Monday, March 07, 2011

The Real Kangaroo

Sorry for causing concern. That was not my intention.
Here is the story about the kangaroo....Every once in awhile my immune system has a major freak out and I go into anaphalptic shock (usually it has a reason for this unreasonable behavior). In the aftermath of such a severe allergic reaction the doctor puts me on prednisone (oral steroids). Steroids are a strange thing and do strange things to a person's body. For me, it makes me feel like I have a kangaroo in my brain. That's really the best way I have to describe it. My brain jumps all over the place. The kangaroo goes crazy. Strange stuff comes out of my mouth. I write strange things on facebook and my blog without thinking about them. I talk really fast. The Kangaroo also gets super hungry and eats lots and lots of food. Sometimes he's grumpy too. Right now he's tired, so I have a bit of peace. the drugs also make me moody. Not fun.
Getting rid of the kangaroo is a long slow process, because if you kick him out too fast he gets super mad and you get super sick. Think drug withdrawal, because that is what it is. The kangaroo will be completely gone on Saturday and that will be a relief.
This is not a great week to be on kangaroo drugs since I will be preaching in church for the first time on Sunday and I'm really struggling with my sermon right now.
So that is the kangaroo story. nothing really to worry about.

Kangaroos

There is a kangaroo in my brain.  He was grumpy earlier today, but now he is wide awake and going crazy.  I am feeding him homemade soy yoghurt with ribena and berries and black current juice.  He likes that.  That's because most kangaroos are herbavoires.  That means they eat plants.  Some kangaroos are omnivores.  They eat a little bit of meat sometimes.  My kangaroo is an omnivore.  He eats a lot of meat.  He likes meat.
That is all.  Time to make him some sausage.  Yummy!

Sunday, March 06, 2011

Lessons from an Epi-Pen

Those of you who know me well, or have been reading my blog for awhile, know that I have multiple life-threatening allergies, as well as multiple non-life-threatening allergies, to both food and medications.  I carry two doses of epinephrine on my person at almost all times (exceptions: sleeping, showering, swimming).  In fact, I carry epinephrine on my person so religiously that we used it as a memory device for the Greek preposition επι meaning "on" because the epi-pen is always on Joy.  If you do not know how to administer an Epi-pen, please stop reading this right now and go read these two blog posts (Post 1, Post 2). Please read them.  They contain life saving information.  For real. If you know how to administer an Epi-Pen keep reading...
Anyone who has ever used an epi-pen knows that it hurts.  Yes, it saves your life, but it also hurts. There is, after all, a rather large needle being forcibly pushed into your thigh muscle.  Anyone who has been with me when I have had an allergic reaction knows that I hate having to use my Epi-pen.  I will usually do everything possible to convince both me and everyone else that I really don't need it.  This usually includes taking lots of Benadryl and waiting until I have absolutely no choice but to use the Epi-pen.  By this point I am typically only semi-conscious (not breathing will do that to you) and unable to give the epinephrine to myself.  So someone else gets to do the honors.  Then it's usually a mad dash to the hospital where the doctors and nurses (and sometimes respiratory therapists) fight to bring me back to breathing on my own. It usually involves lots of needles, oxygen, monitors, collapsing blood vessels, drugs and organized chaos to keep me from dying.  As well as a lecture on using my Epi-pen at the first sign of a severe reaction instead of waiting, which I usually counter with some sort of excuse about the pens being so expensive and wanting to wait until I'm actually sure I need to use it. Overall, not a pleasant experience.

