Misery. Okay, I'm just going to start out with the depressing stuff. Then we'll get to the food porn.
Warning: embarrassing medical stuff ahead. Guys in particular may want to avert your eyes. (I'll let you know when it's over.)
So this week I've been suffering from all of the joyous symptoms of a UTI (urinary tract infection, a/k/a cystitis). Women will know what I mean, and cringe in sympathy.
For you MEN, anatomy dictates that it is unlikely that you will have ever had it, so -- you know when you have a cut in your mouth and you drink something acidic like vinegar, and your eyes water in pain? Okay, got that memory of pain set in your mind? Now transfer that sensation somewhere else even more sensitive. Yeah. Like that.
But wait -- it gets better: not only do you experience that special agony, BUT the UTI causes you to pee extremely frequently, so you get to experience it A LOT. Many times a day, in fact. Now think about having that going on from Wednesday till today. Yeah. I'm tired.
Oh, and as an added bonus (yes, there's more) last night I got up once an hour because of said demon infection. So I didn't have an 8-hour night of sleep. Oh no, I had 8 one-hour naps, which is SO not the same. I'm exhausted.
Not surprisingly, I wound up taking Thursday off to go to MSKCC and have a urinalysis done (and also because I was wiped out from the pain), and on Friday they told me, "Oh no, you don't have a UTI -- no bacteria in the test results. No, you're just experiencing bladder irritation from the Cytoxan, so we're not going to prescribe any antibiotics. Drink more fluids." Now bear in mind I'm already drinking 8-10 glasses of stuff (64-80 oz.) daily.
I was ready to cry.
My co-worker Dennis suggested I contact Cytoxan user forums or their equivalent, so I e-mailed the ladies in the MSKCC adjuvant therapy support group. They were wonderful. Two of them immediately called me. One of them gave me some suggestions for over-the-counter meds for which I was profoundly grateful. The sympathy alone was priceless (vs. the "oh well" attitude of the onco-nurse). I heart these ladies, all of whom are having way stronger treatment than I am but still found time to reach out to me, the newbie.
Eventually the nurse called me back ("gee, I don't know why I didn't think of this before") with a suggestion for pyridium, which I promptly ran out and bought after work at Duane Reade. The side effects of the pyridium (see link above) while possibly weird are NO CONTEST for the symptoms of cystitis. (Ironic, no? Side effects of something taken to combat the side effects of chemo. Fun.)
Ladies, take note: some of the brand names are AZO, Uricalm, Cystex, Uristat.
So things are slowly getting better. Now I'm just suffering from "abdominal (or suprapubic) pain" and frequent (vs. insanely frequent) dashes to the bathroom and all of the attendant unpleasantness that follows.
Okay. It's safe now. You can come back and read about food.
We're just going to indulge in food porn from here on out.
(By the way, I am listening to an NPR piece on DEEP FRIED MAYONNAISE. Are you scared yet? I am! Actually, it's deep fried hollandaise sauce, but still....! If I were feeling less miserable, I'd be perversely curious instead of merely appalled.)
Ummm... this week was the beginning of Passover, so the sight of the tableware to the left in a Pylones store was hilariously appropriate: Matzoh plates AND matzoh placemats! Only in NYC folks. ;)
That was before I went to have a roast chicken, grilled asparagus, baked & roasted potato dinner with my friend Jackie Thursday night. Yum!
I brought the fresh asparagus, which she "grilled" on the broiler with some olive oil & salt. We each split half of (but couldn't finish) a cornish hen. She baked potatoes (one each) and the chicken came with itty bitty roast potatoes. (The last time I had a meal with TWO types of potatoes, I was in Ireland!) Oh, AND she made bread from scratch. Ooh la la!
So does roast chicken count as a sort of shabbas dinner? ;-) I understand from my long suffering friends that "real" seders by their Orthodox relatives are nowhere near as tasty as what we had. Heh.
That was Thursday. On Friday, I invited my friend Sam over for homemade lasagna (which I had assembled on Wednesday night).Warning: embarrassing medical stuff ahead. Guys in particular may want to avert your eyes. (I'll let you know when it's over.)
So this week I've been suffering from all of the joyous symptoms of a UTI (urinary tract infection, a/k/a cystitis). Women will know what I mean, and cringe in sympathy.
For you MEN, anatomy dictates that it is unlikely that you will have ever had it, so -- you know when you have a cut in your mouth and you drink something acidic like vinegar, and your eyes water in pain? Okay, got that memory of pain set in your mind? Now transfer that sensation somewhere else even more sensitive. Yeah. Like that.
