6:00PM Last Thursday Evening

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I have done really well with keeping my resolve to follow the new diet. However, on this night I decided to give in with self imposed provisos:

  1. What I chose to eat must not be over a safe carbohydrate level even with *bolusing.
  2. I had to eat a balanced meal.

What I did was to thaw a premade Amy’s **GF mac and cheese and divide it in half. This was baked with a couple tablespoons of cubed ham (all fat cut away). I prepared a well built side salad (lettuce, cucumber, tomato, pickled beets with vinegar and olive oil dressing. I ate the salad while I waited for some fresh broccoli to steam to be served with the half dose of mac. All good, all within parameters, then…

I picked up the bowl holding the mac & cheese with ham, placed a hot pad underneath of it to take it to the table, then watched it miraculously flip out of my hand, turn upside down in mid air and spew the contents onto the kitchen floor.  All in a straight line from me to Walker, who stood about four feet away.

Walker immediately went into pointer mode, his eyes bulged, and then looked at me for the OK.

Calmly, and I can’t believe how calm I was, I held out my hand, palm facing him, and said: “You can have it, but you have to wait because it is too HOT. You have to WAIT. After about a minute I tested the mess on the floor and found it to be cool to the touch. Looking at him I said: “OK!”

My spoiled mess of a dinner was gone in seconds. And Walker was very pleased with his second dinner of the evening.

Retrospection

I am still trying to figure out how my bowl flew out of my hand. I am also wondering where my inner ***Sailor Girl went to when this happened. Her vocabulary can spring into action at a moments notice in frustrating situations such as this.

In the end I felt stunned about dropping the bowl and rather amazed at how calm and controlled I was. The dog cleaned the mess, I cleaned the floor, then sat down and ate my broccoli.

All was well. I felt balanced, content, and in control.

AMAZING!

~*~*~*~

*Bolusing means to give an extra dose of insulin to counteract the load of a meal

**GF= Gluten Free

*** Inner Sailor Girl was acquired in the early 70s when I was in the Navy.  I am proud to have been of service, but not proud of my bad language habit which I have carried in my back pocket for all these years.   😛

The health post, read it or skip it, your choice. ;)

31 Comments

It seems the easiest and most succinct way is to just list what ails me:

  • type two diabetes (blood sugar was rising well into the high 200s; sometimes into the 300s and I was onTW0 forms of insulin)
  • stage three fatty liver
  • advancing neuropathy

Newest treatments in order of categories above:

  • Insulin pump prescribed by my new Endocrinologist
  • Nutritionist for diet overhaul!
  • Balance exercises, diabetic approved footwear

Items that are a direct result of the top list and helped by first and second items in the treatments list:

  • Gastroparesis
  • Overweight
  • Depression and fatigue

I started the new journey to health about two to three months ago.  I had just been put on the insulin pump when, the very next week, I got a cryptic email from the gastroenterologist stating I had stage three fatty liver.  No explanations,  no advice, no request for a follow up to discuss the results…

zip – zilch – nada

I went online and Doc Google informed me that stage three was right behind stage four which is Cirrhosis of the liver.  That went over well.  I called the gastro’s office and as you may guess, you can never talk to a real person anymore when calling any medical office.  I was upset.  In retrospect, my message was deranged and angry.  I had no idea that there were ranges in stage three, or that this sort of damage to my liver could be reversed, or caused by anything other than alcohol, and in my mind they were now calling me an alcoholic!  For your reference:  I lost my mother to alcoholism.  It was wretched at the very end.

They called me right back and had me in the next morning to see the doctor.  I tell you the following in all seriousness:  I walked into the office and every one of the staff up front seemed to be looking at me strangely.  They must have all heard about my call?

That was then, this is now.

Long and short of it, my blood sugar ranges are great.  I won’t lie, learning how to use the insulin pump caused a few emotional breakdowns, but the Medtronic people were and are on call 24/7 to help.  It is wonderful to not have to stick myself so many times a day and to actually see a difference in my sugar levels.  I do have to stick and attach a new port and a sensor each week, but that, once you get used to it, is much nicer than injections several times a day.

Now, the fatty liver was something else, as I said.  It was the culmination of my trying to eat more protein and less carb laden food choices to keep my sugar down.  And one of my go-to snacks was cheese. Further,  I have never in my life worried about fatty meats.  Those are off the menu forever.  Well, I do get a one inch square cube of cheese a couple of times a week with my snacks.  I am a cheese head and this part is really getting to me, ya know!?  Some days I just leave the cheese out to avoid the torture of a one inch cube.

