I thought you might be remotely interested in this particular post since some of my blog is food-related. Here is just a tantalizing taste of what I ate (or didn't eat) during my 6 day hospital stay. I had a fever of 102 on our wedding anniversary last week. Instead of going to Bite or Eclipse Chocolat, we spent it in the hospital where I was to remain until being discharged this morning.
The short story - had infection/got hellacious hives (whereupon my arms and legs looked like an angry human relief map) and a "neutropenic fever"/had to go to ER and after nearly 8 hours, had my own private room which became my home for nearly a week. If my fever spiked, I couldn't be released until I was 36 hours fever free. So, it was kind of up and down for me. Thank goodness my husband stayed with me at night too and that my family visited me. I had no internet access either so I ended up doing a lot of reading and watching movies on the laptop.
My diet was "Neutropenic", therefore, I was and currently still not allowed to have fresh fruit I am supposed to stay away from "thin-skinned fruits" like apples and pears; I can eat bananas or oranges which have thick rinds however. When one is neutropenic, one is more prone to get infections, so my food was pretty bland and boring. Nothing raw. Vegetables were cooked down to the same soft consistency which would have been great if I had no taste buds or any teeth.
BREAKFASTS (or should I say Breakfasteses):
1 pat Margarine (1 pat)
1 tiny packet of salt Salt
1 8 oz Milk 1%
1 each Orange Juice
2 Wheat Grain Pancakes w/Syrup
1 6 oz Coffee
1 each Creamer
------the other variation had pancakes with Scrambled Eggs
Another Breakfast had almost the exact thing, except in place of pancakes, it was "French Toast" with apple juice. All the breakfasts had a mini cereal box (either Cheerios, Total or Corn Flakes). I'm not a milk drinker so I told them not to give me any more more. Instead, they gave me a mysterious container that had "MM" written on it. That turned out to be Mocha Mix, their milk substitute.
Yummy.
Gag.
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Lunches:
(all lunches + dinners hd 1 pat of margarine and 1 salt)
1 each Cranberry Juice
1 serving of Fruit Neutropenic (either canned peaches or pears or fruit cocktail)
1 serving Saltine Crackers
1 cup of Mashed Potato (with skins on)
1 1/3 cup Mushroom Barley
1 1/2 cup Oregon Blend Veg. (don't know what makes it "Oregonian" since it was just lima beans and green beans)
1 3 each Chicken Tenders (surprisingly enough, these were edible but I was surprised that they gave 3 for one serving because they were pretty big; I only ate 1 and 1/2)
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(sorry about the crappy formatting - can't figure out why it's double spacing)
Here's another lunch entree:
1 3 oz. portion + 1 oz. gravy Hot Beef Sandwich (it was 1 slice of bread with brown goo and a slab of greyish brown meat. Nice. Hot Beef Sandwich.
1 1/2 cup of Veg. Germany Blend (although I'm not sure what made this Teutonic--it was just canned green and yellow beans with flecks of red bell pepper)
another entree item was
1 1/2 cup White Rice (this was truly heinous Uncle Ben's style rice)
1 1/2 cup Zucchini
1 2 oz portion + 1 oz sauce Teriyaki Chicken (this was a thin, flattened chicken breast that was only slightly edible due to the thin smear of teriyaki sauce)
...and the featured juice of the day was Grape!
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Dinners:
1 serving of Fruit, Neutropenic (canned peaches or pears - I don't remember!)
1 6 oz Soup - Cream of Chicken (this was the grossest soup ever - it wasn't creamy at all but very thin and watery...much like diarrhea in looks and consistency: Yellowish and with a few bits of mealy solids settled at the bottom of the bowl. One sniff of the thinly coated spoon of dripping anal spew was all it took to make me blanch at the thought of ingesting this subhuman abomination.
1 1/2 cup Italian Blend Vegs. (hmmm, they seem to like "naming" these vegetable blends.)