Last week I was blindsided by a snack that was not as Joy-friendly as I was led to believe it was.  Within moments of eating it, I broke out in hives around my mouth and throat, my heart rate started going crazy, I got sick to my stomach, and shortly thereafter my breathing became labored.  After a brief moment of panic during which I thought I was home alone and mentally ran through a list of people who might actually answer their phones if I called needing a ride to the hospital (I try and avoid the ambulance if I can), I realized my roommate was indeed home and went downstairs to tell her that I had loaded up on Benadryl and was maybe going to need the Epi-Pen.  Because my roommate is amazing she was super calm about the whole thing and we waited to see if the Benadryl was going to do its job or not. After waiting 15 minutes for the Benadryl to kick in, and feeling it kick in but not reverse the reaction, I realized that I was going to need the Epi-pen.  At this point I was still completely conscious and could even still kind of talk.  I actually gave the epinephrine to myself for the first time, while LDK called the library where she had to work in half an hour to tell them she would be late (I have awesome roommates, just saying) and went next door to grab a neighbor to help me to the car (epinephrine makes me really woozy).   On the way to the hospital the epinephrine did its thing and by the time we got there, other than my blood pressure doing silly things (side effect of epinephrine), my vitals were good.  I still had hives, but I was breathing on my own with a large degree of success.  After a round of oral steroids and some meds for my stomach, they kept me for about 2.5 hours and then sent me home - no needle sticks, oxygen, monitors, or organized chaos.
When all was said and done and I came out of the drug induced haze (okay, I'm still coming out of it and will be for a few days yet) I looked back on the whole ordeal and tried to figure out what made this particular reaction so different from past  reactions and what I could learn from that. The suspected allergen in this case was nuts of some sort, one of my major allergens. Past nut reactions had resulted in reactions similar to the ones described in the linked posts above.  It would take a couple days before I was anywhere close to back to normal and a week or more before the bruises on my arms would fade.  This time it was different.  Once I figured out that the prescription antacid that the doctor had given me was full of cornstarch and making me very sick and stopped taking it, I was pretty much back to normal (well, normal with a prednisone kangaroo in my brain).

I finally figured out the difference.  I had taken the epinephrine early on. I knew it was going to hurt like crazy, but more importantly I knew I needed it.  Usually stubborn gets in the way and even though I know I need it, the desire to avoid the pain overrules the common sense.  In the end, it results in an even more painful process (trust me, having nurses fight to start IV's while your blood pressure plummets and your veins collapse is way more painful than a dose of epinephrine).
As I thought about it, I realized that it is much the same way in my walk with Jesus.  I know that letting Him work in my life is going to be painful.  There's a lot of junk He has to deal with.  And I know I need Him to deal with it, because I can't fix it myself. But often, stubborn wins, and I try and fix things on my own.  And I fail.  In the end, the process of Him fixing things up is more painful than if I had stopped being stubborn earlier, because in the end, He always gets His way, just like in the end, the drugs needed to save my life always get into me.
It's easier on me (and everyone involved) if I just take the epinephrine when I know I need it instead of waiting until I'm almost dead.  Likewise, it's easier if I cooperate with Jesus when He is trying to make changes in my life instead of waiting until I'm at the end of my rope, dangling between a rock and hard place, with nowhere to go except down, but I can't even really go down because I'm already at rock bottom.
How would my life be different if I stopped being stubborn? Is it even possible?  And if it is possible, is it a good thing?
Enough thoughts for now.   The kangaroo is waking up.

Friday, March 04, 2011

Chicken Parmesan

Back in January my roommate and I made "Red Hooker Lipstick" soup, which was a little like tomato soup.   It got us thinking about what else we could make along that same theme - tomato-like, but tomato-free.  I've not had tomato in many years because I am allergic to it, so this prospect excited me.  LDK found a recipe online for tomato-free "Marinara" sauce and we'd talked about trying it out sometime, but never did. Until tonight.
LDK suggested we make Chicken Parmesan for dinner.  I had never had Chicken Parmesan before, but when she described it to me, it sounded good.  (Actually, the original plan was for chicken nuggets with roasted Jerusalem artichokes and turnip...somehow we strayed from that).  For those of you, who like me, are unfamiliar with Chicken Parmesan, it is a dish that has breaded chicken covered in marinara sauce and mozzarella cheese.  I'm not sure why it is called Chicken Parmesan because it has no Parmesan in it.  Go figure.
Anyhow, "normal" Chicken Parmesan would be bad news for me on so many levels: breaded chicken usually has wheat and gluten in the bread, and sometimes egg on the chicken to make the bread crumbs stick better, marinara sauce is full of tomatoes, and cheese is full of dairy.  So pretty much, in order to make this Joy-Friendly, we had to substitute everything except the chicken itself. However difficult this might seem, we felt we were up the challenge.
I started by breading the chicken using PaneRiso bread crumbs and put it in a lightly oiled pan, while LDK chopped up some onion.
click to enlarge

With the chicken safely in the oven I pureed a can of beets (15oz, instead of 8oz like the recipe suggested...mostly because I forgot to read/listen) and LDK started frying the onion and some minced garlic in a little oil.
Click to enlarge
When the onion was translucent and soft we added the lemon juice and balsamic vinegar and then the pumpkin puree, beet puree, chicken broth, and some season as suggested by the recipe.  Had we been thinking we would have realized that we had more than 8oz of beets and 2 cups of pumpkin and adjusted the lemon juice and vinegar accordingly.  Live and learn.
While the "marinara" sauce cooked I boiled some Joy-Pasta.  I kid you not, that is its real name.  See?

