OT - Quiet, but Still Here

BlackSpinner wrote:When you do meet with him get a referral to a dietician. They have amazing resources and know all sorts of "dirty" tricks. I was amazed at what is available.

I definitely plan on asking him about it. In the meantime, they gave me a very helpful Carbohydrate Guide, plus I found a website that gives nutritional label information on almost any food you can imagine. I sat here and checked various foods that I like, including things we sometimes get when we eat out. I was surprised at how good some would be and equally surprised at how bad some of them can be.

Madalot wrote:

BlackSpinner wrote:When you do meet with him get a referral to a dietician. They have amazing resources and know all sorts of "dirty" tricks. I was amazed at what is available.

I definitely plan on asking him about it. In the meantime, they gave me a very helpful Carbohydrate Guide, plus I found a website that gives nutritional label information on almost any food you can imagine. I sat here and checked various foods that I like, including things we sometimes get when we eat out. I was surprised at how good some would be and equally surprised at how bad some of them can be.

One thing we have for my mother is something called Resource 2.0 If she won't eat this is a complete meal - used for people who get liquid diets via tube also. The reason I suggest this is because of the difficulty you have cooking and sometimes need FOOD NOW!!! but no energy to make it. I make no claim for the taste......

The other resource we have is Meals on Wheels. They make frozen complete dinners here - all balanced and everything unlike TV dinners. I always have a dozen in the freezer for Dad. And they are very tasty. They have everything here from turkey dinners to East Indian specialities as well as Ukrainian cabbage rolls an perogies (local founding immigrants). The Meals on Wheels here sells to anyone, they also cater parties and business luncheons to finance their outreach. They deliver but I always pick up the orders.

ETA: Another thing I use is unflavoured whey powder (one of those extreme athlete power drink things) The flavoured stuff is awful but the unflavoured can be added to oatmeal and other foods to add more protein to something that is a bit lacking.

BlackSpinner wrote:

Madalot wrote:

BlackSpinner wrote:When you do meet with him get a referral to a dietician. They have amazing resources and know all sorts of "dirty" tricks. I was amazed at what is available.

I definitely plan on asking him about it. In the meantime, they gave me a very helpful Carbohydrate Guide, plus I found a website that gives nutritional label information on almost any food you can imagine. I sat here and checked various foods that I like, including things we sometimes get when we eat out. I was surprised at how good some would be and equally surprised at how bad some of them can be.

One thing we have for my mother is something called Resource 2.0 If she won't eat this is a complete meal - used for people who get liquid diets via tube also. The reason I suggest this is because of the difficulty you have cooking and sometimes need FOOD NOW!!! but no energy to make it. I make no claim for the taste......

The other resource we have is Meals on Wheels. They make frozen complete dinners here - all balanced and everything unlike TV dinners. I always have a dozen in the freezer for Dad. And they are very tasty. They have everything here from turkey dinners to East Indian specialities as well as Ukrainian cabbage rolls an perogies (local founding immigrants). The Meals on Wheels here sells to anyone, they also cater parties and business luncheons to finance their outreach. They deliver but I always pick up the orders.

ETA: Another thing I use is unflavoured whey powder (one of those extreme athlete power drink things) The flavoured stuff is awful but the unflavoured can be added to oatmeal and other foods to add more protein to something that is a bit lacking.

One thing I have already done is research foods I should/should not eat and more importantly, things I CAN eat as a snack in between meals. I had my husband take me to the store to purchase some of these things so that when I am hungry, I can grab these items from the pantry. I've got goldfish crackers, unsalted almonds, graham crackers, raw veggies (have to limit those a bit though), cottage cheese (again limit, but so good), string cheese, etc.

My husband and I cook dinner together many nights, but I am also trying to find recipes that *I* can easily throw into the crockpot. The new diabetes diagnosis has thrown me a curveball on that one, but I think I can make this work as long as I manage to eat enough, without eating crap to raise my blood sugar, to keep my stomach from doing back flips.

It's hard, though, because so many foods that I love are limited on a diabetic diet. And I'm having to do more label reading than I care to, but I don't have much of a choice.

But I was very proud of myself last night when my husband asked me if I minded if he ate a bowl of ice cream while we watched tv together. I said it was fine and while I envied him, I didn't eat any of it (or anything else for that matter). And this woman LOVES ice cream.

That label reading thing! My shopping takes so long these days. Everyone in the house has food related issues that are different. I have different cupboards for each of them at home. Put the things you can't eat that your husband loves in a separate cupboard so it won't be in your face when you are hungry.

Food is such a difficult thing to deal with. There are so many memories, so many rituals and so much comfort tied up in it and ones mouth sometimes doesn't seem to be attached to the rest of ones body.

The crock pot is a wonderful thing. I have used it a lot. It doesn't matter if I get constantly interrupted, stuff still cooks and it doesn't matter if I am 1/2 hour late in taking it out.

