We knew it might come to this...

James went to the doctor a few days before his heart attack and had a creatitine score of 2.8. After the attack it jumped into the 3 point area, but it didn't appreciably go up after the cath/stent, just like last time. But now it has jumped to 4 and they don't know why, save that it is probably a late reaction to the dye used in the cath process. There is a chance James might have to go on dialysis.

When we saw the nephrologist on Wednesday, he wanted to try something first: taking him off his diuretic for three days, in case his kidneys are being overworked by the diuretic. So we are being oh-so-careful for the next three days with the salt (not that we're exactly using salt that much these days) so that it won't aggravate the situation. We are to watch out for swelling, weight gain, blisters on his cellulitis, and especially breathing problems to show water is building up in his body.

So yesterday I did a cooking experiment. Don't faint. I do do them sometimes. For a while I have been thinking about my mom’s chicken cutlets. As I said, I'm not into cooking, so I never much paid attention to what she did to cook them. She just grilled them in a frying pan, and they had a nice brown crusty outside and tasted good inside. I guess they were chicken breasts, or as those flat pieces are called, chicken tenderloins. I don't consider chicken breast fit food for anyone. Dry, tasteless things. Anyway, wanted to make something by hand that would be very low salt; ran to both Publix and Sprouts at lunch, with the idea of taking Sprouts' shredded chicken and making a soup with no sodium broth. Sprouts didn't have any ready (really upset at this, as Sprouts has never let me down before), so it was a good thing I had picked up boneless skinless chicken thighs at Publix.

At dinnertime I took the thighs and cooked them on the griddle on top of the stove. Minimal olive oil, showed it a picture of salt, put ginger, tumeric, and cinnamon on one side, kept them flat using the bacon press. I cooked them on each side about a minute, and they took about eight minutes each all together. When they were done I used a scant teaspoon of bourbon pineapple glaze and a half teaspoon of sweet onion relish on each as a finishing sauce.

It was, amazingly, delicious and juicy. We had it with a side of applesauce. Must do that again. Of course this stove helps. If you pay attention to your cooking it does everything brilliantly.

So today was my off day, which, yes, I took advantage of by sleeping in until 8:30. After breakfast and pooch perambulation, I headed toward Buckhead, since there was another book sale at the Northside Library today. I first stopped for gasoline at Costco, then, since I was going to be in the area anyway, drove into Buckhead to check out the Barnes & Noble. Found a new "Best of British" as well as the new "Smoky Mountain Living" and an autumn issue of "Down East." I checked out the books and the clearance items, but didn't buy anything except for the magazines. There's a coupon this weekend, but not sure I want to use it on the new Flavia DeLuce book or not. I find myself getting a bit tired of Flavia, but perhaps it was just that last book.

I reached the library exactly at noon when they open. Not a lot there, but I found a copy of Tasha Tudor's Take Joy!  Christmas book. This was badly foxed on the top, but it had an embossed cover and decorated endpapers, plus a dust jacket. Since it was only a dollar, I bought it, even though I have a copy. (Checked out my own copy and it looks like it is a less expensive knockoff. Same content, but a plainer book.) I also bought Fred Allen's Much Ado About Me.

I still was determined to try to make that soup tonight, so on the way home from the library I stopped at Sprouts. They had exactly one package of shredded chicken meat left, which I brought home with some cashews for James and some "Asian-inspired chicken soup" (it had ginseng in it) for my lunch, since by that time it was 1:30 and I was as hungry as Red-Riding Hood's wolf. The latter was good, but came up on me all afternoon. I should know better.

I spent the rest of the afternoon vacuuming, loading the dishwasher, making the bed, and fixing up the Take Joy! dust jacket.

The resulting supper soup was...okay. Needed salt. 😊 I put one container of no salt chicken broth, about half a container of no salt vegetable broth, a big sprinkle of Litehouse salad greens, some vegetable flakes, and a freshly sliced stalk of celery in a saucepan with most of the shredded chicken and just let it simmer from 4:30 to when James got home. I cooked some vermicelli noodles to go with it and it made a nice filling dinner. Later we watched Doctor Who—well, I watched it; James had dozed off during the news—and I had on a couple of episodes of Lassie until Hawaii Five-0 came on. I like that they are not forgetting that Chin Ho and Kono are gone, and are still missing them. We also met the new guy tonight, an ex-Navy SEAL. He will have to go through the police academy before McGarrett will take him on. He has a sweet smile. I liked the subplot of McGarrett getting involved with the injured drug dog.

Labels: books, cooking, food, health, magazines, television

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