When the chicken was cooked we poured "marinara" sauce on it and sprinkled it with Daiya mozzarella cheese.  Daiya is quickly becoming a favorite of mine because it tastes good and behaves like "normal" cheese.  Then we popped it back in the oven to get all yummy while the pasta finished up.
Finally we were ready for the table.  Our main dish looked beautiful and smelled really good (sorry, scratch and sniff technology has not been invented for the computer yet).
We also had a big bowl of pasta and one of extra marinara sauce for our pasta.
 This is LDK's plate because it was prettier than mine...I failed at taking my chicken from the pan neatly.

And that my friends, is the story of allergy free Chicken Parmesan.

Overall this recipe gets a "thumbs-up" or "come again", depending on which recipe rating scale you are using. The idea of using beets and squashes along with citrus juices and vinegars has opened a whole new world of possibilities.  I can imagine chili's and ketchups and spaghetti with meatballs and cabbage rolls and pizza sauce and salsa and....the possibilities are endless.  It's like adding tomato back into my diet without actually doing so. 

How Not to Study for Midterms

Back in December I wrote a post about how to study for finals, now you get the "how not to study for midterms post", because really, it takes skill to study as awfully as I have this time around.  I do not recommend this.
1. About a month before midterms, get a sinus infection
2. About 3 weeks before midterms, get influenza and miss many classes.
3. About 2 weeks before midterms, while you still are trying to get over influenza, get mono and miss some more classes.
4. Sleep pretty much anytime you are not actually in class because you have mono.
5. Agree to preach the Sunday after midterm week so that you can stress about that during midterms.
6. The day before midterms, have a severe allergic reaction and go to the hospital.  By doing this you will end up drugged and groggy for the next week, thus impeding both the studying for and the taking of, midterms.
7. At about 5pm (or maybe 5:30pm) the day before take a large dose of Prednisone (60-80mg...I forget how much it actually was), so that at 3am the day of your midterms you are wide awake with a kangaroo in your brain and hungrier than a bear.  The kangaroo will impede both further sleep and effective studying.
8. Pray for understanding professors.
9. Show up to your first midterm a little early and explain to your professor what has happened.  Convince him to let you take the midterm early next week.
10.  Realize that you have about an hour and half of coherency between your 4am dose of Benadryl wearing off and your prednisone kicking in and your next dose of Benadryl.  Find your second hour prof and convince him to let you take your second hour midterm during first hour, since you'll be more coherent then than an other time during the day.
11.  Take your second hour midterm, go to chapel, go home, take your next dose of Benadryl and watch a Disney movie while you snooze on the couch.
12. Hope that you never have another round of midterms this bad.

Thursday, March 03, 2011

Made for Community

I preached this sermon in preaching lab the other day.  I've shared it with a few people and gotten some positive feedback and requests for permission to pass it on, so I decided to to post it here, in the hope that maybe G-d's word would touch at least one life. 
My text was Luke 5: 17-26.