But wait -- it gets better: not only do you experience that special agony, BUT the UTI causes you to pee extremely frequently, so you get to experience it A LOT. Many times a day, in fact. Now think about having that going on from Wednesday till today. Yeah. I'm tired.
Oh, and as an added bonus (yes, there's more) last night I got up once an hour because of said demon infection. So I didn't have an 8-hour night of sleep. Oh no, I had 8 one-hour naps, which is SO not the same. I'm exhausted.
Not surprisingly, I wound up taking Thursday off to go to MSKCC and have a urinalysis done (and also because I was wiped out from the pain), and on Friday they told me, "Oh no, you don't have a UTI -- no bacteria in the test results. No, you're just experiencing bladder irritation from the Cytoxan, so we're not going to prescribe any antibiotics. Drink more fluids." Now bear in mind I'm already drinking 8-10 glasses of stuff (64-80 oz.) daily.
I was ready to cry.
My co-worker Dennis suggested I contact Cytoxan user forums or their equivalent, so I e-mailed the ladies in the MSKCC adjuvant therapy support group. They were wonderful. Two of them immediately called me. One of them gave me some suggestions for over-the-counter meds for which I was profoundly grateful. The sympathy alone was priceless (vs. the "oh well" attitude of the onco-nurse). I heart these ladies, all of whom are having way stronger treatment than I am but still found time to reach out to me, the newbie.
Eventually the nurse called me back ("gee, I don't know why I didn't think of this before") with a suggestion for pyridium, which I promptly ran out and bought after work at Duane Reade. The side effects of the pyridium (see link above) while possibly weird are NO CONTEST for the symptoms of cystitis. (Ironic, no? Side effects of something taken to combat the side effects of chemo. Fun.)
Ladies, take note: some of the brand names are AZO, Uricalm, Cystex, Uristat.
So things are slowly getting better. Now I'm just suffering from "abdominal (or suprapubic) pain" and frequent (vs. insanely frequent) dashes to the bathroom and all of the attendant unpleasantness that follows.
Okay. It's safe now. You can come back and read about food.
We're just going to indulge in food porn from here on out.(By the way, I am listening to an NPR piece on DEEP FRIED MAYONNAISE. Are you scared yet? I am! Actually, it's deep fried hollandaise sauce, but still....! If I were feeling less miserable, I'd be perversely curious instead of merely appalled.)
Ummm... this week was the beginning of Passover, so the sight of the tableware to the left in a Pylones store was hilariously appropriate: Matzoh plates AND matzoh placemats! Only in NYC folks. ;)
That was before I went to have a roast chicken, grilled asparagus, baked & roasted potato dinner with my friend Jackie Thursday night. Yum!
I brought the fresh asparagus, which she "grilled" on the broiler with some olive oil & salt. We each split half of (but couldn't finish) a cornish hen. She baked potatoes (one each) and the chicken came with itty bitty roast potatoes. (The last time I had a meal with TWO types of potatoes, I was in Ireland!) Oh, AND she made bread from scratch. Ooh la la!
So does roast chicken count as a sort of shabbas dinner? ;-) I understand from my long suffering friends that "real" seders by their Orthodox relatives are nowhere near as tasty as what we had. Heh.
Behold, my [ground] turkey, spinach (whole wheat) lasagna, with part-skim mozz & part-skim ricotta (pre-baking):
I was kind of concerned about my generous hand with the ingredients, since it towered about an inch taller than the sides of the 9" x 13" pan:
I assuaged my fears by putting the 9" x 13" pan inside a larger pan, sort of like a double boiler. I think it turned out okay, don't you?
But why is it that there is no such thing as making a LITTLE lasagna?After a generous serving for me, and a hefty serving for Sam, this is what I was left with:
So I sent him home with a big slab in one of the plastic containers, along with a slab of the banana-oatmeal bread I made (4 pts/slice) which both smelled and tasted yummity!
Now I'm going to go have a slice of said banana bread and go curl up in a little ball on the couch and listen to Car Talk on NPR. (Yes, I know I don't drive, but these guys are tres amusing nonetheless, and the questions they get...!)
::giggle:: You forgot the bowling-ball-sitting-on-the-bladder-all-the-time symptom. My HEARTFELT sympathies , as one who has also suffered from non-bacterial cystitis....and bacterial, where the symptoms don't go away for a week or two *after* the end of the antibiotics. Something to do with meno and thinning of the bladder wall or something.
ReplyDeleteHowdya like the dayglo red-orange pee? :-)
Oh, how I long for the days where just the first pil of the AB's got rid of the symptoms (like when I was 16?).
PPS....Vicoprofen (like Vicoden, except ibuprofen instead of tylenol in the mix) also does wonders for the pain. :-)
ReplyDelete