Writing this in hindsight: it’s hard to remember what we did unfortunately. Our plans this weekend have been set aside (more organizing, more exercise) by this feeling I’m having a difficult time describing. My heart rate is still too high, it feels almost labored to pump… but not enough to be scary right now. Seems as long as I chill out, things are fine.
I don’t even remember who cooked breakfast, or if we had it. Nor do I remember lunch. But I’m sure we ate something. I need to keep up with this daily. I was doing good, and got lazy this week because nothing much changed. Maybe my heart is really attached to this thing, and was upset I wasn’t posting daily.
Dinner, however, I can’t forget.
On top of my own ailment, my girlfriends Mom called her up on her way to the hospital (“I should go too”, I thought, but I’m a typical guy and past experience with doctors leads me to have little faith anything would be different except my wallet being lighter). She was having pains in her upper abdomen/chest…gallbladder she suspected. As a fellow sufferer of the pain, I can empathize extraordinarily.
My girlfriend said she’d cook tonight, and wanted to make encrusted white fish. So off to the store we go. I’m not feeling terrible, and it’s nice to get out of the house. We picked up some frozen pacific pollock among other needs and returned home to cook.
Her Mom came over, and we talked shop about gallstones for a bit. My Mother brought me up to believe in trying holistic care, and oddly enough two things really helped my gallstone pain. Malic acid, from apples: eat an apple or drink pressed cider, and dandelion root tea. I keep both things around just in case it ever acts up again, and after about 10 minutes of eating the apple, her pain had reduced greatly. The dandelion root tea also helped almost make it disappear.
Dinner was a homerun. And having her Mom over was a pleasant reminder that even though we’re on this diet, we can still entertain. My girlfriend suggested we watch Doctor Sleep (Director’s cut, it’s long enough already, may as well go the full mile of what the director wanted) because her Mom loved The Shining. It was an impressive movie. Right up her alley, with magic and witchcraft, and it really treated the character with respect and felt attached perfectly.
After the movie, she was feeling better and we bid her farewell in the wee hours of the morning. We sent her home with dandelion root tea… but I hope she hears from a doctor soon. It took me 5 visits, the 5th was to the E.R. while feeling unbelievable pain, to get diagnosed. 4 before that were to my useless Primary Care Physician who had given me heart burn medication each time, even though I told him it wasn’t working and asked to see a GI….I’m still bitter about it.