This is getting long and I will stop for now.  Next up, I will tell you what I do to lean out my meat choices and prevent getting gluten poisoned from processed food products from the market.

…and the readers said:  OH BOY!  I can hardly wait.  😉

But seriously, if you have the time, there is a lot to be said for making your own sausage and prepping your own meats.  Because, these days, when you do it yourself you know exactly what went into it.  And a bonus:  It is a lot less expensive to buy a larger cut, and process it into portions you can freeze for use later.

NOW:  I really need to hear from you.  Will these posts bother you here?  I don’t intend to put them up often, but when there is a change, good or bad, I will post it.  OR, if  you  would rather, I can make another WordPress blog and post all this there.  I know there are plenty of people out there with similar problems and this will help me to connect with others who share my issues.  As stated; I will make notation in the title that the post is regarding heath.

 

 

Scrap Happy for February 15th 2024

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Late, but not so late as last time…  😉

When doing laundry *two years previous, I suddenly noticed that the bed pillow covers were disintegrated!  Completely.  I have patched small holes in linens in the past, but this was truly beyond patching.

*And yes, I am truly shocked to realize how behind I’ve been in blogging, much less posting for scrap happy.  Sigh.  Yet here I am trying my best to get in the groove again.

Taking the usable 18 inch zippers out of the old pillowcase covers saved me quite a bit.  And going to the quilt closet I found percale sheeting that I had *purchased in quantity over ten years previous.  It came in a queen sized width, and the bundle I chose was about seven yards total.  I have used this cotton percale for many projects over the years.

*This and many of my quilt fabrics came from Sir’s in Tennessee, which sadly burned down about six years ago. The sewing, quilting, and upholstering aficionados, here in Alabama and Tennessee, have felt the loss deeply as he did not rebuild.

As you can see, this came together quite easily.  Seam down the side, one to close the bottom and the insertion of the old zipper.  “Better than store bought.” I say.  Cost to make would have to be estimated, but maybe 1 or 2 dollars?  And, pillow covers are really inexpensive to buy, about $4.00?  But, the satisfaction in making them myself was of immeasurably more value than the money saved.

Regarding the work journal:  the booklet is called a bullet journal and allows me to mark off the lines and columns easily where I see need.  I am purposely working on items that need to be completed from a long time ago… you know, the UFOs that seem to get squirreled away.  Right?

The system has what you are working on listed on the left and then columns from left to right for each step.

  • pattern
  • fabric
  • cut
  • pieced
  • backing
  • basted
  • quilted
  • bound
  • completed
  • SOLD!

From the photo above: Garden Snail needs me to decide on placement/layout and get it sewn.  Then its off to the quilters.  Pineapple Triangles is one I got and had the fabric for, but wouldn’t let myself start until I finished these UFOs… because…  I need to be disciplined! “Black Stallion” was not in the photo above but was recently bound and it needs a binding to be complete. Binding, like framing a photo or painting, makes the whole thing come alive!  (Binding is cut and the reveal will come soon!)

Thanks to Kate and Gun for getting us together and working!

ScrapHappy happens each month on the 15th.  The many participants are listed below, and although they don’t participate every time, it’s always fun to see what they have created from their scraps!

Kate, Gun, Eva, Sue,
Birthe, Turid, Susan, Cathy,  Tracy, 
Jan, Moira, Sandra, Chris, Alys,
Claire, Jean, Dawn, Gwen,
Sunny, Kjerstin, Sue L, Vera, 
 Ann, Dawn 2, Carol, Preeti,
Nóilin, Viv, Karrin, Amo, Alissa,
Lynn, Tierney and Hannah

~*~*~*~*~

 

—> An announcement or warning for all

I will be discussing my health in a day or two. AND right up front, I am not dying, OK!  😀  But for those who really don’t want to know I will let you know in the title that I am talking about health issues so you may skip it if you desire.  The things I am facing are medical issues that I know millions of others are dealing with, and so I feel the need to share my experience.  If you are clearly not interested as a whole group, then I will start a new blog channel and post my experience and information there.  I refuse to post any of this to Youtube, Instagram, X, or the like, as I find them all tedious and, with the exception of X, quite likely to block or fact check anything they don’t like.  You have been warned. 😉