Hello everyone. Last night wasn't a good night. I didn't sleep much and I was running a slight fever. It is going down, but I'm worried about tomorrow. I'm not sure if I had caught something or if it was just exhaustion from a bad week at work or getting a bit stressed out. I am feeling a lot better now then I did last night.

Inzanebraned ~ Anytime you need to write a book or wall of text go ahead, this is what mine turned into. I'm glad you were there when the nurse aid was feeding your daughter. Doctors and nurses should listen better. That is why I do like my internal medicine doctor, he is honest and doesn't sugar coat stuff. If he thinks you aren't doing what you should be doing he will call you out on it. He likes that I bring Miscreant with me to the appointments and his role is to be the tattletale & he talks to Miscreant about how I am acting and eating. One of the possible problems with my issues is ammonia levels building up and Miscreant is supposed to keep an eye on me. Early warning signs of elevated ammonia levels is confusion and being disoriented. My brother Adder and the supervisor at work know to keep an eye out for elevated ammonia levels. They both have been instructed to call Miscreant and then call in someone to fill in for me because I need to go to the hospital.

I'm not sure if I have ever talked to most of you about what is going on, but my liver doesn't work properly. I also have varies of the esophagus, which means the veins in my esophagus can swell up and start bleeding out. That is very scary when it happens. One day I threw up blood and at first I thought it was pizza sauce from dinner the night before. At the time I was very stressed out from Miscreant's mom being in hospice, we were there with her when she died. She didn't live close but we went to visit as much as possible since one of her friends reconnected her with Miscreant. She had some issues and left and he had no way to contact her for years. We have some good memories with her for the little time we had with her. I spent almost a week in the hospital having all sorts of test run on me while they were trying to figure out what was going on. At that time I ended up being out of work for weeks because of having to have the veins in my esophagus banded to keep them from swelling up. After the procedure I thought I was having a heart attack the next day because my chest hurt so much. Luckily it wasn't it was just that I needed pain medicine after the procedure and since then I know better what to expect. I have to have the banding done about every 6 months.

Sorry for writing so much, but I needed to get some stuff off my mind.

And you of course feel free to write a wall of text anytime you want. We're all here for you and we love you and we're thinking good thoughts for you. And for those of us who pray, all of our prayers are with you right now.
I got a voicemail from my mother the other day. I saw it but I didn't open it up. I had a bad feeling, you know when you get that feeling and fear just takes you over.? Anyway I was going to open it the next day and listen to it and I got another call from her, which is weird because normally she'll just wait for me to return the call. But I had been leaving messages and not getting any replies and we just been missing each other a lot lately. So I really wasn't too panicked when I picked up the phone until I Heard a Voice. And she told me that one of her sisters had passed, God Rest her Soul. And the awful thing about it was she had been really sick with pneumonia then she contracted I can't remember what they call it it's like diarrhea see something like that Jeff see something it's really bad diarrhea and very difficult to cure. And it's really hard on your heart. She's had like I think three open heart surgery but it actually could have been for. And she was still smoking and her sons were taking her cigarettes away making her promise that you would quit. But I honestly think she was so bored that is why she kept smoking. Anyway I thought you was still in the nursing facility but she had come home and nobody bothered to tell me. So I I didn't call because she wasn't there or so I thought. But on the positive side she got to see her one month old grandson, her very first. And then 5 days after that her dog got out and since she wasn't very mobile she couldn't get them before he was killed. And 2 days later she passed.

Things went alright today. I'm exhausted from being up since 4:30 am and we have been at the hospital meeting with this person and that person since 8 am. Didn't know if I could eat or not so everyone grabbed breakfast except me & I waited until after I checked in to see if I had any labs. I did have labs but they didn't have to be fasting labs so Mom & Dad waited in the waiting room while Miscreant & I grabbed me some chicken minis from Chick-fil-a. They have one in the next building over which is connected by a sky bridge so it was close. Mom rambled a lot & dad barely said anything, which is normal. They were surprised by how much of the paperwork I had done. So many meeting today. We had a break between meeting 3 and 4 and were told to get some lunch. We went to the cafeteria was horrible. Most everything was loaded with salt if you could find any nutritional information on it at all. I finally ended up getting mac & cheese and after 2 bites it went in the trash. I ate a few of Miscreant's fries and mom gave me an onion ring from her plate. The onion rings were the best thing I tried from there. Dad had a hot dog & said it was good. I can't have them because of the sodium. Between meeting 4 and 5 we had another short break so I broke out the dried fruit and shared it with the family. Miscreant had already showed them to the nutritionist and she thought they sounded like a great idea for me to have them as a snack and she gave us some samples of some products to try. She made suggestions for one of the boost/ensure type products that might be better because it had a bit more protein and less sugar. She thinks we are doing fine diet wise. I still need to get more protein and if I'm not able to eat then just sip on the boost stuff over the course of the day. Labs were between meetings 4 and 5. I am so bruised up and the tech had done my labs before and didn't bruise me, but today my vein kept trying to run away from the needle. Guess it didn't want to get poked again and have a lot of blood sucked out. It was over 2 vials. Meeting 7 was with the doctor and one of the coordinator. My score is back down again but they are gonna keep track on me. At least with it being down it gives me time to get some of the other stuff done. I still dread going to the dentist the most off all, they freak me out.
All that time spent sitting down in meeting and because of running around so much today I'm swollen up really bad right now. Especially my right foot, feels like it is a sausage about to burst. That knee is also swollen up and its hard to bend. So I'm sitting here with my feet propped up trying to get the swelling down.

