and with ob/gyn for mysterious one-off episode of uterine bleeding last week. I spent the entire 40 minute appointment crying with frustration and fatigue. Nice Dr Chen was very understanding and kind and said I’m a strong woman and will get through it.
Watching cozy Australian bake off with Dave and waiting for bedtime. I MUST SLEEP tonight or I’ll lose my fricken mind.
It’s only 73° today and will be hovering in the low 70s and high 60s for the rest of the week, with a chance of RAIN Fri-Mon!! Autumn is coming! So I made soup to celebrate, and to use up some extra milk.
Kara’s Potato-Onion Soup
Slice up a big onion and saute in a lot of butter on low heat until it’s soft. Add 3 tbsp flour and cook, stirring, for a minute or so. Add 2c beef broth (or whatever broth is handy), 2c milk, and a few diced potatoes. Season with salt, pepper, and a dash of thyme. Cook on low heat until the potatoes are soft. Voila!
We just got our veg box! Pears, apples, peaches, an onion, a bundle of spinach, a big romaine lettuce, two small heads of bok choi, fancy mushrooms, a pound of green beans, two ears of corn, and a lemon. Fantastic! Also got my standing order of ethically-produced local milk and eggs.
I finished Garden Story yesterday, so now I’m impatiently waiting for Dorfromantik to be released in a couple weeks.
Forgot to say — I’m back down to 98lbs. SIGH. But I’m doing my best to eat more protein every day. Both of us definitely feel a little bit better every day, but my rib is still incredibly painful and Dave’s injuries are still killing him. We moan and groan and carry on all day and night :D
The HVAC guy came today to finalize our work arrangements. It will cost a zillion bucks but we’re getting a powerful and efficient new heat pump and AC system, so next summer we won’t melt. Work starts in a couple weeks, so we’ll have nice new heating for winter.
I went to OHSU to get my blood drawn this morning, and stopped at the bakery on the way home for bread and frozen u-bake chocolate chip cookies. And I also stopped at the drugstore for peanut butter. What’s that, you say? The drugstore for peanut butter? Why yes, because a) I like Garbage Peanut Butter (Jif) and b) buying it at the drugstore saves a TON of walking. When you have a seriously messed up heart and lungs you need to plan your errands carefully.
And then I was all tired out and played Garden Story all afternoon.
Now we’re watching the penultimate episode of the fourth season of The Great Australian Bake-Off, which is exactly as gentle and sweet as the UK version! At least, the second season onward. The first season was all harsh and American-esque (I couldn’t even finish the first episode), but they saw the error of their ways and now it’s a carbon copy of the UK version. There’s even an Australian Paul, an Australian Prue, and an Australian Mel and Sue :D Channel4.com has the 4th, 5th, and 6th seasons, which is why we started with the fourth. If you’re jonesing for MOAR BAKEOFF, try to find the Australian show! Helpful hint: https://www.smartdnsproxy.com/
We’re both still in a lot of pain but it’s a tiny bit better! We watched the first episode of the new historical drama, The Serpent Queen, loosely based on the life of Catherine de’ Medici. It is really excellent so far! Some of the costume choices are… odd, especially the rich people (the servants are clothed perfectly lol) They danced the pavanne correctly (at first). Set design etc is good — no Victorian carriages! Acting is GREAT, writing is sharp and witty. I must say, I love the trend of kick-ass historical heroines breaking the fourth wall — Anne Lister in “Gentleman Jack”, Catherine the Great in “Catherine”, and now Catherine de’ Medici in “The Serpent Queen”. And I swear there was another one recently but it’s slipping my mind.
We read chapter 12 (or 13?) of The Martian tonight. The crew has just found out that Mark is still alive!
Oh I almost forgot! I made the best breakfast: an Apple Dutch Baby, which is a big puffy pancake with apple slices, but it’s really more like Yorkshire Pudding than an American pancake. Oh my GOD it was good. I used this recipe from Alexandra Cooks:
But I cut the recipe in half because there are only two of us. Imma write it out here in case that link ever breaks because this is a keeper, man!
