Today I had SpaghettiO's with sliced hot dogs. I'm trying to learn how to eat poor again, as I have the goal of remaining unemployed all summer. Hot dogs and canned food figure high in this, if I remember my youth well. I was surprised at how good SpaghettiO's still taste to me as an adult. Tomorrow: Hot dogs and beans. Maybe I'll also make potato salad. Potatoes are cheap.
The other goal I have with food over the next month (besides losing weight, because hey--I'm a girl) is to eat more diverse meats. Since the seventh grade (many many years ago), I have only eaten poultry and fish. No red meat. No pork. I did it to be different at the time, I'm sure. It wasn't a stance on animal rights or anything like that.
I'll be travelling to the UK at the end of June, and I'm told they don't have nearly the food selection they have at US restaurants. In case I don't have any chicken or vegetarian options, I am trying to eat some red meat again. I can't bring myself to bite into a steak or burger just yet; rather, I am taking what I call the "Bugs in Twinkies" approach to eating meat.
The US FDA allows a certain number of bug parts, rodent hair, etc., into any processed food. I first heard about this nasty truth in regard to Twinkies, though I have since found out it's true of all processed foods. The parts are of course small enough so that you don't detect them individually, and in total we eat from one to two pounds of insect each year. They aren't harmful to us and in some cases are even healthy.
If you have ever picked your own fruit at an orchard or farm, or gotten fresh corn on the cob, you know that there is a chance you may bite into an apple and find a worm. And of course, as the old joke goes, what is worse than finding a worm in your apple? Finding half a worm in your apple...ba-dum-dum!
Still, despite these truisms, we don't want to eat insects, and if we can manage to not think about the 90 insect parts allowed in our Twinkies, we will go on eating them. But that doesn't mean we will eat a chocolate covered cockroach (which they sell at the Seattle Zoo gift shop, by the way).
So I am taking the Bugs in Twinkies approach to reintroducing meat into my diet. I had a queso sauce with ground beef mixed in it the other day; I've had potato skins with bacon bits on them. I had gumbo with sausage bits in. So long as it's all bits and pieces, I'm doing ok so far. Still don't want that pork chop, though.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Friday, May 25, 2007
A Bad Week
The dog:
You brush your hair. You check your email. You play a computer game. You pour a drink. You pet the dog. A lot. You play the same wistful song over and over and over. And you wait. When it's finally time, you make sure she poops on the way to the car so that if you have to put her to sleep, she won't suffer the indignity of defecating in her last moment. You bring your own kleenex, in case there is none there for you to use. Because you will cry. You bring her remaining prescriptions with you so that if you have to put her to sleep, you can get your money back and when you walk out of that vet's, you can know it will be the last time you ever have to see that man.
The mom:
You take your shower first. You feed the cats. You take some time to clean the dog's wound. You pack a little bag with a book to read because it is boring in the waiting room, because she sleeps a lot after surgery. You bring a sweatshirt in case the air conditioning is cold at the hospital. You check your email because you won't be able to for the rest of the day. You bring your flash drive so you can do some work if you get the chance. You empty the trash so the food you threw out the other night won't stink up the whole apartment. You stop on your way there for coffee. You stop on your way there to feed your sister's cats, walk their dogs. You pull down the blinds in their living room, so that the afternoon sun won't heat the house too much for the cats and dogs.
You took off that new bracelet in the shower. That new bracelet that you were wearing two days ago when you had to bring the dog to the doggy ER. The bracelet you took off before going there, in case it was bad luck. And the dog was ok for now in the end. So you took it off today after you got the call about your mom needing emergency heart surgery. Just in case. Maybe your mom will be ok too if you don't wear the Bad Luck Bracelet.
~~~~~
My life has had a lot of symmetry lately, not in a good way. Right now, both my mom and my dog have cancer. Goober was diagnosed in the last week of the semester, during finals week. At that point, the vet said the cancer had already spread into her chest, making it too risky to operate. He gave her 3 months, tops. Then two days ago, I called because the tumor--which the vet had deemed too far progressed to remove surgically--had begun to perforate the skin. They made me come down right away, not what I was hoping for. I was hoping they'd say to put a giant band-aid on it or something, but no such luck. End result: The vet said I "would not be wrong" to put Goober down that day, but she could give me antiseptic cleaning solution to treat the wound and pain medication to make Goober comfortable so I could have a little more time with her. How much more? That was left unsaid, but I noticed the pain medication was only for 10 days. Tonight, she is in pain, more than previously. I fear I have days left now.
My mother--when I returned from New Orleans, it was to the news that she has a tumor in her heart (on top of the ones on her humerus in each arm, the one in her pelvis, the ones on her back and her lungs, the one in her liver). Additionally, she had a persistent cough and now spent most of her time sleeping, regardless of whether she was lying down or sitting up. Today she was going in for an echocardiogram, a preliminary step to putting in a pacemaker (to monitor her irregular heartbeat). This was when they discovered a lot of fluid surrounding her heart and decided to admit her to the ER for emergency heart surgery. Kristy called me around 11 this morning to tell me that Mom was being admitted at that point.