Did they tell you to wear any compression stockings or anything like that? I know when my mom was swelling up really bad they told her to wear them and it seemed to help her a lot. But I would definitely ask next visit if that would help you at all. What were some of the snacks that you were told would be good for you? And I was wondering do you get cold after you eat something? Oh I feel you with the dentist. That's a real phobia and I have it too. I hope everything goes really well for you and no pain during the visit. If it's just to get checked out why don't you ask if they can prescribe some sedatives for your actual visit to do some work on your teeth? That might help you a lot.
Mom made it out of surgery today and they said everything went well. She is the one that called me and I was shocked to hear her voice. But man did she sound groggy and totally out of it. But I was very happy to hear that she felt okay and the pain medicine was working and she was happy to be out of surgery. Supposedly should only be in the hospital for a couple of days and then they're going to let her go home and recuperate there. She has to use a walker for about ten days and she is none too pleased with that. I told her she needs to get a little wicker basket like little girls have on bicycles and I thought she would giggle it that but it didn't go over well. I was going to follow up with the little bell but I didn't even go any further

Damia! *hugs* I'm glad you're feeling better, and that you haven't been eaten by any blobs of goo ^^;.

I am really craving an egg salad Sammie and some tapioca pudding.

Thank you TaiyoTsuki. I'm more worried about not having any blood left with all they keep taking out of me.

Hummy ~ I'm glad mom is doing well. I think the wicker basket and a bell would be funny.
The nutritionist liked the freeze dried strawberries and peaches, they were like the ones I sent you. Even though the strawberries have some sugar added she still said they were fine because it wasn't that much. I told her is was something I kept in the car just encase I need a snack middle of the day at work. She wants me to try to eat 6 small meals instead of 3 larger meals. If I don't have time to eat a proper meal at work she was fine with me drinking a boost or glucerna between meals. She preferred the glucerna because it is less sugar and she suggested one that had more protein.
Today I had cheese toast for breakfast then a handful of dried cranberries for a snack. Then lunch was a ham and cheese sandwich with carrot sticks. Then dinner I was bad. Had popcorn chicken and potato wedges from KFC. I know I shouldn't have, but I didn't feel like cooking and Miscreant wasn't feeling well. The weather has gotten crappy here again and it has made him feel bad. Last week we broke records for high temperatures for this time of year and then the last 2 days have been back into the 50's and raining all the time.

I thought the Wicker Basket in Bellwood be funny too but she was not amused. I was going to send one anyway because I think she's going to need it to at least told her phone around with her and probably tissues and some water and things like that. But I don't think she is going to appreciate the gesture. I'm glad you're starting to feel a little bit better and that the six meals a day actually really might help you. I get these things called P3 they have yogurt covered blueberries turkey and cheese in them and it's only like a hundred and fifty calories and although it doesn't look like much it is really filling and so helpful during the day. My grocery store has their brand too but they mostly have chocolate covered pretzels and chocolate covered almonds which I know you can't have. And even though they're all refrigerated items if you keep frozen ice in the container it should be just fine for you because I keep them in the car with me too. I really liked the strawberry dried fruit containers packages too. Do they have any blueberries? I know you love them.

I haven't seen any blueberry ones. The only other ones I have seen have been banana chips (which I don't like) and apple slices where were pretty good. I just prefer the peaches and strawberries. I also have a bag of craisins I keep in the car.

I just ate some dried cherries but they're not freeze dried all the way they're still kind of chewie like cran raisins

Dried fruit is the best candy =w=. All the candy sweetness with none of the unhealthiness .

Also, finally updated my food blog. Breeeeaaaaad.....https://thebsbakery.tumblr.com/post/...slice-of-bread

I want a grilled cheese

I just want food......

Grilled pineapple

Dangit hummy, stop making me hungry!

Though in the last couple years I've discovered that I'm no longer able to eat pineapple, despite my love for it. Not only do I have an allergic reaction to it in the form of hives and throat swelling, I also get super nauseous and feel like I'm about to puke every time I eat it. Sooo yeah, can't eat it anymore. Or bananas. Or spinach. Or anything with chipotle peppers =___=. Dammit system, how much more are you going to make me allergic to?!

Aw I'm so sorry

It's frustrating, to say the least ><;. Those are things I like eating, or at least things I like using in recipes. And right after I graduated high school I developed an allergy to kiwifruit too...

That's just awful. Is there anything you can do to prevent developing allergies to things?

Pfft, if there is I don't know about it. About all it seems I can do about it is cross my fingers and pray I won't develop another out-of-the-blue allergy to something I like...again.

You would think they would have come up with something by now wouldn't you

Do you keep an Epi pen in case you find you have developed a new allergy?

And why did epipens get so expensive?

@ Inzane: I don't, because of two reasons; the first is that I can't afford one, and the second is that Medicaid in their infinite "wisdom" doesn't cover them...nor inhalers, to my knowledge. Gotta love Illinois bullshit =___=

@ hummy: Epipens got stupidly expensive because there was a change in the CEO, and the new CEO thought "hey, millions of people are buying these for only fifty bucks, but we can make a whole lot more money! Let's up the price to $600+ because I want MOAR MONEYS". Also I don't think she has food allergies herself so yeah, she's an asshole.

Wow, we have to do something about that. Some kind of cap on the amount of money you can charge over how much it cost to make a medicine. Or something like that. I know capitalism and all that but medicine is life-sustaining you die without an EpiPen. That's just ridiculous. I hope Karma bites her in the arsse

Originally Posted by hummy

Grilled pineapple

Grilled pineapple and mango are good together, especially with chicken on a kabob.