Apple Dutch Baby (half recipe, serves 2)
1/2 stick butter
1/2 a large sweet crisp apple, peeled and thinly sliced
1/4 c milk
1/4 c flour
2 eggs
1.5 tablespoons brown sugar
Dash of vanilla
Dash of salt
Preheat oven to 450°f. Put rack in center. Melt butter in little cast iron skillet and put two tablespoons into the blender. Put apple slices in skillet (in remaining butter) and cook a few minutes over medium heat, turning once, until they start to soften. Meanwhile add flour, milk, eggs, salt, and vanilla to the butter in the blender and whiz till smooth. Don’t skip this step! Pour batter over apple slices and pop into the oven. Bake for 15 minutes, until puffed and golden with brown edges. Dust with a little powdered sugar and eat immediately! Omg so good and you get egg and fruit and only a little sugar! Look at this Golden Boi:
Henry and Lulu came over to help us YAY! Lulu was on her very best behavior and was careful not to bounce us. She sat between us on the sofa and told us stories and jokes :D
Henry emptied the wastbaskets, took out the trash and recycling, and dragged the bins to the curb. He dumped my kitchen scraps container into the big compost bin at the bottom of the garden. He carried both of Dave’s work computers up from downstairs so Dave can work next week. He found things that we needed in the workshop, and righted a power saw that had tipped over. He put CLEAN SHEETS on our bed! He moved assorted heavy things from place to place. He picked up a quarter that had fallen on the floor. And he went grocery shopping for us and then put the food away. Best Son Ever, without question. I will fight you.
So flippin tired. Dave fell asleep on the sofa at 6:30 while we were watching Australian Bake Off (which is just as charming and adorable as British Bake Off) and I’m so tired I dragged my ass to bed then too. (Dave has been sleeping on the sofa because it causes him slightly less pain that trying to lie down in bed) Gonna listen to my audiobook and draw until it’s late enough to actually go to sleep. For now I’m enjoying my clean sheets!
Did I mention I tumbled off the front porch and hurt (bruised?cracked?) a rib? Yeah. So that’s hurting quite a lot today. Dave is still in terrible pain too. We are QUITE a pair! But hey we have each other and a big comfy reclining sofa to laze around and moan on.
We watched King Charles’s beautiful speech about him mum and family, etc. Really lovely and heartfelt and human. We both wept. That “flights of angels” quote gets me every time. *sniff*
Hmm yeah so I played Garden Story all day, and started drawing a big knotwork E for Em to color, and listened to the next Jane Casey novel in the Maeve Kerrigan series, “The Last Girl”. I’m enjoying the series so much! Very well-written and plotted.
We’re hoping that Henry can come over this weekend and help us with house stuff we can’t manage — making beds, emptying trash, carrying heavy things…
Last night someone dear to me was fed misinformation about “electric radio waves”coming out of her phone and harming her. So I asked Dave, the electromagnetic radiation expert, to explain exactly why that is utter nonsense. I’ll paste the info here in case you, too, need to debunk such misinformation:
Dave says “All cell phones have to pass a government test called SAR (specific absorbtion rate.) They put a phone in a dummy hand next to a dummy head containing sensors which measure the heating power of radio waves. No cell phone that has ever been produced has failed the test. The safety standard is set so that it cannot possibly injure you at all. We design phones so radio waves go away from your head and the tiny fraction that go through your skin have absolutely no effect whatsoever. The standard is so rigid that it’s IMPOSSIBLE to damage you. There is NO IONIZING RADIATION in any cell phone ever. (Ionizing radiation is the “radiation” that causes cellular damage in living organisms.) The WORST a radio wave can do is warm you up slightly. The cell phone radio waves that reach you would be like having a heater 50 feet away from you, i.e. totally insignificant.”
Who comes up with this stuff? And why do they spread nonsense about things they don’t understand? It BURNS US UP. Read a book, people. You don’t need to be ignorant!
In other news, Queen Elizabeth II has just died and my sweet Royalist is grieving. She was a decent human and a good Queen. RIP.
Almost forgot to write! A nice day. Not too hot, and we’re both feeling slightly better. I did the dishes and watered the garden and made a salad, and then did a lot of nothing.
