Working in the Kitchen

Some days, like rainy October days, are just right for working in the kitchen. I didn't plan my day to start this way; but sometimes, the day just dictates to you what it is going to look like. My first thought, after unloading the dishwasher and making my pot of tea, was that I should really bake some dog biscuits since we have run out. I wanted to get the oven turned off by 11 AM, which is still our high peak rate until the end of this month. While those were baking, I decided to pull out a pound of bacon and crisp fry that for the freezer. I like to have some cooked bacon on hand to use in recipes that call for just a few slices. And I can't cook bacon without my Sweetie wanting some. He made himself a toasted tomato and bacon sandwich. There are two cups of dried black beans simmering in the crock pot with five cups of water. After supper tonight, I will rinse those and spoon into smaller freezer containers.

By 11 AM the bacon was done as was the oven where the dog biscuits were still drying out inside. I checked my green tomatoes. I washed the ones that are already ripened, removed the core and put some into a medium sized freezer bag. There are still a few for fresh eating. My peppers don't look like they will turn red, so I seeded and sliced them all up. I have a nearly full medium sized freezer bag, which you can see in the photo on top. I warmed up a bowl of my chicken vegetable soup for lunch.

Yesterday I made some more packaging and wrapped a few more gifts for the Advent calendars. I have run out of scotch tape, so the rest of the wrapping can wait. I got four Hallowe'en cards mailed out to the grandchildren in Vancouver, but I still need to make some more for the children here in Ontario. Two are grandchildren, but the others are nephews of mine. Since I knew the rain was coming today, I went out and mowed the front lawn and most of the backyard. I would love to trim the lawns and pull weeds from my garden beds, but I am running out of time and good weather. It may have to wait until Spring.

Back Home

I realized last night as I was drifting off to sleep that I probably did everyone a disservice by not writing yesterday. I hope you realize that if my husband had NOT been discharged, I would surely have been on here writing another rant. As it turned out, nothing more was accomplished than the night before, except that he had a quiet night in the hospital and I didn't have to go driving in the dark and rain to pick him up. He still has the CV catheter in his neck and there are no changes to his at-home medications. He took his last antibiotic in the morning, and he has an appointment in the Transplant Clinic on Monday. When I got him home, he went straight up to our room and went to bed. 

 

 To tell you the truth, I was lost. I wandered aimlessly around the house trying to find my way. The last twelve days, my days had been mapped out for me. Suddenly I needed to find my bearings again. There is a lot that needs doing, heaven knows, but I felt as though the floor had given way from beneath me. Anyways, I did my usual "make iced tea, unload the dishwasher and load it up, clean the downstairs litter box", and then I looked at my October Goals. The Advent Calendars stood out as the most important goal to start, so that is what I tackled.

On top you will see in the photo, some of the items I have already procured for one of my grandchildren. As you know, some things are easily wrapped, while others need some form of packaging. I always use the internet to find free printable box templates and print them on the backs of printed card stock like you see below. I cut them out, fold on the dotted lines, and use a strong adhesive tape to assemble them. You will notice that some of the packaging is very big (much too large to fit into a tiny pocket) You can find lots tiny things for teenagers, but it is harder for smaller children, so their Advent calendar gifts go into a bag. They can pull one gift from the bag every day until Christmas. The gifts for the older kids go into a printed photo box that they can use for storing things afterwards. Whether or not they put the gifts into their calendar pockets, I don't know.

Free printable templates

As each gift is wrapped, I write down what it is on a page under their name that I keep in a notebook. This also provides me of a history from past years of my ideas for gifts. I can keep count of the number of things I have got already and what I need to get to complete their calendar. I only give three candy gifts among the 24 wrapped gifts. So this is what I did yesterday. I also made a big pot of chicken and vegetable soup with broth from the freezer, onions, leftover peas from another night, and tomatoes, beans, and carrots from the garden. When my hubby came downstairs in the afternoon, he had a bowl of this....his first meal of the day. He wasn't served breakfast in the morning (because he had been discharged the night before) Can you believe it? I put a pot roast and home grown veggies in the crock pot for dinner last night. It tasted exceptionally good. 

Right now I have laundry to fold, and two casserole dishes soaking in the sink. I have already washed a dishwasher load since last night. The dog is going to need more biscuits soon, but I will get back to wrapping the kids' Advent gifts. Bye bye for now.

Not the Best Start to a Week

I drove to the Lakefront parking lot this morning by ten o'clock. I waited about 15 minutes for a space to open up for me,because they were all full up. I paid my $3 for 3 hours and went inside to visit with my Sweetie. I could tell he was still tired from his outing yesterday, but we started playing a game of cards before he wanted to lie down and take a nap. I started knitting a new dishcloth because I finished the first one yesterday.

After lunch, at one o'clock, I went down to feed the meter again. I put in $3 for 3 hours and placed it on the dashboard, when I saw this ticket under my windshield wiper. NOT happy. My parking stub said I was good until 1:22 My new parking stub said I was good until 4:22  How do I get a parking ticket for being 2 minutes to the good? I was livid.

