Of doctors and cooking and not much more

Here is Ernie getting chemo and showing up his wonderfully clear urine sample. We are easily amused. Thank God, as I don’t know how you get through life otherwise.

I will say, lately they have him do his blood draws the day before his chemo, so we no longer have an endless hour and a half between that and the doctor appointment. No more perching in the Starbucks and eating pepperoni and cheese cups with bottled iced tea. It does make chemo day shorter but they still can feel endless.

We had Pod two again. Sigh. Someday, Pod four, someday…. It just gets so loud. It’s crowded in the early mornings, slowly quieting down by the time we left after 2:00.

Here, live it with us:

It all went fine, it’s just long. No matter how lovely folks are, there’s always a certain point where I feel as though we have entered hell and I want to stand up and yell, “Can everyone just QUIET down? Thank you.”

Doctor appointment first, with our beloved Dr. Vasireddy, then another five hours in the infusion suite. It’s funny, we always choose a seat so he can look out the huge bank of windows. Unfortunately, that means I end up staring at everything going on with my back to the window. Oh well.

We got home around 2:30 which left a chunk of the day but there’s something about it that always leaves us tired and somewhat useless for the rest of the day. Often, this means frozen pizza for dinner. However, we ARE trying to do better so we actually….COOKED…on a chemo day!

I know, it’s a fucking miracle.

It was about as simple as can be. I had four chicken thighs. I popped them in a roasting pan and added chopped sweet potato. Drizzled a bit of olive oil on it and sprinkled some kosher salt on top. Forgot to salt the other side of the chicken. Oh well. I felt something else was needed. I’d bought a jar of peppadew peppers recently so I cut up several and sprinkled them on top. Roasted it all for about an hour at 425 degrees. The little peppers got all sweet and caramelized but still added a bit of tang. We had some slightly gone-by green beans on the side. Oh, and sprinkled some basil and lemon juice over it all.

You may not be impressed but let me tell you, I was incredibly proud of us.

We curled up and tried to watch the new Elvis movie but I quickly realized that Ernie was way too tired for a movie. So we ended up watching Indian Matchmaker. I kid you not. On Tuesday I got an epidural steroid injection in my back from the pain doctor I really don’t like. For some reason I was anxious about the whole thing. Not the shot itself really, I don’t know why I was so anxious…I just didn’t want to deal with it all.

The shot was fine. I still don’t like that doctor though. Through the whole procedure she just talked to the nurses about the latest episodes of Indian Matchmaker. I don’t mind that, but at least mention occasionally what you’re doing to me, perhaps. Afterwards they trotted me out to check out and told me to wait for them to get off the phone and make a follow up appointment. I gotta say, at that point, I was hurting like hell. So I stood there, no place to sit, leaning on my walker. Yes, I should have brought the big girl in instead of the little guy, but damn. The rest of the day was painful. The day after I thought maybe it was helping, now I can’t decide. We shall see. Anyway, despite me being so irritated with the whole thing, we ended watching Indian Matchmaker. Lord, help me.

I abandoned the tv and Ernie pretty early. It’s not that I was sleepy, I think it’s just sensory overload sometimes that sends me upstairs. I lie in the dark, talking to myself, reading, occasionally chatting to the lights. It’s my wind down time and damn, did I need it last night.

Other news? I’m afraid not much. We are trying to cook more often.

More lazy cooking with shrimp over salad greens the other day. One of the best meals we’ve had in a long bit. I tossed the shrimp with a mixture of corn starch, cumin, salt, cayenne and black pepper and then just quickly sautéed them in a bit of olive oil. Drizzled olive oil and lemon balsamic vinegar over the greens. It was ridiculously good.

I have way too many friends with, or recovering from, COVID. Love to you all.

Onward.

_{Note: what is NOT in any of those pictures, Heather? Tomatoes…}