Text 18960, 105 rader
Skriven 2014-11-05 18:07:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: hosp food report 207
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After some days of dithering and NPO, they started
the food up. After two transition trays*, I was
fast-tracked to real food.

* the step-up trays of which I had 5 in total during the
three admissions: Jell-O (regular or diet, chef's
choice) and chicken broth, once a lemon Italian ice and
the rest of the time diet cranberry cocktail (7% juice).

Breaded chicken (breast of course) was pretty bland,
with a bitterish coating; I should have ordered some
butter on the side. The meat was done so even were I
in top condition I wouldn't have been able to chew it -
I peeled off a few strands and tried without much success
to get them down; then I scraped off the bitterish
breading and ate that to get any nourishment at all.
In anticipation of the horror, I got a side of MGH famous
turkey gravy, which, though unsalted, actually tasted
rather of turkey.

My second meal was a fish cake - a hard-packed puck of
some rather old fishy fish cut with a starchy substance,
perhaps whole-wheat breadcrumbs, ground dry (maybe even
dehydrated) scallion, and ground lemon, peel, seeds,
and all. I tried to eat this.

For breakfast I asked for Cheerios (which I got) and
Raisin Bran (got cornflakes instead). I could have had
eggs but figured that maybe a little fiber was in order.

My last meal was billed as baked cod lightly coated in
panko, and I dreaded that, but it seemed to make the
most nutritional sense. I asked for butter and salt on
the side, for self-defense. What came. An almost
restaurant-size serving of steamed fish, moist and
flaky and as astonishingly good as the standout turbot
on United Airlines twenty years ago that totally
flabbergasted me. It tasted like cod, had a nearly
perfect texture, and with one of the two butter pats
provided an actually sumptuous experience. The light
coating of panko was in fact a heavy coating of any old
breadcrumbs, and steamed into jelly, but scraping it off
fixed that. 

Shortly after, I was released into Rosemary's capable
hands and oohed and ahed happily at the last of the fall
foliage.

=

Everything was peachy, and I settled down for a good night's
sleep, but sometime in the wee hours the old tum started
rumbling, and heading to the john I steeled myself for a
return to that green bilious water coming out my backside,
which happened, only when I looked in the bowl, it was red -
there was obvious bleeding from parts unknown. I won't go
into this again, having reported it in perhaps too much
detail closer to the event, only to say that I was in for
another 5 days, receiving much fluid and 3 units of blood.
The tests indicated unknown origin, probably diverticular,
with a chance of recurrence, though whether days, months,
or years, the docs couldn't guess. I've scaled down my 2015
travel plans to include only places that have first-rate
medical facilities and plan to add medevac insurance to my
travel medical insurance.

Back to meals, of which there were four.

I decided to go conservative with my first, so I got the
chicken salad sandwich on white bread. This was ground white
chicken with a bit of mayo, nothing else, on Wonderousness.
A couple tablespoons were enough. For roughage I asked for
hummus, which came a good cupful of pureed goop with way too
much acid and not much flavor (no onions or garlic or cumin
or pepper), and I had a couple tablespoons of that, too.

Dinner was grilled tilapia, a sizable fillet cooked way too
long to have it qualify for a soft diet - it was tough as
shoes and about as tasty. The mashed peas, a monstrosity for
which I'd forgotten to order butter and salt, were better.
When the night nurse came in to take over, she wrinkled up
her nose and said, you got the fish, didn't you. I fessed up,
and she shook her head and said, poor man. I encouraged her
to see what was under the cover, and she reluctantly did,
saying, you actually ate some of that.

Breakfast was Cheerios and a banana, vanilla soymilk on the
side. It was better than the previous two meals.

Lunch was that diced beef with mashed squash and potatoes
thing. Reflecting on it, it wasn't all that bad. The veggies,
which I described before, were perked up quite a bit with the
butter and salt that I'd had the good sense to order on the
side. The meat ... it was diced about 1/4" and sort of pan
roasted, I think, but not browned - it was resilient and gray
but tasted rather nicely of beef. I think I've encountered
this sort of preparation before, both in Mexican dishes and
in some hinterland Asian places, where traditionally they do
a lot of cooking over insufficient heat because of the cost
of fuel. A suitable but not unpleasant reminder that it was
time to go away.

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