Depressing Monday

I'm trying to fend off a depression that began yesterday ... the rain isn't helping, nor is the fact that I'm in pain.

Yesterday I had a pretty active morning: walked Connie, wrote some blog posts, did some inside house projects because of the rain, which kept me from painting outside as I had planned. Then the depression hit and I made some comfort food and retired to bed (clean sheets, yummy) with the book Victoria's Daughters.

Comfort Food

A digression. My friend Sara asked for "food porn," a term I love, and I've been slow to get back to her. (See Food Porn.)

Yesterday, when I could feel a depression coming, I headed to my backyard "garden in the sky" and harvested a few red-skinned potatoes (classic comfort food). I also snagged a zucchini and a red-skinned onion.

I wanted to make a vegetable curry with this, but the fridge yielded no jar of curry paste. No Japanese curry in the cupboard either, or curry powder on the spice rack (I threw away old or suspect spices a few months ago while cleaning the kitchen, and haven't replaced them--a serious oversight).

I had to make do with a packaged sauce meant for pad Thai.

Cooked the potatoes in the microwave for a few minutes. Then added them to the zucchini and onions in the wok. Once these were sizzling nicely, I added leftover rice from the fridge, and then at the end the pad Thai sauce. It wasn't curry, but it was yummy and plenty spicy, and I topped it with mango chutney for good measure.

Took this dish to bed with the book (and the dogs) and stayed there all night and till almost 10 this morning, reading about Queen Victoria and her five remarkable daughters. (She also had four sons, and ultimately 40 grandchildren, who all seemingly married each other.)

This family history makes World War I incredibly personal. It was, for these folks, essentially a family feud. Fascinating reading.

Back to the Depression
But this morning I am still depressed. It probably didn't help to read about the death of Vicky, Queen V's oldest daughter, of breast cancer at the turn of the (20th) century. Be warned that this is coming if you are thinking of reading the book.

So I'm gently trying to push myself out of this mood, which again isn't helped by rain and dark skies. I have much more energy on sunny days.

It's also not helped by pain in my groin. I think it's just a soft-tissue thing: a pulled muscle or ligament from kicking Connie's ball for him. But it hurts. And I have a couple of mets in that area, so I can't help but worry.

Also, after my blood test last week I got a call to come back to have the test repeated: My blood calcium was too high. So I'm going in for that this afternoon. The nurse was vague about what high blood calcium means, but I think I already know: disease progression.

I see my oncologist on Friday, and for once I am not in a hurry to get the news. I'm expecting that he will tell me my break from treatment needs to come to an end. Sigh. I'd like another month or two, and I may try to wrangle that if he doesn't think it's too dangerous.

So I'm going to walk Connie, who is whining, and then try to get myself together. I think I'll go buy a Ken doll or two on my way to the blood draw. (See Prostate Cancer Ken.)

Buy the book:

Victoria's Daughters

@ Jeanne Sather 2007.

Comments

[Amy]

I'm sorry to hear about your bad day. Sending sunny SoCal best wishes.

[Kristina]

Oh, crap, Jeanne, I'm sorry. And today is the day I'm posting all kinds of disagreement on your blog, and THEN I read this! Not the most helpful or compassionate of my actions, and I'm sorry for that. (I can only hope that I made your blood boil with rage and disagreement and that the force sent you off on a mission to prove me wrong, hence lifting the depression.....okay, well, I'm an optimist!)

Bah humbug to mets. Bah humbug to elevated calcium levels and all that. Bah humbug.

It's a wonderful day for snuggling down in bed, reading a book, and stroking a dog. Good for you!

And as for me, I find myself craving curry all of a sudden. Mmmmm food porn - I'm lusting!

[jeanne]

How were you to know? Don't worry about that. It didn't make my blood boil, but I can certainly stand a respectful difference of opinion.

Still feeling crappy, so heading to bed for a nap with junk food, a good book, and the dogs. It usually works.

[Gloria]

Depression magnified by a dreary day! You have my sympathy -- I can't always snap out of it quickly, either. I look forward to reading the Victoria book.

[jeanne]

Thanks, Gloria. And now the golden has escaped out of the yard, so instead of napping I've been combing the neighborhood for him ... feel like I could pop.

I can loan you the Victoria book.

Jeanne

[jessica]

i'm so glad to hear you eat in bed, too! sometimes i have to laugh at myself when i feel like i'm hauling a household into the sheets: book, laptop, plate or bowl, crossword, coconut oil for dry skin...

hope you are finding some comfort, however you choose. know that you are in my thoughts...

[jeanne]

Jessica--yup, that's me too. Used to write in bed all the time, now I've moved that job to the couch, but everything else, bed.

When I was having sleep problems a few years ago, the doctor I saw said I needed to move all these activities OUT of my bed and my bedroom, or else, she suggested, have another bed to sleep in and keep the first one for everything else.

So I moved to the guest room to sleep, and now, you guessed it, a tower of books and magazine by the bed, dirty dishes, food wrappers, the lemon juice bottle I use to train Connie ... Good thing I sleep alone (except for the dogs and all this junk).

Oh, got the dog home. One of the neighbors brought him back, after I spent more than an hour searching for him ...

[Sara]

Curry with mango chutney cannot dissolve depression, but it sure helps. (I think mango chutney is effective balm for lots of hurts, actually, if not a cure. So is Geeta's orange and papaya chutney, which I have been known to eat with a spoon -- or finger -- right out of the jar.) Thanks for the delicious porn. :)

One of the best things I made all summer was just fresh, organic, chopped tomatoes and shallots sautéed down to sauce in a tiny coating of olive oil, then as many fresh, organic, chopped zucchini and other summer squash as I could fit in the pan steamed into that until just barely cooked. We ate plates upon plates of that stuff. I kept a casserole dish of it in the fridge and served it cold with every meal. Then our schedules shifted so that we stopped having dinner together every night, so now I'm back to tofu sandwiches and instant soup cups.

I got morbidly depressed this month listening to six straight hours of science programming from NPR off the web. I got enlightened, too, yes, and expanded and informed, and vindicated by hearing people far more educated than I discuss things that have occurred to me while stirring things in a pot or lingering in the bathtub, stuff about the nature of time and our own sentience, and I highly recommend the program I was gorging on -- Radio Lab: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/season1_2005.html -- but don't listen to six straight hours of it whatever you do.

Hope you're feeling better now.

[jeanne]

Sara--that sounds fabulous. If I can get enough ripe tomatoes at one time (I keep eating them right off the vine) I could make that sauce for my zucchini, which is producing several fruits a week--just right to have one plant for one person .... I'm going to look for the orange and papaya chutney.

Yum!

Jeanne