The Importance of a Great Diet Dr. Pepper

Help!  

Me as the Town Crazy Cat Lady
surprising Lisa at work on Halloween

 So. If you or a loved one is going through any type of terminal illness currently, you've probably already realized how overwhelming this all can be. My advice to you? Take a break. Ask for help. Scream for help if you need to get someone's attention. People are not mind-readers. If you don't ask, how are they supposed to know? Sometimes people have family they can rely on and others have friends. Relying on them too often can make the patient and primary caregiver feel like they're being a burden. Nobody likes to feel like a burden. The best thing you can do is start researching. Start making phone calls and asking questions. Don't worry about "bothering" people. This is a life, not a recommendation for a good restaurant. They won't mind. Just do it already.
I've heard people say that once a hospice organization is called in that the patient gives up or just passes very quickly after that. According to my friend Lisa who works for hospice in another county, that's the perception because people wait so late to ask for hospice care. She told me that studies have shown that the earlier hospice is called, the longer a patient usually lives and with a higher quality of life. Hospice isn't just a volunteer who comes to sit with the patient for an hour or two a week. It's a whole team of nurses, social workers, and chaplains as well as countless people we'll probably never meet, all working to keep the patient happy, comfortable and with any and every need met 24/7. One phone call is all we would have to make if we needed anything. At that point, the team would go into action to take care of whatever or contact whomever we needed. So if you're a caregiver, don't wait until you're ready to have a nervous breakdown yourself to ask for help. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness. It's a sign of strength. It's knowing that you can't possibly do it all and that Google maybe isn't your best resource for things like this. (No offense, Google. You know I love you.) They called a local hospice about two weeks ago and I just can't tell you the difference it's already made in all of our lives, not just Judy's.

Still, Have Fun   

Judy and I in @1982

In case you missed it, Unk & Judy have always been very fun-loving people. They've traveled the world and made friends every step of the way. Many they've lost touch with over the years but all remain treasured memories that they often talk about to this day. Reminiscing is very important, especially if there are good memories. Fun, however, is absolutely essential. 

Last weekend, I decided that owning one pair of Spring pajamas just wasn't enough. I had recently purchased them after deciding that my holey tee shirts and sleep shorts just weren't appropriate for my weekend jaunts to their house. I liked the set I had recently bought so I headed back to buy another set, maybe in a larger size since mine seemed to have shrunk in the dryer just a little. I got back to their house and paraded through the living room where Judy was sitting on the couch and Unk in his chair, me doing my worst catwalk modeling in my new PJs and singing the "Miss America" theme song to try to take their minds off of illness for a few seconds. They smiled indulgently and remarked that they really liked them in pink, a little like you would humor a 4-year-old showing you the flower he just picked. I then sat down in the big leather chair in the middle of the room to talk with Judy while I drank my perfect, slightly frozen bottle of diet Dr. Pepper and she ate a snack. (No comments about the evils of sodas, please. I'm allergic to coffee. You do the math.) I was absentmindedly watching the heavy traffic pass by their house (they live on one of the busiest roads in town) and admiring the daffodils that were already appearing in their front yard. When she finished eating, she handed me her beautiful china plate to take to the kitchen. I stood up with her plate in one hand and my diet Dr. Pepper in the other and turned to walk into the kitchen. That's when it happened. Just as I passed Unk's chair, my pajama bottoms slipped right to the floor. Judy and I both burst out laughing as I duck-walked the rest of the way past Unk and into the kitchen, sat the plate and soda on the kitchen table and pulled up my pants. As I turned around, red-faced with tears of laughter starting, I noticed it. The front door had been completely open for the whole show! We laughed harder at that and then even harder still at Unk sitting there, face nose to screen with his iPad like a blind man trying to watch the moon landing, the perfect gentleman, not even letting on that he knew anything out of the ordinary had just happened. She and I were howling. Someone asked me, "Why didn't you drop something and grab your pants??" I replied, "Because I wasn't about to break her china and you just don't waste a perfectly iced diet Dr. Pepper." 

Today's Recipe 

The Perfectly Iced Diet Dr. Pepper:

The key to my heart is not flowers.
 It's a bouquet of diet Dr. Pepper.
Don't judge me.

• One 16.9 ounce diet Dr. Pepper

1. Crack the seal on that bottle of deliciousness
2. Drink 10%
3. Screw the top back on securely and place in freezer
4. Leave it for about 20-30 minutes, depending on your freezer temperature and longer if the bottle wasn't already in the refrigerator
5. Three hours later when you finally remember it, go take it out of the freezer and let it thaw. It'll happen. Believe me.

