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 Food Police

Any Type 1 diabetic can tell you that one thing they hate almost as much as the constant needles is the "Food Police." These are usually well-meaning friends and sometimes even complete strangers who think they know better than you. They're everywhere: at church, on Facebook, at school, shopping centers and especially at restaurants. Tired and cranky with a low blood sugar coming on, I snapped at my 8th-grade teacher at a church pancake supper once because she offered me sugar-free syrup. No matter how many times I tried to explain to her at previous suppers that I'd rather have the real stuff and that the sugar in the one tablespoon I was going to use was planned for in my carb count, she continued to insist that she knew more than I did- a diabetic of over 30 years. At 48 back then, I thought maybe I should be trusted to know what I was doing. It's maddening and a little exhausting. Well, now I've become that person. The dreaded Food Police times ten. I'm the Food Police on steroids. I weigh, I measure, I portion and I figure carbohydrate amounts.

Paying careful attention to everything we put in our bodies is what every new diabetic starts out doing; usually, the doctor sends the new diabetic to a nutritionist who teaches them about food servings and carb counting. After a while, they've done it enough that instead of counting up the carbs, they just know. People get into food habits. They eat basically the same foods from week to week. Instead of adding up all of the carbs in their favorite sandwich and the little bag of chips for instance, after a while they just have the carb count for that meal ingrained in their brain, "a grilled ham & cheese with chips. That's 7 units of insulin." In Judy's case, since she's having to find new dishes to try, we are having to be like a new diabetic starting this journey from scratch. We count everything.

I've been scrambling to find different recipes to try on Judy to see if she'll like them. She's been very good about trying pretty much anything I fix. There are ground rules of course. She hates arugula, for instance. Several weeks ago she said she could eat chicken every meal. A week later, she said she was sick of chicken. Thank goodness I predicted it and had other meals prepped for some variety. Recently, it was breakfast. In an attempt to mix it up, I decided to try out a frittata recipe and see how she liked it. 

My Frittata

• 4 eggs
• a handful of fresh baby spinach
• 1 zucchini
• 1 yellow squash
• chicken broth or 1 packet of Herb-Ox
• 2 tablespoons of minced shallot
• sliced mushrooms (to taste)
• 1/4 cup crumbled goat cheese
• 3 turns of fresh ground pepper (it helps us absorb the turmeric)
• 2 shakes of turmeric (it fights inflammation)
• 2 shakes of Cavendar's Seasoning (salt-free)

I sprayed my non-stick pan with a spritz of EVOO and sauteed the sliced vegetables with the Cavendar's, pepper and turmeric, adding the spinach near the end. About halfway through, I added a generous splash of chicken broth for them to finish cooking. When they were almost done and the broth had cooked out, I added the eggs and cheese. When they were well mixed together and just starting to firm up, I poured the mixture into a pie dish and put it in a 350-degree oven for about 15 minutes, being careful not to overcook it. It came out great and the whole thing was gone by the end of the day. She ate every bite and insisted that I add this one to the blog. It really was delicious and I didn't even miss the salt. I hope you enjoy.

Signed,

The Food Police