Brought Pat home yesterday, noticeably improved. He's certainly better than he was when he went in the hospital and I think better than when he came out after the last stay in March. We both like his new pulmonologist a lot, who has suggested some hopeful avenues to follow.
Okay, the food thing: I'm going to our International Dinner tonight with friends (Pat unable to go) and am looking forward to it. Attendees all bring something and, judging from past dinners, the food will be marvelous. I signed up to make gingered fruit compote, and this horror happened yesterday:
Knowing Pat would probably be discharged, I made the syrup for the compote early. This consists of sugar, water, lemon juice, and--note that this makes the dish--candied ginger. Now, candied ginger is NOT crystallized ginger, which you can buy in any supermarket anytime. It's a seasonal ingredient--mine was left over from Christmas--and is hard to find even then. I was pleased that I had just enough for the syrup, and I snipped it, combined it with the sugar, water, and lemon juice, boiled it up according to directions, and left it on the stove--with a lid on--to cool. I have a cleaning service and they came early yesterday--okay with me, as I had to get Pat and that would be out of the way. While the cleaners scrubbed and vacuumed, I stayed it the study making phone calls, most concerning Pat's condition. (Believe me, when your spouse is chronically ill, you become a case manager whether you signed up for the job or not.) It occurred to me after 15 minutes or so that the syrup would be cool enough to put in the refrig, so I went into the kitchen to do that. Huh--the syrup wasn't on the stove--where was it? Looking around, I saw the clean pan on the counter--AAGH! The cleaners had thought it was a dirty pan left for them to clean and they had dumped out the syrup and washed it! Well, the curtain must fall on my screams of anguish--I really over-reacted--but the upshot was that the foreperson and the owner fell all over themselves apologizing, saying people sometimes leave pans to be washed (from the night before, on the stove, with a lid on??? Gross!) and they thought I had. Anyway, I'm just going to mix the fruit with a non-gingered syrup and I assume nobody will care, anyway.
I think my over-reaction was more about the general stress of my present life than the syrup loss. When things like that happen, especially after dealing with the V.A., the hospital, doctor bills, Medicare, and so on and on, it feels like a vast conspiracy against you.
I'm recovered now and looking forward to the dinner...