• Step number 2 is vitally important. The most important thing I remember from Mrs. Abernathy's 11th-grade chemistry class is that water expands about 9% when it freezes. Sorry Ms. Ab, but that's really what I consider the most important information you ever gave me. I use that every single day. 

The Sweetest Words

Some would say that the sweetest words they ever hear are, "I love you." Last weekend, I heard words even sweeter to my ears right now. While chatting in the kitchen as I cooked, Judy said, "I love my life." I was simply awed that anyone who is dealing with all that she is could have such a positive attitude. With serious heart and lung issues, in multiple organ failure, she is the most positive person I've ever met. Her faith is strong and she often talks about how things always seem to work out for her, citing me as an example. It would've been so easy for us to have missed reconnecting at that particular moment in time. If they had forgotten how to spell my first name or if they hadn't realized that I had gone back to my maiden name after my divorce, they might not have found me on Facebook. Whether you believe in a higher power or not, you have to admit that the stars certainly aligned perfectly to bring an old friend back into their lives who has as much diabetes experience as I have and who also happens to work for a food service company with access to the perfect set of recipes as well as a knowledgeable group of chefs in and out of my office every day to help us begin our journey. Fate? Kismet? Divine Intervention? Luck? Everyone will have to decide for themselves. 

Food Prep

One of the first things I did after I committed to helping was to go to Amazon and find containers for food prep and portion control. For just over fifteen bucks I snagged a set of containers perfect for the job. (Long live Amazon Prime!) I fill as many of these as possible on the weekends and pop most in the freezer for the week. I mark them with freezer tape with what's inside, the day to eat it (we have to make sure she gets the same amount of vitamin K daily so the greens, in particular, must be measured, because of the Coumadin interaction) and any reheating instructions. 

On this particular weekend, I grilled chicken breasts with onions and mushrooms, There are also smashed, small red potatoes with a sprinkling of cheese, pepper and spring onions that she'll add a dab of sour cream to after reheating. The mustard greens were cooked with added sodium-free Chicken Herb-Ox and a small amount of coconut oil (@1TBL for the whole pot).
We're discovering which things reheat nicely and which don't. Almost all proteins need added broth (before freezing and more before reheating) to keep them from drying out. Fish is a definite NO. It just doesn't reheat well so shrimp and salmon are cooked and eaten on the weekends as soon as I cook them.

Kitchen Tips

1. Avoid cross-contamination. When you have a compromised immune system, the last thing you need is food poisoning. Use different cutting boards (color-coded works well) for meats and vegetables. There are even color-coded knives that serve the same purpose.

2. Wear a cutting glove. If you're a new or fairly inexperienced cook, it's a great little investment. If you're cooking for someone who's REALLY immunocompromised, also get some thin latex style gloves. They don't need your cooties.

3. A mandolin. If you cut a lot of small squash, zucchini, and cucumbers, you'll thank me for this. 

4. When grilling meats like chicken and hamburgers it's a good idea to use a grill pan to get the grill marks everyone likes but if you're freezing it, add some low sodium beef or chicken stock at the end to keep it from drying out. And remember, a squeeze of lemon or lime juice always brightens sauteed veggies. You can even cook it down to a glaze and coat your chicken with it. YUM!

5. If the food still just doesn't have enough flavor without the added salt, stand in the baking aisle at the grocery store and stare at the spice section for a while. There are many salt-free seasonings loaded with flavor these days. Our current favorites are Cavender's and Chef Paul's (salt-free) Magic Seasoning. We add a dash or two to almost everything. The Magic Seasoning has a little kick. 

So while I'm in the kitchen measuring, mixing and tallying carb counts and Vitamin K amounts into little compartments and storage bowls, Judy's testing her blood sugar, recording her weight twice a day and calculating insulin dosages and boluses, all between scheduling doctors' appointments and other appointments. There are also calls and visits from friends. These wear her out quickly but she hates to miss any of them. This weekend, our dinner table conversations while Unk was in the bedroom resting revolved around ways to keep him from getting seriously depressed or even suicidal if she goes first. There will be weekend day trips for ice cream one or two towns over and I'll have to show him the local spots I know here in my county. There's the Whirligig Park in Wilson, the little Mayberry type filling station outside of Sharpsburg and the sailboat someone brought home to set up on their property after they couldn't sail any longer, presumably because they loved that boat so. Or maybe they just got too old or sick to use it any longer. If you know the owner, don't tell me the reason. I don't think I want to know.

Growing Old

Whoever said that quote about how growing old isn't for the faint of heart sure knew what he was talking about. Facing serious health problems when your energy is lagging and your body is older, tired and wearing out certainly takes courage. The most any of us usually can hope for is to go peacefully in our sleep with no long-drawn-out illness, no suffering to endure. That's my wish for all of us. God Bless us all.