Super Salad Nights

Last week was a special treat and Greg offered to do all the cooking! He made "3 bean turkey chili surprise attack" (his term) one night - which was fabulous, and some delicious grilled chicken with rice and sugar snap peas another night. Then on Thursday night we only had one chicken breast left, so he had a great idea to make a fancy salad. So we each had a spinach salad, with half a chicken breast chopped up (real tiny to maximize chicken per bite ratio), 2 strips of turkey bacon crumbled up, and 1/2 avocado. It was so YUM.

I have decided we needed to start having fancy salad nights more often. We are addicted to eating spinach leaves already, so might as well accessorize them for some excitement. We usually eat a bag of spinach per week - just taking it in our lunches to work or eating it with dinners. But I think we should start replacing this with Super Salad Night - and come up with lots of fun creations. I think weekly would make us run out of salad ideas way too fast, so maybe every other week would be good.

But I couldn't wait a whole week to have SSN, so we indulged tonight for dinner. We did teriyaki marinated grilled shrimp, avocado (which may be included in every salad because I absolutely love it), pineapple chunks, and crumbled turkey bacon. It turned out great. It is pictured at the top of this post.

I also heard a Panera commercial on the radio advertising a salad with strawberries, blueberries, mandarin oranges, and nuts. I think I will use that idea plus some chopped up chicken for our next salad. Gosh the possibilities seem endless. Maybe a chef salad with some ham, hard boiled eggs, cucumbers, tomatoes, and avocados (of course!). Or maybe a santa fe style salad with corn, pico, tortilla strips, and ground beef. Salads can be really filling if you add enough goodies on top.

I am already looking forward to the next SSN.

All Things for Good

I just got beat up...repeatedly...for a week...by the Chuck Norris of sicknesses. It wasn't pleasant, but I am so thankful that I am finally feeling better! I missed 5 days of work - the longest I've missed due to a sickness, but I am going back tomorrow.

My sickness actually started a bit on Monday (Memorial Day). I felt a little tired and weak, but nothing major. I figured it was nothing. Tuesday morning I woke up with a fever. I showered and ate breakfast, but decided not to go to work because I was starting to feel worse and since I had fever I didn't want to spread my sickness to anyone. By lunch time I was feeling horrible and my fever was still climbing, so I went in to see my Doctor. I was hoping to get some medicine to knock this thing out so I wouldn't have to miss too much work since it was a busy week. The Doctor did some blood work, tested for mono, and gave me some antibiotics. I went home and was feeling horrible. The fever was making me sweat one minute, and then freezing cold the next minute to where my whole body was shaking with chills. I had no appetite.

The next day I woke up with more fever, and felt just as bad. The whole day was more of the same. Tylenol would help keep my fever down and help me feel better but as soon as it wore off I was back to feeling terrible. I could barely get up and walk around because I felt so weak and faint. My mom came over to take care of me during the day and bring me medicine, soup, and flowers :)

By Thursday I still had fever and hadn't seen any improvement so I called the Doctor. He said my results came back negative for mono, and he thought I just had some sort of virus - there was one going around. I asked him if he thought it was swine flu, and he said no. He said I would have to had come in contact with someone who had swine flu, and if that was the case, then other people would have come in to contact with that person too and they would have heard of an outbreak already. He called in Tamiflu for me - which is the treatment for swine flu as well as other flu's in case I had some other type of flu. Big mistake. Tamiflu made things much worse.

Tamiflu lists the most common possible side effects as nausea and vomiting. But what medicine doesn't? A couple hours after taking it I was horribly nauseated. I had barely eaten anything all day, but what little I had came right back up. I couldn't keep anything down. I didn't want to drink anything either. I was pretty dehydrated because I had thrown up what I had drank earlier, and felt too nauseated to drink anything else. Both my parents came over that afternoon and were sweet to bring over some much needed supplies (drinks, more soup, etc). I skipped my night time dose of Tamiflu and decided that I hated it.

The next morning I woke up with no fever. Hooray!! I thought, hey, maybe that ridiculous Tamiflu helped after all. It said on the box that the nausea usually only lasts 1-2 days. So I took Tamiflu AGAIN. Why oh why did I do it? A couple hours later the extreme nausea was back. The vomiting was back. I was scared of getting extremely dehydrated. I called the Doctor. He said no more Tamiflu, no more solid foods, just Gatorade, soup, etc.

Saturday I wake up with little to no fever. The nausea had pretty much gone away. Yay! I was still feeling pretty bad, but at least no fever. I thought - hey, maybe I am getting better. Greg rented Dark Knight for us to watch that evening. But then a little way into it the fever came back, and I started feeling really bad again.

Sunday we stayed home from Church and Greg took care of me. I felt a little better. I actually went the whole day without fever (after 5 straight days of fever)!

So today, Monday, I took one last day off work to rest and recover since I still wasn't feeling 100%. I do feel so much better though, and I am ready to go back to work tomorrow.

This was definitely not a fun sickness, but somehow I know that is was for my good. Because I know that God works all things "for the GOOD of those who love Him and have been called according to His purpose" (Rom 8:28). Yes, somehow this sickness worked for my good. I don't know all the ways it has worked for my good, but here are a few.

-It has made realize that my healthy days have FAR out numbered my sick days and I am very thankful for that.

-It makes me feel more compassion towards people when they are sick because I was shown so much compassion by Greg, my parents, friends, and my Doctor.

-It makes me feel very grateful for my sweet Greg who continually got me drink refills every time my ice would melt (every 15 min...), get up in the middle of the night to adjust the AC or bring me ice rags for my head, brought me food/medicine/pillow/blanket/etc. constantly, ran out to the store to get various other requests, called to check on me from work, cleaned the house, did the laundry, grocery shopped, and cooked while I was sick. OH, and cleaned out my throw-up bucket. That is love.

-Thankful also for my parents who came over twice and brought over sick-supply-kits (magazines, Tylenol, Gatorade, food, etc) and much love and care. My mom gave me lots of foot rubs and also had to deal with a bit of throw-up, and my dad even left work early when I thought I was going to die of dehydration.

Anyway, I am sure there are more but it is just a good reminder that my health is completely in God's hands and if I am healthy at all it is completely due to Him!