What struck me about today was the same thing that struck me about Tuesday--the practicality of it all. The first time you are faced with a life and death crisis, you may drop everything. You may leave the cats unfed, the dogs unwalked. You might forget to tell someone why you won't be around for a bit. You might think it's so important to get there right away that you skip your shower.
The more you live through it, the more you realize that if you take the time to do the necessary things in your life, things will still be ok--or at least, still the same as they would otherwise be. Ok is a bad word choice. In fact, they will be better than if you hadn't. You also remember to take care of details that you may have forgotten in the beginning--a sweater for later, a book to read. Getting coffee.
I'm not as articulate at this moment as I may normally be, but what it boils down to is this: Living with cancer means living practically. Not very romantic but true.
Oh, and there's always a bit of superstition thrown in there too. The bracelet is still sitting on the bathroom vanity in my apartment.
You brush your hair. You check your email. You play a computer game. You pour a drink. You pet the dog. A lot. You play the same wistful song over and over and over. And you wait. When it's finally time, you make sure she poops on the way to the car so that if you have to put her to sleep, she won't suffer the indignity of defecating in her last moment. You bring your own kleenex, in case there is none there for you to use. Because you will cry. You bring her remaining prescriptions with you so that if you have to put her to sleep, you can get your money back and when you walk out of that vet's, you can know it will be the last time you ever have to see that man.
The mom:
You take your shower first. You feed the cats. You take some time to clean the dog's wound. You pack a little bag with a book to read because it is boring in the waiting room, because she sleeps a lot after surgery. You bring a sweatshirt in case the air conditioning is cold at the hospital. You check your email because you won't be able to for the rest of the day. You bring your flash drive so you can do some work if you get the chance. You empty the trash so the food you threw out the other night won't stink up the whole apartment. You stop on your way there for coffee. You stop on your way there to feed your sister's cats, walk their dogs. You pull down the blinds in their living room, so that the afternoon sun won't heat the house too much for the cats and dogs.
You took off that new bracelet in the shower. That new bracelet that you were wearing two days ago when you had to bring the dog to the doggy ER. The bracelet you took off before going there, in case it was bad luck. And the dog was ok for now in the end. So you took it off today after you got the call about your mom needing emergency heart surgery. Just in case. Maybe your mom will be ok too if you don't wear the Bad Luck Bracelet.
~~~~~
My life has had a lot of symmetry lately, not in a good way. Right now, both my mom and my dog have cancer. Goober was diagnosed in the last week of the semester, during finals week. At that point, the vet said the cancer had already spread into her chest, making it too risky to operate. He gave her 3 months, tops. Then two days ago, I called because the tumor--which the vet had deemed too far progressed to remove surgically--had begun to perforate the skin. They made me come down right away, not what I was hoping for. I was hoping they'd say to put a giant band-aid on it or something, but no such luck. End result: The vet said I "would not be wrong" to put Goober down that day, but she could give me antiseptic cleaning solution to treat the wound and pain medication to make Goober comfortable so I could have a little more time with her. How much more? That was left unsaid, but I noticed the pain medication was only for 10 days. Tonight, she is in pain, more than previously. I fear I have days left now.
My mother--when I returned from New Orleans, it was to the news that she has a tumor in her heart (on top of the ones on her humerus in each arm, the one in her pelvis, the ones on her back and her lungs, the one in her liver). Additionally, she had a persistent cough and now spent most of her time sleeping, regardless of whether she was lying down or sitting up. Today she was going in for an echocardiogram, a preliminary step to putting in a pacemaker (to monitor her irregular heartbeat). This was when they discovered a lot of fluid surrounding her heart and decided to admit her to the ER for emergency heart surgery. Kristy called me around 11 this morning to tell me that Mom was being admitted at that point.
What struck me about today was the same thing that struck me about Tuesday--the practicality of it all. The first time you are faced with a life and death crisis, you may drop everything. You may leave the cats unfed, the dogs unwalked. You might forget to tell someone why you won't be around for a bit. You might think it's so important to get there right away that you skip your shower.
The more you live through it, the more you realize that if you take the time to do the necessary things in your life, things will still be ok--or at least, still the same as they would otherwise be. Ok is a bad word choice. In fact, they will be better than if you hadn't. You also remember to take care of details that you may have forgotten in the beginning--a sweater for later, a book to read. Getting coffee.
I'm not as articulate at this moment as I may normally be, but what it boils down to is this: Living with cancer means living practically. Not very romantic but true.
Oh, and there's always a bit of superstition thrown in there too. The bracelet is still sitting on the bathroom vanity in my apartment.
Monday, May 07, 2007
Another Blog
I've started another blog so that I can chronicle my traveling. I am leaving for New Orleans in a few hours to help build houses. Later this summer, I will be going on a trip with my sister to the U.K. and Ireland. I wanted a place where my family and friends could keep up with me, but did not necessarily want to use this blog because I don't particularly want the rents reading all about my sex life. So if you are interested in keeping up with me in New Orleans, visit this site but if you want to know all the truly interesting things about my life, come back here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