Meanwhile, the cardiologist came in to examine my husband and talked about his candidacy for another assistive device for his heart. but the infection must be gone completely and the kidney needs to come back fully. They are talking 6 months from now, but they think he would be a good candidate for this procedure. Until then, he will have to go back to the heart failure clinic. His echo done last week showed a significant drop in performance (probably due to the infection).

Internal medicine came by with the great news that he was being discharged today, after the CVC  is removed from his neck. The kidney has responded so well, he no longer will be requiring dialysis. TheTransplant nurse called to say that someone was on their way down to remove the catheter and he would be getting his new prescriptions for medications from them. The nurse came in and announced that she just heard the great news that he was going home, so she was there to take his vitals one last time. We packed up everything in his two bags and sat back and waited. It was 3 o'clock. At four o'clock, I went down to the parking lot yet again to feed the meter for one more hour. After five o'clock, parking is free.

At five o'clock, we brought out the cards and played another game of Cribbage. At 5:30, his nurse came back in and told us that no one had signed discharge papers and she didn't think anyone would be coming.
It was getting dark and a lightening and thunder storm had started. I drove home in the worst storm I have ever driven in....rain so hard, the wipers couldn't keep the water off the windshield. The roads were flooded and the highway traffic could not go over 40 km per hour. I finally got home and called my Sweetie to let him know that I made it. I told him goodnight and call me in the morning when he learned what was going on.

At 8 o'clock tonight, after I started this blog, my Sweetie phoned to say they were discharging him. What???!!! The CVC is still in his neck. There were no prescriptions written. There is no follow-up treatment plan or appointment dates set up.  My husband is refusing to go. Someone will have to answer some questions first thing in the morning. He is still calling me in the morning to let me know what is going on.

The Final Harvest

Potatoes were grown in Tupperware bins

In the Spring, you might remember that I planted seed potatoes (2 or 3) in Rubbermaid bins that I had drilled holes in the bottom for drainage. As the plants grew, I threw more dirt on top. Today it was just a matter of lifting them up to the top of the elevated garden and dumping them, I spread the dirt around and gathered up the spuds. It worked out really well. Some of them grew quite large. I want to get more bins now for the Spring planting, as this experiment worked very well. All the dirt that was dumped out today will amend the garden soil, and I will buy another trailer load of garden soil next year for my potato bins.

The carrots that I dug out today

I never did replant my carrot seeds.  When my rows of carrots first started to appear, it was obvious that I had lots of soil that did not receive any seeds. My plan was to reseed those rows, but I never did. I am amazed at the amount that still managed to grow. I was very late in thinning them out, so it is a wonder that I got any carrots at all. I boiled some of our new potatoes and carrots for dinner tonight. I also boiled and peeled the beets that I managed to find. There were only five small ones. I had hoped to replant those seeds as well, but I am the only one who eats beets, so I didn't bother. I have already eaten two of them tonight and really enjoyed them. Next year, I will definitely plant more.

I picked another quart of Burgundy Beans on the 16th of October. I can't believe how prolific those veggies have been. I pulled out my two cucumber plants for the compost pile and found another cucumber on one of them. The green tomatoes I picked earlier on Friday afternoon, are already starting to ripen.

My Sweetie came home today. He was waiting for me at 10 AM, and as soon as he got home, he took the dog out and had coffee with a  friend. Most of the day he spent on the couch watching his new large screen TV or sleeping short cat naps, while I spent the day outside in the rain harvesting the garden, or in the kitchen washing the veggies. I didn't get to spend much time with my Sweetie today, but tomorrow I am sure we will see more of each other back in the hospital. Hope your weekend was either productive or relaxing......just the way you like it.

Cribbage

My Sweetie did not get dialysis today because his blood test came back with good numbers. YAY!!!
So I went in for 10 o'clock this morning and stayed until 4 PM. It is Homecoming Weekend at Queens University. If there was going to be a problem finding parking, I wanted to be there early enough to get a spot on the Lakefront.

I took in the cribbage board and a deck of cards because I noticed yesterday that my husband is sitting up more and is awake for longer periods of time. We had one game where I beat him soundly (maybe I just barely won). He slept afterwards while I did some knitting. I started another dishcloth yesterday while they took him away for an ultrasound. He woke up in time for lunch and then we played another card game. He very nearly skunked me in the next two games. I left the game there with him in case he finds another card player, or if he wants to play solitaire. He still has his crossword puzzles and his DVD player.

Tomorrow, if they don't change their minds, he is being given a day pass. He is coming home between 10 AM and 6 PM. He is very excited about that.

Thursday morning we had a hard frost (read: we had to scrape it off the car windows). So yesterday before dinner, I went out and picked every tomato still left on the plants. I have them on a table in the front window of the living room where I hope they will ripen. I also picked all the peppers still left. They are still green and I don't think they will turn red. But if they don't, I will still slice them up and freeze them. Tomorrow, I hope to dig up what is left of the carrots, beets,  and potatoes. The reason I had time before dinner to go to the garden, is because my dear friends from Charleston Lake came to visit my Sweetie and I in the hospital and brought a quiche with them for me to warm up for my dinner at home. How wonderful.

