Thursday, August 7, 2014

More Mixed Results and Improved Ingredients

Just had a call from Dr Wallen and here's where I'm at:

Bad - left lung and stomach shows slight growth in some of the mets.

Good - stomach also shows slight reduction in some of the mets.

I'll meet the replacement for Dr Wallen next week. For now Dr Wallen feels I should keep the same regimine. I'll see what Dr Blanchett (she's the replacement) thinks about some of the new combination treatments which pair Yervoy and a variety of medications (I've read about a handful of options,) which have shown success. I'll see if bare minimum we can get another Yervoy treatment approved.

Overall it's great knowing nothing is growing substantially, but I'm hoping we can pump up the treatment volume a bit.

I've had better energy levels lately, which is likely due to the new iron supplement prescription my primary care doctor (pcp) wrote for me during my H Pylhori, stomach acid-focused visit a couple of weeks back. We changed from my basic OTC iron pills, to these which are easier on the stomach. I've typically had borderline anemia and difficulty absorbing iron. It's not a thalecemia nor anemia, but somewhere between "nope...and yes you do."

I'll post updated news later next Wednesday's after meeting with Dr Blanchett.

In lighter news, I'm a Banana-Bread-Baking-Nut right now. I just made my fourth loaf in the past week. It might seem overboard (but if you recall, I was all into making pizza from scratch when I was in Talent, and as soon as the stomach acid is fully regular - soon- I'll make that again.)

The first banana bread was a food network recipe (by Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger - the two hot tamales and proved to be a quite tasty classic style recipe) This loaf lasted almost 3 days.


       
The second had 2 bananas, 2 Hass avocados (the smaller sized avocado) and some dark choclate chips and butterscotch chips (this and the 2 loaves which folow are riffs based on the first.) I read a recipe for this, and the only difference was # of each fruit and no cinnamon which I decided needed to be part of the base ingredients going forward - because, yes this a new minor obsession, and things like fruit, preparation of fruit (fork mash, or blitz in 'magic' bullet blender.) Texture, moist and dense, and the bread didn't rise as much, I wonder if a bit more baking powder would help (listen to me...I didn't even know what baking powder was before making the first loaf, all I know is it's not baking soda, and I'm sticking to that assessment. You're welcome ;)


Note this Frankenstein Bread is almost green inside, and also almost gone :) it's more close to a dessert than classic nanner bread.


The third was regular plus dark choclate chips. I made this for a psych resident, who's made multiple meals for Ki and I, starting from sometime last year (radiation leftover-brain doesn't remember everything as well as prior to early 2013.)

Sadly, I didn't take a pic, so...Nothing to see here...move along... Imagine the first loaf with multiple dark choclate eyes on all sides, including the top view and bottom view. (So no pic ....move along y'all.)

The fourth was today, and its (again) the same base recipe (I'm going to go all in for the music references, the base/bass part, with the improv riff being 1 cup of chopped nanners, and 1 cup of cut strawberries. While the strawberries hits a new note, blitzing both fruit with cinnamon and a TB spoon of half and half in the 'magic' bullet blender gave a much finer and flyid consistency to this component. Hopefully this will infuse the nanaberry blend/mash into the entire loaf. it's untasted as of yet since it needs a few hours or a day to settle. It smells great. And if you're as curious to read as I am to taste it.


Every time I write nanner bread, I think of "So You Think You Can Dance's" host, Cat Deely. 
Instead of an "a" she and Nigel occasionally throw in "er" at end of words ending in a. Such as Jessicker vs Jessica, Tanisher vs. Tanisha and on and on. If you haven't heard this, just pay a bit more attention when Cat is saying names ending in an "a" sound. You're welcome ;)


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