We hired Jose’s crew to clean up the yard next week! Yay!! Expensive, but we ignored it for, what, nine months? So it’s cool.
Went to the pharmacy first thing for Dave’s pain meds, and then we sat on the couch all day together. Dave in agonizing pain, me with a rather fast heart that simply would not go into a nice normal sinus rhythm, and low o2 saturation. Argh.
We got our OrganicsToYou delivery — lots of lovely fruits and veggies and three half-gallons of milk for Dave. He does go through the milk, and a gallon and a half should be enough to spare for me to make a cheese sauce or a cake or whatever, without having a Milk for Tea Emergency before next Tuesday.
And a pleasant young man from a water line repair company came to check for leaks because our water bills are very high, even though we use barely any water. Seriously, we don’t water the yard, and we take like two showers a month, and we usually do 2-3 loads of laundry every ten days or so. But he couldn’t find any leaks! He did leave dye in the two rarely-used toilets so we can see if they have a very slow leak.
And a Yard Man came by to give us an estimate for taking care of our yard and brambles and trees. He gets high praise on Facebook or wherever Dave found him, and I’m super excited to get his quote and get our ten-foot tall weeds trimmed back!
Poor Dave fell in his workshop — his feet flew out from under him and he landed hard on his rump — and could barely breathe from the pain. Ambulance, ER, etc. Nothing broken and he’s home now. Thank goodness. Bullet dodged again and we’re both still alive. He’s in terrible pain. I’m exhausted and nauseated and can’t walk a few steps without stopping to rest. It’s 7:30pm and we’ve given up on the day and gone to bed. We’re having a nice time moaning together and feeling sorry for ourselves.
Reset the counter: it is now zero days since we needed an ambulance
Went to bed at 7:30 last night and was probably asleep by 9 or 9:30, then slept till 8:30 this morning — and my 5-day headache is much much better! Which is such a huge relief because I had decided if it wasn’t any better by morning it might be Something and I should go to the ER for all the scans.
Still super tired and have lain in bed not-quite-napping all day, listening to the next book in an excellent series of police procedurals by Jane Casey (The Reckoning).
I weighed 101.8 this morning! That’s the highest number I’ve seen in a few months. Even if it’s lower tomorrow again I’m on the right track.
Today I’ve eaten: a slice of toast, an Ensure, and a hard boiled egg. Room for improvement there. So I got up and finished my dehydrated greens project. A couple days ago I spread three heads of greens (kale, chard, and beet greens) on a couple of baking sheets and put them in a 175°f oven all day, until they were a dry and crunchy mulch. Today I ground the dry greens in the blender and sieved the resulting powder. Now I have a nice little baggie of nutritional Green Powder. I made a smoothie using 4 slices of frozen banana, a few chunks of frozen pineapple, a spoonful of vanilla ice cream, a spoonful of green powder, two scoops of protein powder, and enough kefir to blend it to a drinkable consistency. And drinkable it was! The green powder is only slightly perceptible. I’ll try adding it to pasta sauce too.
Still alive! Still headachy. Staying in bed, doing nothing but resting. I just updated my medication list and made an emergency packing list so Dave knows exactly what to grab next time I need an ambulance. (We won’t forget my portable o2 machine again!)
When I watered my garden this morning I was thrilled to feel the change in the air. It smells like autumn all of a sudden! And it was chilly! The days are still warm/hot (90°F today) but if the house cools down at night it’s all much more bearable.
I have the south-facing bedroom windows closed and the little portable AC unit set to 78°, so that should keep the bedroom comfy all day.
Yup yup, time for more Garden Story (Nintendo) and The Burning (audiobook)!
Writing this from my very own bed. We got home around 1am and went straight to bed but i couldn’t sleep and had a terrible headache and was awake till maybe 3am, then woke up around 8:30. Still have terrible headache but that’s ok I’m alive and home and Dave will take good care of me.
My Nintendo Switch is calling me. Video games, audiobooks, and naps are the order of the day. Garden Story is SO MUCH FUN!!! And my current audiobook is a very good police procedural: “The Burning” by Jane Casey. Looks like it’s the first in a series!
