Day 537

Not enough choices.

That's the complaint I've already received from my husband in regards to my cooking. He seems to think he is still a hospital patient and should be able to pick from several choices on a menu.

I thought I was doing pretty well in the choice department. In the past few days for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks he's had:

• English muffins
• Cereal
• Oatmeal
• Yogurt
• Scrambled egg
• Veggie breakfast sausage
• Toast
• A large green salad
• Chicken tacos
• A tuna salad
• Roasted chicken
• Grilled tuna fish sandwich
• Chicken fried rice
• Cantaloupe
• Cottage cheese
• Jello with fruit
• Orange sherbet
• Chocolate/strawberry/vanilla swirl ice cream cups
• Grapes
• Blueberries
• Applesauce
• Fruit cocktail
• Grape juice
• 7up
• Mio flavored water
• Crystal Light

 I'm not a short-order cook but it looks like I'm on my way. Tonight's menu special was fried rice.

Brown rice tossed with carrots, peas, celery, onions and peppers from the garden, a bit of turkey bacon, some chicken, and a scrambled egg. Having not used brown rice before there's only one thing to say. Yum.

Day 536

I've had several squirrel stories to tell on this blog. There was one squirrel who was looking at me all friendly-like through the window, the one who appeared ready to attack me like the one in the movie Christmas Vacation, and the one who planted a walnut tree in our herb garden.

This one appears ready to play hide-and-go-seek with me. Except he cheats - just look at him peeking out from behind the branch and not even completely covering his eyes.

Day 535

I don't usually do much in terms of gross, icky, I-really-didn't-want-to-see-that kinds of pictures.

Today I couldn't resist. When picking veggies from the garden I found something on my zucchini plant I didn't want to get near. Lots of somethings.

Bugs. Beetles. Hundreds of them. This picture shows just one little section of one leaf. Multiple this by 10 or so more patches on the rest of the plant and we now have an invasion.

Day 534

I shouldn't have been surprised when I heard noises in the kitchen at 2 AM.

With hubby spending the last month on a calorie controlled low sodium, low protein, low potassium diet and then being on steroids for the last few weeks, he's hungry guy. I just didn't expect him to get out of bed and get to the kitchen without me waking up. But it made me realize I was going to need to start hiding food.

Now that's he's home he still has to stick with the low sodium-protein-potassium diet. Those foods he loves - tomatoes, potatoes, kale, cantaloupe, nuts, red meats - are all on his only a tiny bit list. So the cantaloupe I cut up is hiding in the back of the refrigerator where he can't see it. I won't be keeping any kale in the fridge but instead will pick it just before I put it in my juice. Nuts will be sent to the basement (a place way off limits for him right now). No red meats are in the house. I put all the tomatoes I had in the house into a salsa knowing he wouldn't just grab it and start eating it plain. (Although the tortilla chips I do have are shoved up on top of the fridge.) And I've hidden the granola bars in a bag in the den.

I've got my notebook right beside me tracking his every morsel and the corresponding potassium, sodium, and protein numbers. It's a bit tricky because if something is okay on the protein list it usually isn't okay on the potassium list and if it's okay on the potassium list it might not be on the sodium list. Lots of cross checking has to happen before he gets a meal.

For our lunch today I made homemade chicken tacos. Corn tortillas, plain chicken, finely shredded cheese, romaine lettuce, jalapeno peppers, onions, and a bit of salsa. To keep within his required numbers portions were small but sure were tasty. Maybe even better than those I had for my solo anniversary dinner at Alejandras on Day 514.

Day 533

Between me, my daughter, her boyfriend, and whoever it was that hauled off the broken exercise bike, that to-do list from Day 527 is being checked off like crazy.

I still need to go through my mail and wash and chop my vegetables. But the weeds have been pulled, the roses pruned. The irrigation pump filter cleaned, the daisies dug up and my car has been serviced. One more thing has been finished up, too.

The hospital visits.

Hubby's kidneys are getting better and his muscles are getting stronger, so after one full month of sleeping in the hospital, one full month of tests and diagnosis, of highs and lows, of more medications than anyone should have to take, hubby came home today. We'll begin a new chapter with outpatient therapy visits and 'round the clock care being provided by me. (Our insurance plan doesn't provide for daily living activities or long-term care.)

Of all days for a hospital bill to arrive. We've been receiving doctor bills and radiology bills and surgeon bills and all other kinds of ancillary bills, but the bill for the first week in the hospital arrived today.

One week, $30,620.68. Quite interesting to see the different amounts detailed. If you don't think prescription drugs drive up the cost of medical care in this country, take a look at the "pharmacy", "other pharmacy", and "drugs" lines. The medication-related costs exceeded the cost of the room itself. 

Thank goodness for insurance.

Day 532

I tried to be patient at the hospital today.

There was a great picture opportunity at eye level out the window of hubby's room. I waited and waited, trying to catch the osprey in flight. Unfortunately it had no interest in moving anywhere and continued to hide behind the power pole.

Day 531

When I got home from work a couple different words came out of my mouth.

The first one was Yay! The wildflower-turned-perennial garden looks great.

The next word was A-MAZ-ING! The straw we used to mulch the strawberries keeps springing up wheat. I hadn't been behind the shed since we came back from vacation (hmm...wonder why?) so I didn't realize it was so bad. Kiddo and kiddo's boyfriend tackled it today. A-MAZ-ING is all I have to say about the before and after pictures they took.