Which meant that Debbie Grandpa (named for the gorgeous and energetic Irish setter who took up most of the room in the second floor digs on 27th Street, vs. Butch Grandpa on my father’s side, named for the mixed-breed collie-slash-border-collie guy who lived in Haworth) always had a little bowl of polenta prepared for his dinner.
Now, these days, I find that instant or quick-cooking polenta, from Italy, the U.S. or Argentina, is excellent. Noticeably better, in fact, than non-quick-cooking polenta. Which is a good thing. Non-quick-cooking polenta is, as my Mom used to put it, “an incredible pain in the ass”. You have to add it to the broth carefully so it doesn’t lump, stir it frickin’ forever so it doesn’t lump, finish it gently so it doesn’t lump…and then, it lumps anyway.
Quick-cooking polenta? Well, you stir it up, heat it, serve it. No problems, no lumps, no issues. And it’s delicious.
Grandpa’s polenta had to be mixed, stirred, and finished un-lumpily via great exertion. I sometimes got a fingerful of it, loved it. When I got to the south and discovered grits, I felt right at home.
Unsurprisingly, perhaps, nobody else in the Union City household ate polenta. The first few times I made it for my mother when she visited me after I left home, she refused to even look at it. Although, to her credit, eventually she got over it and even learned to enjoy a nice grilled slice with a little butter and cheese. Well, make that a lot of butter. Mom didn’t eat a “little” butter on anything.
Anyway. I bring this up because my personal medical ecosystem, despite being composed of a suite of completely unrelated and unfamiliar physicians, has operated so far as a cohesive and holistic more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts, just like we speculated ecosystems should back when systems ecology was an actual thing.
On Thursday morning when my GP realized he was looking at tumors, and tumors that seemed to have anastomosed into salivary and parotid glands, his objective became to get my blood pressure down so that a surgical biopsy could be done without waiting. On Thursday night, the suburban Eye, Nose and Throat guy determined that he needed to get as much superficial swelling down as possible so the Hopkins surgeons and oncologists could get a better feel—literally—for what the hell was going on. So he gave me a prednisone count down—5 day’s worth. Ran out yesterday.
Which means that today the swelling is returning, and the masses around my jaw and tongue are getting painful. Which means that a lot of even the softish gunk I’ve been managing to eat all weekend is too harsh to deal with. So for supper tonight? A little pot of instant grits, cooked in chicken broth, with an egg stirred in and a couple slabs of Velveeta melted on top. Breakfast…or dinner…of champions!
Oh. The needle biopsy they took at Hopkins on Friday night turned out to be malignant. I spent a chunk of today stuffed into a CT tube after being stuffed myself via forearm veins with radiolabeled sugar so the PET scan can show the doc how deep and how far the cancer has reached. Stand by for more details—I’m expecting to be tossed into the oncologist’s tank tomorrow.
And if you have a moment, don’t forget to surf on over to the other nodes in this weblog communicosystem:
• http://docviper.livejournal.com/
• http://theresaturtleinmysoup.blogspot.com/
• http://sustainablebiospheredotnet.blogspot.com/
Thanks!
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