"He coughs up blood?" "Yes, but...not like he used to."

[mrissa]

(bonus points to the first person to recognize the title reference)

Ohhhhhkay then. So far today has been both disgusting and boring.

So this morning I wandered into Timprov's room and said, "Hey, guess what? I sold another story to Nature!" And he said, "I appear to be spitting up blood!" And I said, "I like my news better!"

Timprov tried the ice water gargle, and it was doing nothing to even touch the blood, so we rousted markgritter out of bed and drove down to the ER. Long story short, Timprov needed his tonsilectomy recauterized, so they did that, and now we are home. This involved four hours of him sitting in the hospital spitting blood every 20-30 seconds (and me sitting with him; we sent Mark home to work) until they could get the OR and an ENT to do the surgery, then about an hour of him being in surgery and recovery, and then another hour of waiting for the antibiotics to show up so we could take him home.

I am not going into detail about the four hours because the detail would be really unpleasant and not serve any point. But seriously, he was just miserable, and there was nothing I could do about it, and there was nothing anybody else could do about it either.

In more minor not-fun stuff, I have also not had my workout for the day, and as a consequence of that and my surroundings have had rather little food. Timprov is not quite back to square one, but it's a pretty big annoying setback. He has crashed out in front of a DVD and is hanging in there all right, as well as can be expected under the circumstances. And Ista, of course, is worried; she doesn't realize that this will mean a trip to Pumphouse Creamery for her this evening to get a resupply of banana ice cream, honey ice cream, and anything else that calls out, "Good for sickies!" to Mark and me. (Pumphouse Creamery is very nice to pups.)

The discharge nurse started telling us a story about a girl she'd encountered who had to have her tonsils recauterized twice; she realized belatedly that this was perhaps less than cheerful under the circumstances. (But she emphasized--belatedly--that this was the only case she had every heard of for such a thing.) So for greater good cheer: tell us good foods that aren't edgy or crispy. Or tell us where to find a good recipe for miso soup.

Oh, and the story is called "Quality Control."

Comments

[kchew.livejournal.com]

Morticia Adams to her lawyer, I think... (definitely Morticia, though).

Sorry to hear about the illnesses, but yay! Sale!

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

The doctor? It's about poor Uncle Fester.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Yay story!

Black bean soup with loads of sour cream and cilantro.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Charlie recommends Jasmine rice mixed with Banana. Steamed mashed sweet potato, with or without applesauce mixed in, is also a favorite around my house, and is filling. For grown-ups, adding brown sugar, cinnamon & butter is recommended.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Thumbs up on the sale!

Thumbs emphatically DOWN on the medical drama. Timprov's former tonsils need to get over themselves.

[eposia.livejournal.com]

Addams Family, Morticia speaking if I recall correctly

Nature?

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Nature (http://www.nature.com/) publishes fiction?

B

Re: Nature?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes. The last page of the issue is Nature: Futures. I've already sold them two pieces (one went in Nature Physics rather than Nature itself).

[panjianlien.livejournal.com]

Oh, Tish.

So sorry to hear that you and Timprov had to go through all that, how odious.

I hope that the story sale helps make up for it a little bit.

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

My ER waiting room strategy is to try to be grateful that I'm not there for whatever makes my drama (usually failure to breathe) not the priority. This is not always possible (and I imagine spitting blood is equally fatiguing over time) but sometimes it makes it borderline bearable.

I hope Tim feels better soon. I love pudding and custard, personally. Non-bruleed creme is tasty. As for savories, I'm a huge fan of hot and sour soup which the Chinese people (the Chinese food restaurant people, obviously not random neighbors who happen to be from Beijing) will generally bring to your house.

I agree with Truepenny. The tonsils are behaving like a jilted ex and need to move on. This is the tonsilur (tonsilar? tonsilite?) version of calling 20 times a day and hanging up or showing up where you're on a date with the new girlfriend. Not cool, tonsils.

[moiread]

At least they didn't continue with the appendix avenue.

[zellandyne.livejournal.com]

Foods I ate after my tonsillectomy:

Eggnog
Potato leek soup
Apple sauce
Chicken soup
Soup chicken (my mother made chicken soup from scratch, and the chicken from the soup was fall apart soft - one of the first solids I could eat)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I am sorry to be contradictory, but eggnog is not food.

[aedifica]

Congratulations on the story! And boo on the tonsils, but I'm glad that at least it seems to have been something easily treatable?

Tasty soft food: zucchini fried in too much butter. Mom made this for me when I got my braces put on and couldn't stand to chew anything. Before that I didn't think I liked zucchini, but having it with that much butter was tasty and I started enjoying zucchini with less butter (or even none!)

[evangoer.livejournal.com]

Ugh. All my best to Timprov -- recover soon.