1 3 oz. protein + 2 oz. sauce which was Chicken with Lemon Caper Sauce (it was a flattened breast of chicken covered with sauce and a few chopped capers. I didn't bother to smell it.)
I didn't consume any of this swill. My parents ended up visiting and saving the day by bringing me ribeye steak with rice and corn.
Another entree:
1 Fruit, Neutropenic
1 6 oz Soup - Chicken Noodle (see description of soup above, but with noodles. Same reaction)
1 white roll
1 1/2 cup Capri Blend Veg (Oregon?German? Italian, now Capri?)
1 9 oz Chicken Pasta Alfredo (these were farfalle and the sauce was really watery and you could see the separation of the oil and the cheese).
In all, not very appetizing. I think I just ate the fruit for this and a few pieces of the veg.
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This was my "4th of July" Dinner (which I actually didn't eat because again, my parents visited me and gave me Filipino food instead - meat/rice/pinakbet)
1 serving Fruit, Neutropenic
1 "Star Spangled Cookie" - this was actually a mini packet of Lorna Doone shortbread cookies
1 6 oz Soup - Cream of Tomato (I didn't even try it but my daughter did and she liked it and actually finished it)
1 flour tortilla
1 1/2 cup carrots (cut into thick wavy slices - again, enjoyed by my daughter. I think this is the kind of food she's used to eating in the school cafeteria)
1 1/2 cup Parsley Potato (mashed potatoes with skin on, this actually tasted decent)
1 3 each Chicken Tenders (Actually, I would have eaten these if my parents hadn't come ewith food. I think this was the day I ordered Chicken Tenders twice.)
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This is just a sampling of what I ate. I am not trying to sound ungrateful but...
Oh.
My.
Gosh.
Some of that food was simply inedible. I didn't want to make a fuss and ask for substitutions or have it taken back. I wouldn't want to incur the wrath of the hospital cook! Kidding. But seriously, I know other people didn't have a choice like I did (with people bringing me food) and I'm sure there were many other patients with worse physical problems that didn't care about something as trivial as food. If anything, I did have a somewhat active hand in choosing what I could eat. Every morning the nutritionist would visit me and take my "orders" for lunch and dinner from a list of choices. It was like asking me if I would rather eat a dog turd or a cat turd or a rat turd. The choices were rather dismal so I made my half-hearted selections, knowing that my parents would save me most of the days. There was one day where I had chicken tenders twice but for dinner I ended up eating something else. There was another day where Thane visited me and brought me rolled tacos (my request), but those aren't really fun to eat without guacamole which is verboten for me.
My sis visited me the other day and brought her laptop and one of my favorite movies...
You guessed it....
Fast Times at Ridgemont High!!!!
It was kind of funny because the movie was just in the background. We weren't really watching it since we were just kicking back and talking, but sometimes we tuned in to certain scenes. A nurse walked in to give me my vitals while Jackson Browne's "Somebody's Baby" was playing in the background...during the sex scene where Stacy Hamilton (Jennifer Jason Leigh) was losing her virginity to Ron Johnson, the stereo salesman at the local makeout place, the Point. I don't think the nurse even knew what was happening, but I wanted to crack up. At least she didn't walk in during the swiming pool scene with the very beautiful and foxy Phoebe Cates. If you're a guy over at least 25 with a pulse, you probably know what that scene is. I'm sure your Betamax or VHS copy's tape is quite thin due to that oft-rewinded bit. Fast Times at Ridgemont High has got to be one of the best movies EVER!!!
Looks like I digressed a 'skosh, but hey folks, that was my week in food!!!
I am sure glad to be back home eating normal food again. I'll be playing it safe for about a month though until I can, once again, ingest thin skinned fruits and vegetables without fear of a bacterial infection. Until I can once again swill alcohol in great amounts (just kidding), until I can once again eat berries and fresh salad greens without retribution of a GI tract infection thus compromising my health. Thank goodness I'm okay now, at home and hive free as well.
