A companion to the upcoming book of similar title, this blog gives recipes to make your own homemade and healthy Meals Ready to Eat. Whether you prepare these for survival in emergency situations or to provide healthy meals for work and camping/backpacking, or if you just need portion control for your diet, there are recipes here for nearly everyone! // ALL ingredients are dehydrated or freeze-dried, or shelf-stable, and all recipes are for one serving. // At least ONE new recipe will be added each week.

Health Update

I finally have a few minutes to myself so I thought I'd catch you up on my health.

Last night I sprained (or is it strained) my foot as I walked to the bathroom in the dark.  I had to follow a certain path because we haven't cleaned the carpet yet.  Why do I need to clean it?  Well, it's a gross reason so you should feel free to skip ahead, but after my EGD/colonoscopy the other day, I had a sudden attack of diarrhea.  Hubby did his best to clean it up, but, well, you know men!  I had every intention of cleaning it up, but I haven't felt up to it until last night.

And then I hurt my foot.

So ... hopefully, Hubby and I will do it tomorrow.  If I still can't walk on my foot, he'll do it.  Bless his heart. He even bought some carpet cleaner to do it.

Meanwhile, I have appointments next week to get the results from my barium swallow, and my EGD/colonoscopy.  Hoping at least ONE of them will tell me what's wrong with me.

I weighed yesterday and am still surprised there's not a drop in the numbers.  Weird.

As to what I'm eating, besides the protein drinks in the morning, plus the juice, I am managing to keep fresh plums down. Wonder why. I would think they would be too rough on my stomach, but nope.  Same goes for some apple dices that I dehydrated this week ... no problems eating them. And I am now able to eat a bowl of oatmeal or life cereal at night for dinner. 

I did try to eat some fast food but my body obviously knows me better than I do because it refused to process it.

Geez, I'd love to have an Olive Garden salad. Or a chef's salad.  Or even a plain ole salad with a boiled egg, peanuts, scallions, croutons and thousand island dressing.  Okay, maybe not so "plain ole"!

Anyhoo, I have lots of fruit to dice and get in the dehydrator... plums, peaches, pears, kiwi and apples.  That's my plan for next week.  I also have LOTS of chickens in our freezer, processed from our own little farmette, that I need to dehydrate. The plan is to boil them good, let cool, skim off the fat, pick off the meat, cut the meat into very small pieces and dehydrate until quite crispy.  I'll figure out what to do with the fat later. And I might dehydrate the bones till crispy, then crush and use as bonemeal for my roses.

Gotta learn how to use every bit of food in some way.

Well, my alone time is over, so I guess I'll get off and finish watching the last episode of Youtube's "Secrets of the Castle" with Ruth, Tom and Peter.  I love love LOVE this and their other series.

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p.s. The "helpers" we fired last week... well, we think they stole one of my credit cards' numbers because I had some fraudulent purchases which thankfully, my bank caught.  Can't trust anyone, right?

Still have abdominal pain

Here it is, after 8:30 p.m., and I'm regretting trying to eat a normal meal.  I had half a ham-and-cheese sandwich with an heirloom tomato and bell peppers, plus some milk.  That was around 7 p.m.

By 8:20 (thank goodness for the journal I keep!), I came down with such severe abdominal pain and nausea that I had to get Hubby to bring my nausea meds into the bathroom for me.  Uh, too much information?

Sorry.

I have so many wonderful heirloom tomatoes and other produce sitting here, waiting for me (and family) to eat. But I can't.  It's very frustrating.

On the 15th, 3 days ago, I had another attack as bad as the one that put me in the hospital on the 10th.  Luckily, I had all of my meds here, so I took 3 (yes, three) of the Zofran (which is a melt in your mouth emergency nausea pill) plus two of a different pill, one of a third pill, and I changed my behind-the-ear nausea patch.  I finally calmed down quite early in the morning and fell to sleep, finally, by 6 a.m.  I read and re-read my journal from the 15th and from August 10th and can NOT figure out what those two days have in common to make me have such intense attacks.

Nothing.

So ... what do you eat when you can't eat?  Never again will I have jello as that's what I threw up on Aug 10th when all of this started.  Instead, broth.  Applesauce scratches my stomach.  Oh, and about a half of a banana is ok (a whole one is too much).

I did my barium swallow yesterday and now my dizziness is worse.  I get my results in a week or two. Here's hoping they found SOMETHING that will help solve my health scare/problem.

Take care, people.  You never know what something horrible will attack you.  Can you imagine trying to do any kind of work with severe nausea and abdominal pain that has you doubled over?

Eat healthy.  Please.  Not for me, but for you and your future.

Read the labels on the products you buy.  If there are more than few ingredients, put it down and make it from scratch.

Helpers Gone but Now We are Afraid

We fired the "Helpers" today.  Suspicious that the hours worked reported to us was not accurate, I watched them carefully today.  First of all, the woman never did anything to help.  Second, out of 3.5 hours reported, he really only worked a total of about 20 minutes!  What?!?!?! 

So we fired them.  And now they are a little threatening, saying that I underpaid them, when, in fact, I very much overpaid them for work that was never ever as I requested.

I'm sitting in the living room, lights out except for outside where we have ALL of our outdoor lights on so we can see what is going on outside.  I fear they will return.  Hubby says he'll sleep out here tonight, and keep an ear out for anything that isn't supposed to be there.

So glad they are gone.  But this stress isn't good for my nausea.

I did eat lunch today, though. Nothing big. Just a banana and some oatmeal.

By the way, met with my g.i. doctor this week who said all of the blood work has come in and nothing seems amiss. He is scheduling some more testings, including an upper g.i. to look at stomach and a colonoscopy to look at the other end. 

Plus, he wants a special kind of test that involves a tube with a camera on the end to enter through the vein on the right side of my neck to check my liver's pressure and will do a liver biopsy.

Another doctor, an ENT, has scheduled a barium swallow to see why I'm having troubles swallowing.  Wonder if that problem has anything to do with my nausea.

Well, at least I got some of my favorite instant oatmeal down: 1/4 cup quick-cooking oatmeal, 1 tbsp. pineapple powder, 1 tbsp. banana powder, and 1 tbsp. of raw sugar.  Delicious and it stayed down!!! Might add a bit of cinnamon the next time.

BTW... the fruit powder I mentioned in the last paragraph is real fruit, in powder form.  I get them, among many others, from www.justtomatoes.com

Helpers not really working out

The helpers we found through Craigslist are really not working out.  Disappeared for a day completely with no word until I sent a strongly-worded text.  Thinking this time next week, we'll have them gone.  I keep hoping the man will do something like I actually tell him to do, but so far, only one project has been done to the way I requested and demonstrated.

They are taking advantage of me, but I need them (him) to "work" a bit more to pay us back for providing enough gas to get here that first day, plus antifreeze we also bought that day.

My nausea is getting just a tiny bit better but now I have new symptoms: peticulae (tiny red spots in strategic places).  I reported them to both my hematologist and my g.i. doctors.

Did I mention that my spleen is quite large and growing and that my white platelets are quite low and still dropping?  Thankfully the two doctors are in the same building.

Why is my body suddenly falling apart, so completely? 

Is it because I've been so fat all of my life?

As a side note, even with the nausea, I'm really not losing any weight.  No one understands the why of this because you'd think I'd have dropped 50 pounds by now.  It's been only 5-10 pounds since Aug 10, when I went into the ER.

Odd.