*A Blob In A Bed

As lightning strikes and cackles, silver pain against a mournful deep black sky, rockets flare rapidly from my brain to my chin.  Immediately, I recognize and rationalize the signs; I sigh wearily breathe slowly and finally admit that TMJ has come back to stay for the next few days or  a week. At least I love my two options for dinner, peanut butter and jelly or an American cheese sandwich and tomato soup:

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I had a tiny, mild spasm when we had dinner but I was eating the mushiest of foods. A veggie burger that I had to scoop up with a spoon and I didn’t eat the top half of the bun. After that, a small portion of ice cream that I put in the microwave, I was sure I had paid the price for the pain already. Yeah, right. As if fairness counts in this world. I shake my head from side to side.

 

I didn’t “say AHHH” as if I was giving in to a strep test, my mouth was as wide as it could go comfortably (yes, dentists/doctors from all over say I have a child size mouth and face and hands and ring size.) I do remember the tip-toe beginning signs of TMJ and paid heed to them, with further occurrences, I forgot about it and went to sleep and slept well. When I woke up (or did it wake me up?) the first flash of agonizing pain ripped through my brain to my ear and down past my teeth into my wobbly neck.

There is no rhyme or reason for when this happens so I just resign myself to it happening every once in a while and search (I know, I know) for the mouth guard that I should have worn all along. My bad.

 

 

I can’t feel too sorry for myself because I’m the one to blame. I remember yesterday, even before the first pang, opening up the case and finding it empty. I did find it later on, of course, I’ll need to search for it again ( Fibromyalgia Fog) since I forgot where it I found it. I don’t lose things, I just misplace them ( repeatedly.) I look outside at the cold, crystallized window and I find a little comfort in the fact that I can nurse myself back to health today without (a lot of ) help from anyone. (PS I found it and have been wearing it.)

 

I slip back into bed with my five layers of blankets and heating pad, it is the second day and I am still in so much pain that I can’t even go down a flight of stairs to make my cherished mug of coffee. I hate asking for help but this morning I knock on my daughter’s door and ask her to help me. In a second, she goes downstairs to make me coffee and warms my heart. I am so grateful for her.

The coffee barely cheers me up which is unusual. I try to gulp it down quickly but the pain interrupts me. I’m doomed. I’m not allowed to use most pain medication because of my kidneys so I reach for one Tylenol, two.  I automatically click the heating pad that lives beside me on the beige carpet. Please help me soon….

 

I don’t know how other people can get motivated to get dressed and race out of the door when it is below freezing outside. I truly wonder. I don’t believe I was like this when I was young, but then again, I didn’t have Fibromyalgia or Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis.  Maybe I did have it all along but never knew?

 

My mother calls and she hears “the slight off pitch” of my voice.I can never fool her, my mother and my son are the only ones I can’t fool. She zeros in for the kill. “What’s the matter?” she inquires directly bypassing all courtesy. I answer truthfully yet less urgently “I just have a little TMJ thing going on, that’s all.” She sighs, she feels helpless, I totally understand. My 22-year-old son had the flu last week and I certainly felt the same way, “what can I do, do you want something to eat, tomato soup with mashed up crackers? no? NO?!)

Mothers love to mother and when we can’t or when our kids grow up, at first we don’t know what to do. Mothering is our job, one we always will love. Without it, we just feel a little lost. Many people, including myself, ask themselves the question “Who am I now” when our youngest child is in college.

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I know the feeling. After my daughter’s two wisdom teeth were extracted during a summer holiday and the medication wore off, she got up and gently woke me up at 3 AM. She scowled and said through muddled cotton mouth “it hurts.” For me, as bad as I felt for her, I felt happy I could help her, I could mother her and make her feel better. I didn’t want her to have pain, I wanted to make any type of pain go away.

My daughter and son have left to go out, my husband will be home shortly. I will go down and make my own soft American cheese sandwich and drink some Yoo Hoo, I don’t want to bother my husband who has worked all day. I understand pain, I’ve lived with so many different forms (too numerous to list), I don’t need people near me, I have all of you.

Thanks, Facebook Friends for always being there for me.

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*DON’T WORRY ABOUT ME, PLEASE.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Best Meal Under Ten Bucks

Baby, It’s Cold and Wet Outside…..

A grilled cheddar cheese (or American cheese) sandwich (my daughter prefers Swiss cheese) on multi-grain bread, a bowl of tomato soup and a mug of hot chocolate with whipped cream. You would probably have leftover money for a candy bar if you wanted one. This is a meal that shouts out “COMFORT FOOD” that you can get in any diner or coffee shop; it’s also easy to make at home and really not too junky (you can skip the hot chocolate if you must.) It’s easy to make, takes no time in preparing and it’s so comforting and delicious. Try it, on the house. Let me know how you like it on a cold, wintry day. Just imagining this inexpensive lunch makes me feel safe, warm and satisfied!

Larry And Lola (A Comfort Food Blog)

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I have a weird relationship with food; in addition to just adoring it I name it.  Apparently, I started really young giving names to food based on the person I ate the food with or the person who introduced me to it. First, there was Larry. I was friends with a little boy named Larry when I was about 18 months. Larry consists of peach baby food (I have advanced to pears and fruit delight) and cottage cheese. Not mixed together. Ever. Eating Larry consists of a ritual dipping of a teaspoon into cottage cheese and then dipping it into Gerber and only Gerber peach baby food. (I honestly feel that I began to love babies because of the Gerber baby picture on all the jars.) Not only did I eat this when I was very young but still eat it on occasion. For freshness and sanitary sake, I now put the cottage cheese in a separate little bowl but eat the baby food right out of the cute, little, smiling baby jar. After all, nobody eats the baby food except for me. My children, when they were growing up did not have the same fondness for Larry as I did.