I love my steamer.
A dozen eggs, cold water, set for 25 minutes, then DUMP the eggs into cold tap water.
Hard cooked eggs have a lot of uses, but my favorite is egg in one hand, genoa salami in the other.
Mix in mouth.

Get yourself a copy of this book and let it become your complete guide to managing your diabetes: http://www.diabetes-book.com.

It will be the best thing you ever do for yourself, if you take it to heart!

Sorry you are having extra problems, but keep coming back and we'll try to help even with the non-apnea problems. Why in the world can't your DME find a quiet oxygen concentrator. And if not, can't you use bottles and get one of those filler bottles. If you feel better with oxygen, there should be a way for you to get it. I must say about the diet that I'm not good, but I do stay away from sugar pretty well by using the sugar free stuff. Also, I make a lot of stuff with Truvia, cocoa, and Almond flour. Also, if you like peanut butter, try "PB2" - it's powdered peanut butter you reconstitute with water at about a 1/4 of the calories and fat. It's great on celery. I cook up 4 servings of "goop" with a lb of ground turkey, a package of mixed pepper strips, and a couple of zucchini and flavored with onions and a packet of taco seasoning. Easy to scoop out 1/4 of the mix and nuke. Great idea about consulting a dietitician.

Good to hear from you, my dear. Hugs again from me and puppy kisses from taco pup.

What do you mean by you can't cook? Physically can't, or don't have the skills? I've figured out quite a few things I can cook without much effort. Not physical limitations, just laziness and lack of interest in cooking. There's quite a bit of stuff you can do without a lot of physical exertion. You can do some pretty good cooking in a microwave or crock pot once you learn.

As for diet, get the Atkins New Diet Revolution and read it. You may not want to go on the diet, but it may make you understand a lot more about fats, carbs, and hunger.

BTW, doctors are beginning to understand that Atkins was at least partially right and the old dogma about dietary fats and carbohydrates had a lot of problems. One think I love is that they've beginning to admit that polysaturated fats and dietary cholesterol aren't nearly as bad as the holy AMA dogma said they were. Also, eggs are off of the bad foods list.

Unfortunately, a lot of doctors are still stuck in the past in terms of diet.

BTW, watch out for sugar free sweets that use "sugar alcohols" like mannitol and isomalt. They usually say "sugar alcohols" on the nutrition facts. The sugar alcohols taste good and don't affect your blood sugar that much, but the reason they don't affect your blood sugar that much is that your body can't digest them very well and they pass through your body unmodified. This can lead to diarrhea if you eat too many of them.

Note, this is medically accepted fact, not fringe, speculative stuff like cancer and some other alleged side effects.

--Oxygen

Did you try putting the concentrator in another room and using a really long hose?

Fishy's idea about the in home bottle filler could be good, too.

Very much appreciate all the input. I'll try to answer questions to the best of my recollection, but admittedly am not at my best at the moment.

Moving the oxygen concentrator to another room is problematic because of my neuromuscular disease. It's very difficult to understand what it's like if you aren't dealing with it and believe me, I understand that. I never truly got what it was like to be a diabetic until now. Now, because *I* deal with it, I get it.

I get into bed early to watch television and/or read. I understand it's horrendous sleep hygiene, but it's a sacrifice I must make in order to be safe. By 9pm, I have run out of my energy for the day and need to get to a place where I am settled for the night. I can't get up again and walk into another room to turn on the oxygen concentrator, then walk back. It's not gonna happen. And my husband goes to sleep before I do (he gets up at 6am every day to drive the school bus). Honestly, I'd rather just do without at this point. And it's fine.

The cooking question. Again, it's so hard to understand. What to some may be "little to no effort" can be a huge hurdle for me.

I have a case nurse that calls me once a month and we talked for an hour yesterday. She was trying to help me figure out foods and she suggested tuna fish, which I like a lot. I had all the ingredients to make tuna salad and decided to do it. By the time I was done, I barely, and I do mean BARELY, made it to my wheelchair before collapsing. For something like this, I get out of my wheelchair and use my rollator & kitchen counters for support (I have a center island and can walk around it). I had to get out 2 cans of tuna, grab a mixing bowl, grab a storage container, get celery & mayo out of the frig, grab a knife, go to the can opener and open, drain and spoon tuna into the bowl, chop the celery and put into the bowl with the tuna, grab a spoon (forgot that) to get the mayo, mix it up, taste it, move to store container, place dirty dishes in sink (around the tuna cans that are still there), put the tuna in the frig, walk back and wash the dirty dishes, get the rest of tuna out of sink and into cans to discard, take cans to OUTSIDE trash (cats will tear our trash apart for tuna), walk back and get into wheelchair.