I hope you all are having a wonderful weekend and enjoying the Autumn weather. I know my oldest son and his family are right now having some wicked weather in BC. We will try to phone them tomorrow to see if they still have power or phone lines. The news reports show a lot of downed trees and lots of people without power. Trusting that the family is all fine.

Everything you wanted to know about dialysis

I lied to you yesterday. The picc line for drawing blood was not put in yesterday. It was supposed to be inserted today, but plans were changed again. They have stopped the intravenous antibiotic and are now giving the antibiotic in pill form. He is scheduled for another round of hemo dialysis tomorrow.

The head of the Transplant unit paid a visit this afternoon. He is still very optimistic about the kidney's viability. They have stopped giving my Sweetie any form of aspirin in the chance they may perform a kidney biopsy on Tuesday. They took another ultrasound of the kidney this morning. They are bringing in the cardiology department for a consult. More news to follow.

My older son called last night to inform us that his nephrologist is going to insert a catheter into my son's  abdomen by Christmas in preparation for peritoneal dialysis. This is done by putting solution into the peritoneum and then draining out the waste while he sleeps at night. The flowing in of solution and draining out again is controlled by a computer at his bedside. This is how my husband started his dialysis many years ago. In the meantime, my middle son (the one who lives here) is preparing to go through all the testing to see if he would make a good donor. It is a long process. I went to Ottawa many times over the course of a year before my Sweetie's transplant was done. Keeping our fingers crossed that he can be a donor and that the screening process doesn't take as long. Science has come a very long way in only a generation.  By doing peritoneal dialysis every night at home, my son can still work every day and lead an almost normal life.

One week in the hospital

The day started out rainy, but has cleared up beautifully into a warm sunny Autumn day. I did not go into the hospital today. My Sweetie phoned this morning to tell me that they were going to take him to dialysis at 12:30 I couldn't stand the thought of another day like yesterday, so I stayed home this morning and slept. I was so tired. I need to be able to take care of him when he eventually gets home. I should have turned off the phone and gone back to bed, but I was afraid of missing a call from the hospital. I was so-o-o tired, I was able to fall back to sleep after each phone call I answered.
 
So this afternoon I ...

washed two loads of laundry, hung some scatter mats on the line, and will dry the second load in the dryer after 7 o'clock.

made a pitcher of iced tea 

folded  one load of laundry from yesterday, and put away.

washed some baking pans in the sink (my son and his GF made me some baked eggs with spinach and tomato which I have been nuking with some sliced ham for quick and hearty breakfasts)

washed the dog's dishes

scrubbed the toilets and sinks in the downstairs bathroom and my Master bathroom

After I have talked to my Sweetie on the phone, I will vacuum the carpeted staircase, the living room, dining room and kitchen.  It is driving me bananas with all the dust bunnies. Of course, there are things I try to do everyday like loading and unloading the dishwasher and cleaning the downstairs kitty litter.

Goals Update:

Money spent so far from my household budget is $261.81  Since last Wednesday's shop at the Bulk Barn and Giant Tiger, I spent another $50 on the gift card from Shopper's Drug Mart and $20.63 at the hospital coffee shop. After having spent $43.00 in parking fees over three days last week, I was able to find free parking on the Queen's campus over Sunday and holiday Monday. This week I have been paying the parking meters down on the Lakefront. It is only $1 for each hour to a limit of 3 hours at a time. So it means taking a long walk down to the parking lot, but so much better than paying those exorbitant hospital rates.  I am taking those parking fees from our gas and vehicles budget.

Outdoors work: I harvested more beans and tomatoes for the freezer.

Maintenance and preparedness: I peeled the ten pounds of carrots I bought on the first of the month, and froze several packets of julienned carrots and coins. I baked another batch of dog biscuits one morning before I went to hospital.

Cleaning projects: the two washrooms, today. It was not a deep clean. I did not wash the bathtub or shower surround, nor did I vacuum the floors.  I scrubbed the kitchen counters, the stove top  and the inside of the microwave.

Organization and purging: Nothing

Crafting: Nothing

My October Goals:  Nothing worked on and nothing accomplished yet, but the month is still young.

My son and his GF have tidied up my living room and made neat piles of my papers. They have baked me some egg omelets because I enjoy them, and they have brought me tea and baked goodies to the hospital for me to have. If I have a load of my laundry in the washing machine, they will throw it in the dryer for me. They washed and changed out my bed sheets on the weekend because they know I love to change them weekly.

Freebies received this week in the mail

Tylenol night time tablets and a quinoa cranberry granola bar

My Sweetie phoned at 6:10. He finally got back. They didn't take any weight off him. They just cleaned the blood and returned all the fluid back into his body. He says he feels good. They also put a central picc line into him so the nurses don't have to keep his IV catheter going. He had four IVs in the past week...all of them eventually failed. They need them to give him antibiotics and to take blood two or three times a day. Overall, today was a good day for both of us. Have a great night.