Lola. Lola is my mother’s best friend. She made a salad (of sorts) that I thought was absolutely delicious when I was a girl and now make it for myself (because no one else will eat it.) I don’t know why but when Lola served Lola everyone seemed to love it. Must have been her charm and charisma.  I made my mother ask for the “recipe” and then made it myself. First, buy a small jar of peas and carrots (go for the brand name, not the generic), drain the juice (or liquid as they say in America), and add mayonnaise (Hellman’s only) to the remaining peas and carrots. Stir. This is Lola and believe it or not Lola saved my life while I was on vacation in Spain because Lola, known as a Russian Salad in Spain, saved me from eating a lot of raw, wiggly fish that I couldn’t stand. In addition I attended a lovely Russian wedding last year and again, we were served a Russian salad that made me squeal with delight when I saw it;  it was, in fact, Lola with hard-boiled eggs. Imagine that. I don’t think Lola knows about Lola. I remember giving an old friend the recipe to make Lola and she burst out laughing uncontrollably when I got to the “drain the juice” part. Apparently she was guffawing because she said “as if anyone else would eat this.” I found that a little insensitive but we are all entitled to our own opinion. For someone whose comfort food was a plain hamburger, I say nothing.

My all time comfort food are soft-boiled eggs (peeled very carefully-this is critcal) in a dish with a teaspoon or more of butter and two slices of toast torn apart and mixed in. All you need to add is a little salt and there it is: ultimate comfort, it really doesn’t get better than that. My back up comfort food is always an American cheese sandwich on bread with butter. Scrambled eggs with Welch’s grape jelly or grape jam (depending on what consistency I want) and another comfort item called banana mush- mush, a dessert item, which is mashed up bananas (use a fork) with sour cream ( now plain fat-free yogurt) with sugar or sugar substitute.

I’ve taken a little survey and some responses to my question “what is your favorite comfort food?” are as follows: a black and white milkshake, brown sugar on bread with butter (rolled like a jelly roll,) buttered Saltine crackers with slices of kosher dill pickles on top, (the originality winner in my book), oatmeal with sugar and cinnamon, Swanson’s chicken à la king (on toast), Campbell’s tomato soup with (Kraft) American cheese and crumbled up Saltines, Yodels (peeled or unpeeled) AND… french fries dipped into an ice cream sundae. The last dish, definitely gets props in terms of combining sweet and salt.  Thanks guys for your help. I’m off to the grocery store now to see if there are new products to buy or to perhaps buy a new comfort food, borrowed from a friend.

Honey, Honey?

Friday, 3/19/2010  3:58 PM

I’ve just crawled back into bed, clothes off, night-shirt on, bronchitis as my diagnosis. I have taken the third dose of Arithromyacin but my body feels achy and my throat feels sore. Very sore. Burning- steak -knife- to -the -throat -sore.  There are many types of pain but throat pain, to me, is one of the worst. It must remind me of my childhood when I suffered continuously with sore throats, strep and tonsilitis, all the time.  So much that when I graduated from college I had to have my tonsils taken out.   To say it was not pretty is an extreme understatement.  After the tonsillectomy the pain was the worst pain I had ever experienced; THAT pain was worse than childbirth. I remember living back home at my parents apartment, in my old room,  moaning from pain. My mother fed me too much codeine because it hurt her to see me in so much pain. I remember hallucinating that I was talking to angels. My father literally threatened to go to the Doctor’s house with a baseball bat. The purest form of parental love.

I also have an auto-immune disease whose aches feel different from the ones I am experiencing now. I am 53 but feel older, I am 53 but think I look younger. After much work and determination, I lost 20 pounds and it is nice to see my waist line indentation. I am an hourglass, once again, green eyes dancing, brown hair in a side ponytail, wearing necklaces.

I heard from several people who suggested I should eat a teaspoon of raw honey each morning to improve my auto-immune disease. I started yesterday, somewhat suspiciously, looking at the mayonnaise-like substance. I ate the teaspoon and it did indeed taste much better than the lard it looked like. I am still waiting for the energy to come. Given that I am on antibiotics maybe a little patience would do me good. Actually, patience would always do me good…..

I had a big bowl of juicy blueberries for lunch, some organic honey -lemon soothing drops for my throat, a Nyquil tablet and a nap. For dinner I had comfort food: tomato soup with mashed Saltine crackers and a piece of cheese that melted slowly into long strands of stringy goodness. For dessert I had a brand new favorite, the tropical ice-pops from Trader Joe’s, that had little pieces of frozen fruit inside them, they were amazingly pretty to look at, tasted heavenly and numbed my throat momentarily.

I only slept seven hours because I was in so much pain that I kept waking up. I am about to eat another teaspoon of honey, watch Fiddler On The Roof and see the sunshine bounce off my bedroom window, while I am inside. Only the cool breeze from the open window reminds me that it really is lovely outside, just about Spring, and that I am missing an amazing day. There’s always tomorrow.