Cancer Doctor and Answers

    I thought today would be a good day to just sit down and do some writing. Seems like I don't get to do much of that any more. Although retirement is for sure the most bored I have ever been ..... I swear... I am either bored to death or doing some silly time consuming aggravating paperwork with doctors, banks and anything else that requires hurry up and wait.
    I have all the paperwork I can get done today done. I still have the aggravation of our Chevy 09 crew cab pickup in the shop with flattened ? blown ? lifters that took $200 to tow it into the shop and it will take about $3850 to repair and hopefully trade it in. Have no clue what will fit a 6'3 man and a short wide woman. lol Not only that everyone says every vehicle out there has complications and they don't last long. I guess that means find one that fits we like and has a excellent warranty. This one has only 145,000 miles on it and is very well taken care of. It shouldn't have done this at all.
    Hubby is out of the house in the city for at least a hour or so. Maybe I can get going on this.
    Thursday Jun 11th I went to see the cancer doctor for my 6 month under the hood check up. Everything is great and wonderful thank God. Since December of 19 everyone was telling me how bad off I was. I had no clue then and just barely one now. I told the doctor what everyone was saying. Like my daughter said I coded about 3 or 4 times. The doctor said yes! Every time we gave you heparin ( a blood thinner to prevent blood clots) your heart would stop. Especially if used with the pain meds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heparin
***Heparin is an anticoagulant (blood thinner) that prevents the formation of blood clots. Heparin is used to treat and prevent blood clots caused by certain medical conditions or medical procedures. Heparin is also used before surgery to reduce the risk of blood clots.
     Pharmaceutical-grade heparin is derived from mucosal tissues of slaughtered meat animals such as porcine (pig) intestines or bovine (cattle) lungs. ****

 I know I remember the first time when my daughter stepped out in the hall and said "She's coding" and everyone rushed in but I don't remember anything else like that in the 11 days I was there. I don't know how they brought me back around. Maybe with meds in IV? Had no needles in the chest or electric burn marks so must have been a IV? thing.
ALPHA GAL ALLERGY
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha-gal_allergy
     Bites from certain ticks, such as the lone star tick in the US can transfer this carbohydrate to a victim, have been implicated in the development of this delayed allergic response to consumption of mammalian meat products. A typical allergic reaction to alpha-gal has a delayed onset, occurring 3–8 hours after the consumption of mammalian meat products, in contrast to the typical rapid onset of most food allergies. After the delayed onset, the allergic response is like most food allergies, and especially an IgE-mediated allergy, including severe whole-body itching, hives, angioedema, gastrointestinal upset, and possible anaphylaxis. In 70% of cases the reaction is accompanied by respiratory distress and as such is particularly harmful to those with asthma.
   I can't breathe good at all when I eat something from a mammal. Meat ( from cows,pigs, horses, goats, purposes even!), milk, cheese,gelatin like in jello, beef bullion. sour cream, butter,cream cheese, chili, soups with anything other than chicken or fish.
  I told her since my surgery I discovered I had Alpha-gal allergy, (also known as meat allergy or mammalian meat allergy). Soon as I said that she said "YOU HAVE ALPHA GAL ALLERGY !" You could see the light bulb go off over her head like Well! That explains why your heart kept stopping !
  My husband kept saying they didn't know if I was going to get to come home.  I told her I asked my husband what condition they said I was in. Good , serious , critical, fair or what ? He just growled back at me... "It was obvious! " He gets worried when he thinks about it so he growls. She told me she was thrilled just to get me to FAIR condition. She said she didn't think I was going to pull though but I did. She was really surprised. Now I know why she smiles so big when I walk in and why she said she was thrilled to see me walking after what she did to me. LOL I had to look up what fair condition was if she thought that was good at that time.

Good: Vital signs are stable and within normal limits. Patient is conscious and comfortable. Indicators are excellent.

Fair: Vital signs are stable and within normal limits. Patient is conscious but may be uncomfortable. Indicators are favorable.

Serious: Vital signs may be unstable and not within normal limits. Patient is acutely ill. Indicators are questionable.

Critical: Vital signs are unstable and not within normal limits. Patient may be unconscious. Indicators are unfavorable.

    So after seeing this I can see why there was concern. I told the doctor I like to do nice things for folks that do nice things for me. You saved my life. You live too far away to bake something and bring it. What can I do for you to make your day better. She said she didn't save my life GOD did. So just pray for me please. I said everyone was telling me I was seeing and talking to Angels in the room. She said yes. I have no memory at all of that. Somehow the subject came up about me doing anything in the hospital again. She got all excited and emphatically said "NO!!!! your a good patient but your body doesn't do well in a hospital at all!!" It was really kind of funny the way she reacted like she didn't want to go through that again! LOL Good thing I didn't know anything about it.
    Think about it. Many folks would say I was high as a kite seeing Angels. But I don't think so considering all that was going on. With them showing me Angels around the operating table before the surgery and all my ancestors there then hearing my heart kept stopping on me I firmly believe I had some Angels helping me to live. Pretty darn cool! Just imagine what the doctor was thinking since she believes in God enough to pray for help and every time I tried to kick off I'm talking about Angels and seeing them in the room!
   So .... retirement is boring.......... paperwork is aggravating as can be but somehow you get over it easier when you know your lucky to be alive.