To a person without a neuromuscular disease, this is nothing. But when your muscles don't work properly, this is a LOT of effort. And as a small side note, my thighs hurt so badly last night, most likely from this extra work I did yesterday afternoon making tuna. Woke me up at least every two hours. Ugh.

Before my kids left home, we WOULD cook meals together, but I would stand in ONE place and have them do all the grabbing & moving, but even then, it was HARD. Until you can't move well, you don't realize how much movement is involved with preparing even the simplest of foods.

But on the bright side, my case nurse DID give me a LOT of helpful input and while I have a LONG way to go, I think I'm headed in the right direction. It's not easy and I'm finding myself struggling a little more (especially about sweets, which I really miss) but so far, I have NOT given in (it helps having given all the food I can't eat to my son to take back to his barracks). If I MUST have something sweet, I have a cookie jar with sugar free cookies and I eat 1 or 2 and that's it.

I am having a very hard time on the Metformin but am hoping (and my case nurse agrees) that I should adjust. Sadly, my doctor has doubled my dose, but with my stomach issues, he is allowing me to gradually make that increase rather than all at once. Hopefully, it will smooth out because it's bad enough to lose so many of my favorite sweets but to feel so sick all the time -- it really just sucks.

If somebody asked me something that I didn't answer, please post it again to remind me.

I know about the problems you have with moving about, that is why I suggested Meals on Wheels. My sister has similar issues on her "OFF" days which, until dad went batshit, were few since I moved here.

For tuna salad I just add relish instead of chopping vegies and maybe some capers as well as of course mayo. I have a few flavoured president's choice "mayos" to jazz things up (the bacon flavoured one is good with chopped egg).

A good thread on food and some interesting ideas put forth. Why is it so hard in this land of plenty to eat a good healthy diet? The corollary is, why do people's diets get so restricted as we get older? Just doesn't seem fair. I'm still bitter about not being able to drink real coffee with caffeine in it. BlackSpinner: capers are great sprinkled on so many things: egg salad, pork chops, chicken, regular salad dressings,mixed with mayo on sandwiches and so forth.

Madalot wrote: I can't get up again and walk into another room to turn on the oxygen concentrator, then walk back. It's not gonna happen.

there are inexpensive remote controlled power switches that you could use to turn on and turn off the concentrator from the spare room.

for example: http://smile.amazon.com/Etekcity-ZAP-1L ... mote+power

there are others that give you multiple outlets you can control from a single remote... it could be handy for you.

Madalot,

I think you are right: It is hard for us to really understand what it's like to be in your shoes. Your description of making the tunafish salad should, however, give anybody who reads it a real understanding of how difficult and exhausting it is for you to do things that most of us do without thinking.

You do what you have to do. And if that means retiring to bed and watching tv until you're ready to go to sleep, the heck with the fact that it's not good sleep hygiene. Likewise, you've worked with the doc and had the overnight study done that shows it is OK for you to do without the O2 concentrator. So why bother trying to "fix" the problem of a noisy O2 concentrator that you technically don't need right now.

As far as the kitchen stuff goes: I wonder if there's any way that you and hubby could reorganize things in the kitchen to make it easier for you. Obviously you can't do the reorganizing yourself, but maybe if the two of you put your heads together while actually looking at the current kitchen organization, some small changes might occur to you, and even small changes might make it easier for you to independently get yourself a bite to eat when you want to.

For example, maybe you could simply store some of the most commonly needed items on the kitchen counters: If there's always a mixing bowl (or two) and a storage container (or two) on the kitchen counters, that saves you a few steps and some reaching and grabbing for things that are stored in the cabinets. Storing some silverware and knives in a caddy on the counter you use for mixing stuff up might save a few steps (as well as the irritation of "why didn't I remember to get the knife when I was over there?") If the canned goods can be stored near the can opener, that saves a few more steps. Reorganizing the inside of the refrigerator to make it easier for you to grab what you need might also help. (When I reorganized my frail and elderly MIL's refrigerator several years ago because she could no longer reach the water pitcher, milk, and juice containers on the top shelf she was amazed at how big of a difference much such a small change made for her in terms of getting herself lunch and snacks: Moving those large and heavy containers so that they are within an easy reaching distance for her means that she can get herself something to drink whenever she wants and she's no longer afraid of dropping the whole container on the floor.)

Best of luck in finding ways to cope with the new diagnosis of diabetes as well as all the existing things you have been living with for years.

As far as the kitchen stuff goes: I wonder if there's any way that you and hubby could reorganize things in the kitchen to make it easier for you.

One of my conditions in moving here was that I got to reorganize the kitchen - It was designed for someone at least 6 inches taller and had a longer reach then me who didn't do much cooking from scratch. I could hardly reach the stuff I normally cooked with while using a stool! Preparing meals was an exhausting marathon of climbing and walking before I cleared and sorted the kitchen. Now everything I use most often is less then one step away and at my height.