You know those days

That you start thinking and feel depressed and start getting mad about everything and before long you're pissed at pretty much everyone you've ever met and you feel like punching the next person who crosses your path and yet you haven't said a word to anyone? That's a good description of my week. So I'm going to sit here with a pot noodle and old QI episodes to try to cheer myself up instead of verbally combusting on people who well and truly deserve it.

Today I went to:

Grocery store
Korean store
Joanns
Bank
City offices to pay utility bill

Cioppino

So, cioppino. A seafood soup from Fisherman's Wharf, the original San Francisco treat (forget that rice-a-roni stuff). There are two origins of the name, one is a bastardization of the Italian seafood soup "ciuppin". The other is when the fishermen would come back with their catches, and someone would start a soup for dinner and the fishermen would "chip in, no?" (which is how I remember how it's pronounced). Either way, it's tasty and very messy. Frozen seafood is okay, fresh is better (Costco's selection is excellent), clams and shrimp are probably the least expensive, and ultimately, it's whatever you like. The recipe I adapted is from here.

Makes 4 dinner size portions
Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour

Total Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup butter
2 ribs celery, chopped
1 onion, diced
1 can crushed tomatoes (28 oz)
2 cups clam juice or fish stock (or substitute chicken or veggie broth)
2 cups chicken or veggie broth or water
4 cloves crushed or minced garlic equivalent
1/2 lb baby or 2-3 gold potatoes, cubed into 1" chunks (optional, but nice to stretch it out if you are lacking seafood or want it to be a little more "full")
1 lemon, juiced or 2 tbsps lemon juice
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
2 bay leaves
2 teaspoons dried basil
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes, or to taste
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground pepper

3-5 lbs seafood, my breakdown is usually something like this:

     1 Dungeness crab (about 2-lbs), cracked and cleaned (save the shells)

     1 to 1 1/2 lbs pounds a white fish (halibut, cod, etc), skinned and cut into 1" chunks
     1 to 1 1/2 lbs large prawns, peeled and de-veined (I like the kinds with heads and save the shells)
     1-2 lbs mussels and/or clams; soaked, scrubbed and debearded

     Other options are squid, scallops, salmon, snapper, cockles, oysters, canned clams or basically anything you want.

1/2 bunch Italian parsley, chopped for garnish, but it does add a nice crunch at the end
lemons
sourdough bread

Preparation:

Clean seafood. Combine soft parts of crab shells, and shrimp heads and shells into a saucepan, cover with water and simmer until shrimp shells are spent and soft. Drain out shells and save broth.

Meanwhile in a large pot, melt the butter with the olive oil and saute the celery and onions until soft. Add crushed tomatoes, all broths (fish stock, canned, and chicken), garlic, potatoes, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, and all spices. Simmer on low for one hour. Add more chicken stock if it gets thick (should be stew-like)

Add the crab, shrimp, and fish, and simmer another five minutes. Add the shellfish, cover the pot and simmer for 5 minutes more, or until the mussels and/or clams open and fish is tender. Serve hot with parsley and lemons and lots and lots of sourdough bread.

Stabby

I'd normally blog about tonight, but this has been one of those days that something must die. And to make sure it's not you, gentle reader, I will save the blogging for tomorrow. Maybe I'll even post my cioppino recipe.

Seafood diet

So the increased appetite side effect kicked in today. I was in the grocery store when I felt the need to try to buy and eat EVERYTHING. I tried to buy my weight in sushi, seafood, and pot noodles. Most of the fish went into cioppino tonight and the sushi was devoured for lunch along with a grilled cheese. I'm hoping that I won't weigh a thousand pounds before this course of prednisone is over. Fortunately, I talked my doctor into prescribing metformin for me (which is going to be a long term medication) which will off set any appetite issues. I can't start it for another day because she wanted me to be on the prednisone for a week to make sure there weren't any bad side effects. In the mean time, a can of olives is a perfectly valid bedtime snack, right guys?

Today I:

Took both kids to speech therapy
Washed all of Alana's bedding
Grocery store
Made some kick-ass cioppino

Good news/bad news

So the good news is that the prednisone is obviously working since my lump is shrinking quickly. The bad news is that I've had a consistent and sometimes very painful ache in my lower back which makes me immediately freak out about kidney failure brought on by the prednisone. And of course it has to be the weekend so I can't call the nurse.

Today I:

Sewing with Mindy
Lunch with Mindy and my mom
Laundry (three loads so far)
Cleaned my counters, glass top, and floors. Then cooked dinner and realized you can't tell I did anything today.

10/10

Today I:

Sewing with Mindy
Grocery store
Parent's night for the kids's school

Side Effects

Difficulty controlling emotion
Difficulty in maintaining train of thought
Weight gain
Facial swelling
Depression, mania, psychosis, or other psychiatric symptoms
Unusual fatigue or weakness
Mental confusion / indecisiveness
Blurred vision
Abdominal pain
Peptic ulcer
Infections
Painful hips or shoulders
Steroid-induced osteoporosis
Stretch marks
Osteonecrosis
Long-term migraines
Insomnia
Severe joint pain
Cataracts or glaucoma
Anxiety
Stomach pain or bloating
Severe swelling
Mouth sores or dry mouth
Nervousness
Acne
Rash
Increased appetite
Hyperactivity
Frequent urination
Diarrhea
Leg pain/cramps
Sensitive teeth

These are all side effects of prednisone. Guess what I got prescribed today. I went to my appointment with the Martha Clay, the RN that I was referred to after being diagnosed with granuloma mastitis. This time I gave myself plenty of time to get down there, arriving 45 minutes before my check in time which was a half hour before my actually appointment. So I bought myself a sub because I hadn't eaten breakfast or lunch, then waited around for a very long time. I got back to the exam room and was asked about my records, which is when I realized I had left them in the my car....which was at home because I had taken Justin's car. ARGH. So she read through the pathology report, felt me up, and then left so I could get dressed. She came back to talk to me about my options. Option 1 was to wait and see if this would go away. Chances were miniscule this was going to happen. More likely, she said was going to happen would be the tissue would start to deteriorate, and I could get fistulas through the skin so the granuloma could drain out in the form of pus (???!!??). This would be painful and icky. Option 2 was to take massive amounts of prednisone, an immunosuppressive steroid that would probably cause the inflammation to go away but had a laundry list of side effects that are very common. Option 3 was to take methotrexate, a drug that is used to treat autoimmune disorders, as well as cancer, multiple sclerosis, and to induce abortions. This would most definitely take care of the granuloma, but she would have to refer me to a rheumatologist to get a prescription and I could have to get regular liver function tests to make sure I wasn't killing my liver.

Since driving to get my blood drawn every day isn't really an option, and I didn't really want to see pus leaking fistulas on my boob, I went with option 2. Which means I get to be on a powerful drug that will make my insomnia worse, my depression and anxiety very apparent, and put stress on my already screwy glucose levels. Woot.

I forgot to mention that somehow I lost the parking time stamp ticket and was frantically ripping my car apart when I was supposed to pay. Fortunately, the very kind parking attendant took me at my word and just charged me for the time I was supposedly parked.

Today I:
Survived downtown to be poked by yet another person who is only interested in me for my body.
Returned books to the library.
Went to Costco to fill a prescription.