I overdid it in the heat while setting up my outdoor bed and had a terrifying bout of SVT Heart rate 160 for a half-hour or more, disoriented, foggy brain, very low o2 sats. Ambulance, emergency room, me explaining that it’s not a heart attack and I just need adenosine, as per usual.
(Pretty funny that the EMTs kept asking if I was sure I wasn’t having chest pain, and I kept tellimg them no, it’s not a heart attack!)
The ER team rebooted my heart with adenosine (which is an utterly terrifying experience but the doc held my hand for comfort) and then I felt fine again. Dave followed us to the hospital because the EMTs told him I was having a massive heart attack (I wasn’t — they’re just not used to my particular brand of fucked-up heart and lungs) and by the time he got here I was fine. And oh so glad to see his sweet loving face!
Now they’re letting me go HOME!!! But we forgot to being my portable o2 concentrator so Dave just drove home to get it. And THEN i get to go home and sleep in my very own bed. Bullet dodged, yet again. *whew*
It was so brutally hot last night that I finally got around to attempting to sleep on the back deck, in the mosquito tent I bought for that purpose. I slept on Dave’s comfy lawn-recliner, and led my oxygen tube out the door so it reached me. It was SO GREAT to sleep outdoors! I’ve always loved to, but for many many years there was just no way to make it happen. The only problem was I got a bit cold at 6:30am and curled up small, which changed my center of gravity and made the lawn chair collapse! Lol! So I went indoors at that point, and slept for two more hours. Tonight I’ll make a more stable bed :D
It was so lovely to watch the stars and listen to the frogs and crickets. And I wasn’t lying there SWEATING and hoping to fall asleep before I can’t bear it and need to get up for yet another cold shower, which is how every night has been lately.
Felt great today (was a bit depressed yesterday). Baked a cherry cake for Dave, and then sat in the cool basement and played Garden Story on my switch.
I had a really great online meeting with Kari the nutritionist/therapist just now. She gave me some very helpful info — mainly, that I’m not getting as much protein as I thought I was. I’ve been counting on a couple spoonfuls of peanut butter or a lump of cheese to give me a bit of protein each day, but while they aren’t bad sources of protein they are more about fat and calories (which I also need, of course).
Since I’m not really into meat, Kari suggested eggs, tofu, cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, and protein powder mixed into everything I can mix it with. I can handle that! Eggs are a bit daunting but I can manage a hard boiled egg each day, no problem. I love tofu, even just plain out of the package, and I like cottage cheese and Greek yogurt. I have protein powder which I mix into fruit smoothies, and I’ll increase the amount I use and try to find other things to mix it with. Yogurt and kefir will help with good gut bacteria.
She says one of the reasons I get so bloated and uncomfortable after eating is that my stomach still thinks it’s starving, so it hangs on to everything I eat to try to squeeze every last bit of nutrition out, plus the muscles are out of practice. Should improve over time.
I still weigh 99lbs but now I have hope. I tallied up my food for the past few days and I think I’ve been managing 800-1000 calories a day, which isn’t nearly enough but is much much better than the maybe 500 I was getting a few weeks ago.
So far today I drank an Ensure and several swigs of grapefruit juice, and ate a hard boiled egg, so let’s be generous and call it 400 calories so far, and 15g of protein. Lol not quite there yet. The internet says I need 1600 cal/day to break even, and an extra 500-1000/day to gain weight. So I need a minimum of 2000 calories and 150g protein LOLOLOLOL. In what universe is that going to happen?? Ah well, I am working on it and I have a plan and a good support system.
This morning I made a big pot of Kara-style ratatouille which we’ll eat with polenta for dinner, but there’s no way I can eat enough to bring up my calorie intake to a reasonable level. I’d better eat some ice cream, too. Oh what a hardship.
Big fatigue today. Sat on the sofa and played Garden Story all day :)
What did I eat… strawberries and cream, a few handfuls of Joe’s Os, and some mac n cheese. Honestly probably pretty good, calorie-wise, if a little short of actual nutrition.