He sat there watching the world go by.  He’d heard his parents talk about a man called Jesus, a man who had made people walk, given sight back to blind people, fed huge crowds with small amounts of food and done all sorts of other marvelous things.  His mother said he should go see this Jesus fellow. The trouble was, he couldn’t go, even if he wanted to.  He was lame; completely paralyzed and unable to go anywhere.  How many years had he been like that? It was more than he could remember. His mama said that when he was a child he used to run and play with the others.  He wished he could remember what life had been like when his legs were not withered and useless, but try as he might, all he could remember was this way of being, this uselessness, this state of being completely unable to help himself. He sighed and wondered what this Jesus-man was like and wished he could go see him for himself, instead of just hearing stories about him. Maybe, if he could get to Jesus, he could find healing.  Maybe then, life would go back to the way it had been before.
He heard someone call his name and he looked up from his musings.  He saw a group of his friends walking excitedly towards him.  As they got closer he listened to what they were saying.  The Jesus-man he had heard so much about was in his town.  His friends had all been to see him. He tried to be happy for them, but in his heart, he wished he had been able to be there with them.  Suddenly, four of them came over and picked up the mat he was laying on and began to carry it down the street.  Rest of his friends followed.  He could see a house up ahead, so full of people that they were spilling out into the street.  “Jesus is there” said his friends.  His heart sank.  He was so close, yet so far away.  There was no way that his friends could maneuver his mat through that crowd so that he could see Jesus. Abruptly, his friends turned away from the door and headed up the steps to the roof. They carried him up the roof and working in the hot sun, made a hole in the roof. Then, they lowered him through the hole, right in front of the Jesus he had heard so much about.  Jesus looked down at him laying on the floor and up at his friends, peering down through the hole in the roof.  And then, the most wonderful thing happened.  Jesus healed him.  He stood up and walked through the crowd, carrying his mat.  He could walk.  This was even better than the before time, because now, he had met Jesus.
How often do we sit like that man and try to remember what life was like?  Maybe we want to remember what life was like before we got sick.  Maybe we want to remember what life was like before our parents got a divorce.  Maybe there was a time before alcohol, or drugs, or pornography, or work, or Facebook took over our lives.  Maybe we wonder if there was ever a time in our lives when we didn’t do battle with depression or bipolar disorder or food.  We try and remember that before time, and maybe sometimes we can get a little glimpse, a fleeting memory, but now, all we know is life the way it is now.  We’ve heard that somewhere, somehow there is healing.  We long for things to be different, to be able to return to that before time, but we don’t know how to get there.
We know the healing is out there.  We’ve heard it talked about it and we’ve longed to experience it ourselves, but we can’t seem to get there on our own.  Maybe we don’t know the way.  Maybe we don’t have the resources to afford it.   Maybe we just need that extra little push forward or the support of a good friend or group of friends.  Verse 20 says that it was when Jesus saw their faith that he healed the paralyzed man.  We were made to live in community, to give help and to accept help.  The paralyzed man could have refused to let his friends help him.  He could have resolved to do it all by himself.  His friends could have refused to help him.  They could have not bothered to make the hole in the roof.  In either case, he would not have made it to Jesus and would not have experienced healing.  Sometimes, we can’t do it on our own. Sometimes we need a friend to carry us along the way to Jesus, so that we can experience healing and go to a place that is even better than the before place that we had longed for.
Amen.

Tuesday, March 01, 2011

You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!

This is an interactive blog post.  In other words, I need your comments on this.  If you are viewing from Facebook, leave your comments there.  If you are reading this from blogger, please comment there...you do not have to have a blogger account to comment.  Anyone can comment.  So please, comment. Pretty please.
On to the post...
Over the weekend I made gingerbread.  It was yummy.  They were supposed to be gingerbread men, but I didn't have a man-cutter, so I used LDK's tulip cutter. They looked like dancing angels.  I got bored with tulip/angels after a time (my dough was a little sticky...there is a difference between 1/4 cup and 1/2 cup of molasses, just sayin') and switched to making gingerbread blobs instead.  Then LDK helped me frost them.
This gingerbread making adventure made me realize that I have never made a gingerbread house.   This is mostly due to the fact that making a gingerbread that sticks together and isn't a crumbly mess, yet is still Joy-friendly, has up until now been elusive.  Cybele Pascal fixed that in her allergen-free bakers handbook. (buy the book, it's great!)
The realization that I had never made a gingerbread house stirred a desire in me to make a gingerbread house.  Easter is only 53 days away and seems a fitting time to make a gingerbread house (before you assume I'm crazy, recall how I celebrated Christmas and why I celebrated that way). Beings as I have never made a gingerbread house, I do not know what kind of candy I should get for decorating.  Getting candy is a bit of a challenge for me because in the USA most candy has corn syrup in it and this causes issues for me.  So my options are to either convince Mommy to do a Bulk Barn run and mail (or carrier pigeon) me some corn-free candy or to order online.
Either way, this is going to take time, so I need your feedback now:  What types of candy are absolutely necessary for gingerbread house making?