The day is sunny, offering blue skies. It is cold though, as the temperature dipped to -15C last night, and although warmer today, the breeze makes it feel a lot colder than the thermometer might indicate.
We took a whirlwind trip to downtown Toronto yesterday, for my Endocrinologist appointment. I feel I am in good hands there, and will be trying out a new medication, fingers crossed that it is effective, and that I tolerate it well. I experience familial Dyslipidemia, which means the problems will persist regardless of lifestyle or diet, both of which I have optimized to no effect. Medication is my only way forward with this.
My days are busy with the usual things, milling flour, baking bread, baking muffins, cooking meals from scratch, mending, and attempting to continue with purging items we no longer use, and might never use.
Attila has been gradually making small improvements to the kitchen. He painted and installed a wall board on which to hang our sieves, we have a few of them and use them all daily. A row of small hooks were added to the inside of a cupboard, to hang brushes and small stainless steel measuring cups. These little improvements make a big difference in our work flow.
I had been experimenting with two food supplements that are indicated in reducing blood fats. The first, spirulina, offered no discernible improvement in blood fats, and although it offers a lot of benefits, it was too effective as an anticoagulant in my case, as I bled profusely after a blood test, and again with the removal of the line for my latest CT scan. I am not taking it anymore.
The second is whey protein isolate, the NOW product, which is purported not to contain any heavy metals. I’ve been having this in a fruit and kale smoothie for lunch every day, very tasty. But alas, there is no improvement in my blood lipids. I am not sure I will continue with it, as it is quite expensive.
My palate has adjusted so well to a low-sodium diet, that the low-sodium pickles that I canned last summer now taste super salty. It really is an eye opener, and I wonder how I could have tolerated, let alone enjoyed, the level of salt that I used to bake and cook, while following conventional recipes. The level of sodium in pre-cooked foods, and restaurant foods, is mind boggling by comparison to those recipes. and yet it all tasted normal at one time in my life.
Ginger continues to enjoy his pureed organic squash. We all have our treat at the same time, Ginger his squash, and Attila and I our green salad with homemade dressings and croutons.
We will have new neighbours, again, in the house next door. There was a young couple with three children living there when we bought the property. They sold the house and moved closer to the husband’s employment. Then a young couple with no children owned the house, but ceased to make mortgage and tax payments, and so lost the house and moved to a distant city. Then a young couple with two young sons bought the house, and also ceased to make mortgage and tax payments, and so lost the house. They left town, telling us they were going to live in their travel trailer, I wish them a lot of luck with that. Then a young couple bought the house, the current owners, they had two children while living there, and have sold the house in order to build another on a country estate lot they purchased. They have been lovely neighbours, we will miss them. The new neighbours will move in sometime in March, we think it will be a young couple with one child. We have our fingers crossed that they will be as pleasant as the current couple and their children! That is five different owners of that house, since 2010. The other homes on our street are occupied the owners that were here when we bought the property, with a few having been sold once since then.
I wonder what it is about the house next door. It might have something to do with the neighbours on the other side of that house, who are cranky busy bodies, often rude, often complaining to the municipality about their neighbours. They made a formal complaint against us for flooding their basement, when the water main broke years ago. Thank goodness our property is not adjacent to theirs!
Worldly
Weather
Updated on Sat, Feb 24 at 3:45 PM
-7°C
FEELS LIKE -10
A few clouds
Wind 7 W km/h
Humidity 37 %
Visibility 24 km
Sunrise 6:54 AM
Wind gust 11 km/h
Pressure 101.5 kPa
Ceiling 9100 m
Sunset 5:48 PM
Quote
“If you would stand well with a great mind, leave him with a favorable impression of yourself; if with a little mind, leave him with a favorable impression of himself.”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
1772 – 1834
The work involved in providing little minds with a favorable impression of themselves is growing exponentially, it can be an exhausting and thankless task. On the plus side, social media provides ample opportunity for self-appointed grandness, which lightens the load considerably.
I had to look up “dyslipidemia” to learn it means high cholesterol. I hope the new medicine helps and doesn’t have side effects. The first medicine Julia tried for that had side effects, but the second one she’s tolerated very well, with no side effects. (Except that she can’t eat grapefruit.) I also hope you like your new neighbors.
Thank you Joan for all of your kind thoughts! I am glad Julia found an effective and well tolerated medicine! I will have to look into the not eating grapefruit thing, I hadn’t thought of that, thank you.
To access the full range of medications I needed to see a specialist, as the Nurse Practitioner decided she was at an end to what she could do for me. So far so good with tolerance, but we shall see! It would feel like a miracle if it worked, since I’ve been dealing with this issue for over 30 years with no good results to date.
I live in a apartment building and have been fortunate to have nice, long-term neighbors. It makes such a difference to have pleasant people as neighbors. I hope the new people turn out to be nice neighbors and tt they stay there for a while 🙂
Sandy, your home sounds lovely! Pleasant neighbours do make such a difference, we have had mixed luck with the house that high turnover, and wonderful luck on the other side, and with many people who live on the street, and some very pleasant people who live in the rental complex at the end of the street. I have my fingers crossed that the new neighbours will be pleasant.
One consolation is that if they are challenging, the cranky neighbours on their other side will be busy reporting them to the authorities on a regular basis, and yelling at them every time there is a perceived transgression. And then, if all else fails, there are fences, tall fences, lol. 🙂
Hi, Maggie. I hope your nurse practitioner will at least stick around to do your referrals to doctors, even if she can’t help you herself.
I wish we had a better selection of neighbors, but since DH and I aren’t all that outgoing I guess in a lot of ways it doesn’t matter. Our biggest issue is the people who speed down the main road, which is also the only place to walk dogs as we have no sidewalks. Speeding causes us more than a bit of concern when walking the dogs happens after sunset at this time of year. Fortunately, they are working on a dog park area but it’s not supposed to be done until Fall.
Hello Teri. The Nurse Practitioner does referrals really well, the wait time for the referral appointments can be very problematic. I will say that with my serious health issues, the referrals have gone through relatively quickly, within six months,. We feel that although we are not entirely happy with our level of primary care, and we speak from over half a century or more of experience with Ontario health care, we know what is was like before, that having our Nurse Practitioner is superior to not having any primary care provider. Prescriptions and referrals, as well as monitoring conditions with recommended tests and scans would be almost impossible without a primary care provider here.
I hope the dog park arrives before schedule! How difficult, walking dogs along roadways. When we go for walks it is always on roadways, no sidewalks here either, and a lot of people are out for walks with their dogs. Most of the vehicles passing are respectful, but some are “taking no prisoners”, so one has to be cautious of all vehicles.