Analyze this

On the menu this week is the long-awaited potato leek soup, plum sorbet (no raspberry this time), roasted artichoke, acorn squash risotto and jalapeno cilantro hummus.

As I continue to be frustrated and completely exhausted by medication changes to manage my hypertension, I realized that nutritional intervention is needed.  Reducing sodium is a no-brainer. Seriously, if you have hypertension and you continue to consume processed foods and eat at fast food joints, don’t whine. I thank you for rising health care costs and for keeping me employed. “Nuff said.

In speaking to many of my holistic and nutrition-minded friends, they constantly remind me to increase my potassium. 

This morning’s playlist

Something crucial to a morning of cooking and food prep was not added to the earlier post: music!  Here’s what kept me rocking all morning….

1. Again, Flyleaf
2. Spellbound, Lacuna Coil
3. Forever, Papa Roach
4. Maybe, Ingrid Michaelson
5. Sleep Apnea, Chevelle
6. Break, Three Days Grace
7. If It Means a Lot to You, A Day to Remember
8. Dreams, Brandi Carlisle
9. Scarlet Letters, Mudvayne
10. Savin’ Me, Nickelback
11. The End of Heartache, Killswitch Engage
12. Please Don’t Leave Me, P!nk
13. Dead Memories, Slipknot
14. Halo, Beyonce
15. Do What You Do, Mudvayne

I liked it so much I had to share Enjoy!

My basket runneth over

Every two weeks on Saturday I crawl out of bed at 07:00, pull my hair back, throw on sweats, a tshirt and flip flops and head over to pick up groceries at a park just down the street. I’m sure I look dreadful, but in my mind’s eye the pink Coach sunglasses cover a multitude of sins. Not unlike when playing hide and go seek with five year old…if they have their eyes covered, then you can’t see them, right??. Anyway, by getting up at such an hour on the weekend, I score two small laundry baskets full of organic produce for $25 through a local co-op called Bountiful Baskets.

Is this thing on??

So there’s this thing that people use in the kitchen called a stove.  Since I’ve been talking a lot of health stuff these days, I became reacquainted with that appliance in my kitchen. We meet regularly now. Daily, even. It’s turning out to be pretty fun!  Every two weeks I pick up produce from the local co-op, Bountiful Baskets, and figure out what interesting things I’m going to learn how to make. This week it was sorbet.

Originally I had received about 5 # of pears and planned on making pear sorbet, but when I discovered they had been picked too soon and didn’t ripen, just went over to the dark side, I turned to plums.  I had just picked up two pints of raspberries and I found a recipe I modified.  It was super-easy…here goes:

• 6 plums

• 2 pints raspberries

• 2/3 cup raw sugar

• 1 cup water

• juice from 1 lime

Remove seeds from plums and cut into a few pieces. Add to sauce pan with water, bring to a boil then simmer for about 10 minutes. Add raspberries, sugar, and lime juice and let cool.  Puree in food processor then add to ice cream maker, though I s’pose you could just put in the freezer. And that’s seriously it!

Of note, I didn’t strain the mixture like the recipe called for because I’m weird and I kinda like the texture of the seeds. It’s all up to you though!

Today I’m making flourless brownies and jalapeno cilantro hummus. For the hummus, I’m adding some greek yogurt to mimic Pita Jungle.

Bygones

Last week was a follow up with the surgeon from the ER visit post Lasix incident.

After waiting an hour (abnormal-ish for him), he enters, sits, and blurts out “Let’s just call a spade a spade; I screwed up and I’m sorry”.

I sit there stunned because 1) I had some idea he had screwed up, but the apology was significantly out of proportion to an adverse drug reaction and 2) this is, after all, a CV surgeon we’re talking about…and the Chief of CV Surgery, to boot.

Letting go

It’s interesting, in a conversation the other day I told someone I wished that I had this ability to mindlessly accept the information that healthcare professionals provided at face value and naively swallowed the recommended pills and to not question anything.

Isn’t it interesting that I’ve stopped wishing to have been born with a normal heart? When did I give up that pipe dream?

I met with a new internal medicine physician today…a very handsome man probably in his 50’s.  Oddly enough, looked just like a guy I recently dated, except with silvery gray hair.  He came highly recommended from my surgeon and his nurse…and virtually any nurse that I’ve run across over the past couple of weeks at  St. Joe’s.  (Here’s a tip to all you non-healthcare folks who may stumble haplessly upon this blog: if you ask a nurse about a physician and she wordlessly nods, odds are the dude’s a jackass. If s/he can’t shut up about the doc?  Ask them for the phone number.)

I’m baack….

…in congestive heart failure.

Might as well just come out and say it plainly.  After two years and three months, I began having these symptoms.  Extreme fatigue, nausea, cough, shortness of breath, lightheaded….  Surely it couldn’t be my heart.  On May 7th, I had been to Dr. Aklog’s office and had like the best news ever; I had been discharged to yearly visits. No way was there a cardiac culprit to this mess.

My regular doc was on vacation, of course. So the PA looks at me and says “You know, you seem sort of stressed out. Stress and depression can cause neurotransmitter imbalances which can cause physical symptoms”.

What your cell phone says about you

I found this article amusing. I often check my Facebook page or blog with a company-issued Treo 700wx. Yikes!!

So…what does YOUR phone say?

Email Free Friday

I have the utmost of respect for my director.  Not only because she has faith that I can do my job with some degree of competence, but also because she’s always thinking of new ways to improve and evolve.

This week was Email Free Friday, the idea being to improve internal and external customer service by actually getting up and talking to people.  Because of my inability to sit still for any extended period of time, I thought I did a pretty good job of this already, but having a day where I am mandated to talk to people?  Awesome!

I needed to talk to Kirby about redesigning a sticker for a hospital.  Turns out it was helping staff to remember to call us, mostly because they are now peeling off the phones and sticking to people’s hair.  Though I found this moderately funny, this combined with the ink that is rubbing off, is leading to a re-design of these stickers.  So I traverse Cube Land and recount these experiences wtih him and provide assurance that a graphic designer won’t be needed if the printer will just stick to the template I will develop.

He says, “You’re smart, I know you can do it.”

Aww thanks.

Then says, “You’re smart, just have no common sense.”

Laughter comes from my director’s office as she says “Did you really just say that to her?”

And we’re supposed to be focusing on customer service….  See what happens when we’re forced to speak to one another?   I vote for Insult Free Friday next week. 

I’ll be out of town.

What I am thinking…

In honor of the infamous question “What are you thinking?”, the less obvious sibling to “What do you want to talk about?”, I’d like to share what I am thinking about at this very moment.  I know both of the people who read my blog are dying to know…so here goes:

1. The car needs an oil change and an equally necessary visit to the car wash.
2. I’ve been getting a lot of unsolicited advice/sympathy about my scar, i.e., “Wow, it’s too bad your scar didn’t heal better” or “You should massage that to make it less noticeable”.
3. In response to #2, stop staring at my chest, you insensitive, socially-inept moron.
4. OMGosh, OMGosh, OMGosh - I’m turning 30 in a month.
5. Does he think of me as much as I think of him?
6. Enrolling in grad school is a necessary evil.
7. What is Melissa’s fascination with rodeos?
8. Why we hate outsourcing call centers to India, but think nothing of outsourcing someone’s uterus.
9. Oprah is annoying.
10. I’m insane for treating the ICU and ED staff of a local hospital to ice cream in the middle of July.