[stillnotbored.livejournal.com]

Yay for the story sale, and booooo for the tonsil misbehavior.

Smooth food:
Spiced peaches with cottage cheese
Vanilla yogurt, strawberry and banana smoothie (you can throw in some protein power too)
cream soup of any kind
cream of wheat with pureed fruit mixed in
ice cream (you have that covered)
cheese cake

Now I'm hungry *g*

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Miso soup:

Boil water. Sprinkle in dashi. Turn off heat. Add miso paste (diluted with water and whisked so it delumps) to taste, cubed tofu, and a sprinkle of seaweed and diced green onions.

Eat!

[sksperry.livejournal.com]

Your news is definitely better, and far less time consuming, but his news results in ice cream. It's a toss up.

[prettymuchpeggy.livejournal.com]

Eeeeeb! and Eck, too!! Timprov, no more of this fooling around stuff...tell your throat to get better or I am going to have to give it a stern lecture. Although, I am sure Mrissa has given a few choice words already.

As for softer foods....
Pudding
Rice (cooked with more water or stock)
Cooked carrots
Heavily steamed vegetables
Soups (Egg Lemon Soup comes to mind)
Tuna fish salad sans the crispy bits.
Peeled grapes
Smoothies
Scribbled Eggs (okay, scrambled eggs for those not in my family)

[writingortyping.livejournal.com]

eeyow. Owowow. So sorry. I spent four hours in the ER recently with John (who thought a Sunday evening wasn't complete without lopping off a bit of his finger making dinner), and I wholeheartedly empathize.

But... story sale: YAY!

[lydy.livejournal.com]

Poor Timprov. That's dreadful. Give him all my love.

Yay story sale. That's cool. Much cooler than sitting in a room watching a sweetie cough up blood. Too bad you couldn't choose.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Conversation on the phone with my mother from the surgery waiting lounge:

Me: Sometimes when you care about somebody, you sit with them while they cough up bloody chunks for four hours.
Mom: Yes. Um, I'm eating my lunch right now....

Oy.

[careswen.livejournal.com]

Yay.
Boo.
Applesauce.

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

woohoooo!

and

yipes! I hope he is feeling less bloody soon.

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

Yay on the sale. Boo on the coughing up blood - on top of the sheer unpleasantness of it, it must be very frustrating to Timprov to have a setback in his recovery. I very much hope it is smooth from here on out.

On the food front, in addition to the many excellent suggestions already offered: polenta (cheese and tomato sauce optional), refried beans, berries or other fruit cooked until soft with a splash of wine or balsamic vinegar and some sugar (might make a nice topping for ice cream), poached eggs.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on the story.

And sympathies on the post-tonsillectomy trauma, which sounds a good deal worse than my own (age 6). Hope this resolves soonest.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, children bounce. Adults not so much.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

You need shiro miso, which is quite expensive. It does keep, but even so. You also need tofu. And you need a stock, which is supposed to be soy and bonito flakes, and then seaweed. However, my attempts at making it have been pathetic, and the packets of instant miso from the Korean place on Decarie are so cheap and so good, that I don't bother any more. Mmm, miso soup, the most nutritious kind of of cup of tea.

I have good recipes for carrot soup, mushroom soup, and leek and potato soup, none of which need anything very exotic. Let me know if they'd be useful.

Good foods that aren't edgy or crispy. If Timprov likes mashed potatoes, you could always try smush, which Z and I like a lot and always eat when we have been to the dentist whether or not our mouths are semi-frozen. It's mashed potato with lots of grated cheese and mashed canned corned beef and an onion sauted in butter until totally soft, all mashed in. The grated cheese melts, the corned beef should lose all texture and be just red shreds. You need to like mashed potato, but you don't need to like corned beef, because it isn't like corned beef at all. It's comfort food. It's very nice with peas, which are also soft.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

What's the spicing on the carrot soup or the mushroom soup?

Grated cheese in mashed potatoes sounds good, and I don't even have tonsil problems. Hmmm.

[seabream.livejournal.com]

Usual good family foods of the sort: congee, egg drop soup, chicken corn soup, jello with suspended canned fruit and eaten with condensed milk, mango pudding.

Some of these I expect to be having in the near future as a portion of my tongue is healing from abrasion in a way that feels similar to the way it does from scalding. I'm currently at the stage where the dead skin's come off and the new flesh is still tender and inflamed.

[gaaldine.livejournal.com]

Eeek! That's horrible (the blood bit, not the story-selling, the story-selling is wonderful).

Honey ice cream? I want some. We have a lovely champagne ice here and an equally lovely lavender-honey ice cream, but no plain honey ice cream.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Ours is made from local buckwheat honey. It is so very fine. It is even finer with a sprinkling of dark Ghirardelli chips. Next time you are up we will take you there, and there will be much rejoicing.