Love
Cancer Free & Alive Ranchmama
(who can't get over the aggravation of the oven being 50* -100*F off and not cooking right)

Cooking Without

      Ya know I have been cussing having to learn how to cook without animal products to be able to breathe decent. Then I got to thinking about it today.
Really any prepper or just regular folks needs to learn how to cook without eggs, butter and milk. Sure right now we have available substitutes for that and can use something like coconut , soy or almond milk but a lot of things you can just use water if you have the right recipe.
    If you have a good supply of dried eggs, milk and shortening or butter stocked up having alternates recipes that doesn't use so much will help your supplies last longer.
    It isn't easy changing something like this if you have been eating and cooking otherwise for 60 years but even though there is a learning curve it's good for the brain to tackle new things! Believe me it is much easier now while we have access and not being stressed in other survival things ( like the earthquakes going on now) to learn than when and if things hit the fan.
   Right now I am learning simple things.... since I am the dessert lady .....
   Here I thought I would finally get to establish some standard recipes to use like the perfect cake cookie or pie and now I have to complicate things with having to do the vegan thing!
   I have always wanted and usually use the "REAL THING" like real butter instead of margarine or shortening and now I have to go the other direction!I had some blondies yesterday I made using the traditional recipe to see what the real thing was supposed to taste like before trying it the vegan way since I have never had blondies before. Welll...... all it had in there was real butter and eggs. I can usually eat eggs without a problem so it must have been the butter. Then this morning I had butter with my waffles..... W-e-l-l-l-l ..... that wasn't smart. Just a tiny bit of milk even like a sip to check the milk carton after the use by date and I get all clogged up and can't breathe to good. Ridiculous! All from a silly tick years ago !
  I'm Trying to look at the good parts.... as long as you try to keep the recipes using normal ingredients instead of some kind of tutti fruitii or soy something or other it may even be cheaper. I used to go through eggs like crazy but it sure has slowed down now that I try not to cook with them. I mean like eggs seem to go 3 times as long in the fridge than they used to, now milk I actually have to watch or it goes bad. I thought eating something real like real butter or milk is so much better than some kind of make believe food with dyes and emulsifiers etc. people use. I guess make believe food is better for me now days.... oh well .... at least we can still have some good desserts!
Love
Ranchmama
(Still playing with her foods) 

Banana Split Cupcakes!

I’ve been baking again! I’m having fun learning how to cook these vegan cupcakes. Vegan is a scary word usually in company with YUCK! But if I don’t tell a person it’s vegan they never know it. It just means using a different formula for your recipe that doesn’t use eggs, cows milk or cows butter. If you’re going to be low on funding it’s really cheaper. I do prefer a cream cheese frosting but since I’m allergic to milk to the point it makes my breathing difficult I have to figure out something else. I’ll get there. LOL   Here is the latest attempt: The top ones are just plain banana cupcakes , that's the way Nikki and hubby likes them. The bottom ones are the base to the banana split cupcakes. They have added pineapple marmalade and chocolate shavings mixed in the middles.

 

 These are the Banana Split Cupcakes!

 

   They look just like a banana split! What fun! Each cupcake has either vanilla, chocolate or strawberry icing with finely chopped pecans, maybe some sprinkles and drizzled Hershey syrup with a final topping of a large cherry on top........ I liked them! There is always room for improvement. The Chocolate frosting and vanilla had good flavor but the strawberry on the right here needed more intense flavor. I used a little strawberry extract and some smuckers jelly but it just wasn't a clearly tasty strawberry flavor I wanted to have on here. I will do better next time.  

      I've been complaining that when you put that much pretty icing on top there just isn't enough cupcake from a standard cupcake / muffin tin. So I think I have the answer to that. 

Take a look below here ....

                        

The ones on the left are GIANT (think coffee mug size). The ones in the middle are JUMBO (maybe average tea or coffee cup ?) and the ones on the right are standard size pans.  I have the little mini muffin tins but they take a lot of work for such a tiny bite. That is more for little breakfast muffins or maybe special occasions to me.

   You do know this also means I am going to have to get a new vegan muffin cookbook now and play with these larger pans don't you? LOL It will be interesting to see how the middle jumbo pan works for cupcakes. Boy, these new pans will take a lot of batter. I'm sure I will have to double and triple the recipe. While I was at Hobby Lobby I picked up some cupcake liners for these large pans. I hope I can figure out which ones are the correct size online somewhere. 

     Ok I woke up in the middle of the night and now I'm going to go back to bed dreaming of new cupcakes and muffins to try out! 

  Love

Ranchmama