Two new misadventures-Diabetes and Degenerate Disk Disease

Hello loyal follower(s)

It has been a long time since the last blog.  For Mr Nut and his wife, Cyndy it was another month from hell.  Mr Nuts weight continued to drop a little each day, but none of the medical staff seemed concerned.  One of medical technicians said that rapid weight loss was associated only with juvenile diabetes. He was wrong. There was also increased urination and constant thirst.  After losing 26 pound it was time to act.  Sept 18 with a weight of only 154.6 pounds and needing assistance to walk Mr Nut made his second appearance at an Emergency  Room to get help with what we knew was Diabetes.

This time it was the regional hospital at St George, UT.

With an official diagnosis of Diabetes, it was possible to get medical help to treat this second major problem. 

Mr Nut was a  very sick man with a blood sugar of 688 ( should be less than 100).  

Think of a one pound package of hamburger.  Now imagine twenty-six of these packages and you would have the amount of muscle that Mr Nut lost in just a few weeks.   Diabetes seems to take only the muscle since all the belly fat was still in place on good old Mr Nut.

Mr Nut with his buddy that went with him everywhere.

Mr Nut still takes two pain pill each day, which means his thinking ability and energy level is very limited. But at least now he can sit down for about five minutes at a time.

After four days in the hospital Mr Nut returned home to deal with both Diabetes and Degenerate Disk Disease.

Tomorrow, Mr Nut returns to the pain clinic for his second injection for pain from his ruptured disk.

Relative to the Diabetes,  Mr Nut found that giving himself insulin shot painless.

À bientôt,

Mr Nut

The last hurrah in Wisconsin before all hell broke loose

August 13- 18  The last hurrah in Wisconsin before all hell broke loose

 Mr Nut today, at his computer, doing his best.  Tomorrow he gets injection into his spinal column for the pain.   

Still ignorant of his medical problem but full of pain, Mr Nut and Cyndy interacted with Charles and Lori on their farm before Charles moved to Hawaii.

 Hors d’oeuvres with the chickens --no mosquitoes.  Charles, Cyndy and Lori

Charles’ ladies

We got to sample some of Charles’ pizza done on the gas grill.

Charles and Cyndy at the Farewell Campout to say goodbye  to Charles.  He moved to Hawaii on August 15 to start his new job as Chief Scientific Officer at Archinoetics.  You can check out the company at http://archinoetics.com.

Then in real pain, it was off to Rhinelander Wisconsin to spend a few days with Cyndy’s cousin Sandy Doubek and her husband Denny at a family style resort. 

 Our cabin at the resort.

 Mr Nut did manage to find a friend at the resort but most of the time he was in bed with pain.

 Mr Nut at his best: one sick dude.

Mr Nut did get to use his new grill, and in the process almost destroyed his  recipe book using it as a wind break.

  

 Cyndy in our bedroom at the resort.

 Sandy, Denny and Cyndy enjoying the resort setting.

By the third day (Aug 18) at the resort Mr Nut was in too much pain and it was time to abort the adventure and head back to St George (2000 miles away).  Mr Nut was in too much pain to drive and Cyndy had to drive the whole way.  It was a trip from Hell for both of us.

Back inn St George after and MRI it was determined that Mr Nut has Degenerate Disk Disease, with a herniated disk between bones number 3 and 4 of the spine.  It was off to the pain clinic to arrange for a shot of some sort to deaden the pain while the healing takes place (hopefully).

 Meanwhile Mr Nut eats standing up, sitting down is painful.

It must  also be mentioned that Cyndy’s GERD problem has also gotten worse. 

À bientôt,

Mr Nut

Why this blog called Misadventures of Mr Nut

Hello loyal follower(s)

Cyndy and Mr Nut made their yearly gaunt through Wisconsin to see our sons Michael and Charles.  

The guy in the middle is our son Michael. We stopped at his job in Chippewa Falls and had a nice but short visit.    We figured he would live in Mondovi Wisconsin forever, but it appears that may not be the case.

On to Mount Horeb Wisconsin (for the last time) since our son Charles will be moving to Oahu,  Hawaii on August 16.   He has accepted the position of Chief Scientific Officer, whatever that means.

  Mr Nut (notice the pained look on Mr Nut’s face) he was in pain, Cyndy, Aaron (Charles’ grandson) and Charles.  We were waiting for our gyro’s.

And now for the misadventure----

Yes that is an emergency room entrance.  Mr Nut’s Sciatic nerve problem was still there, only much worse.

   

Doesn’t Mr Nut look cute in his gown 

   Doing the vitals before the teenage doctor arrived.   They gave me to horse pills and Mr Nut felt great within an hour.  However, with the prescriptions for anti-inflammatory the pain reduction was much slower.  In fact Mr Nut is standing while writing this blog.    

À bientôt,  Mr Nut

Biking The Crosby-Ironton Biking Trail

Friday, August 5, 2011 

Hello loyal follower(s)

This trail is one of the better trails, eleven and one half miles round trip, near our cabin (about 20 miles away).  It goes along “a string” of lakes that used to be open pit iron ore mines.  The mines were a major source of iron ore during the second world war in the 1940’s.

 Cyndy and Mr Nut on the trail 

  Cyndy with one of the many lakes (open pit mine) in the background.

In the early 1950’s, an ballon experiment  was conducted in the Portsmouth to see how a human would react to being in or near space for 24 hours. Because of wind problems they needed a deep hole to launch their balloon. 

  

Mr Nut with the Portsmouth mine lake in the background.  The lake is about  400 feet deep

   

You are looking at the bottom of Portsmouth mine before it was allowed to flood making the lake of today.

Next Tuesday we will make our Wisconsin run to see Michael and Charles, two of our sons.  Oh yes, Mr  Nut is still in pain from the Sciatic nerve problem.

À bientôt,  

Mr Nut

There is always room for improvement -- Potato Salad

Hello loyal follower(s)

Mr Nut’s potato salad is tasty and good, however It could be better calorie-wise.  In the August- September issue of Cook’s Country an attempt was made to make potato salad more healthful.  According to the article one cup of traditional potato salad has 380 calories and 30 grams fat with 4 grams saturated fat.  The author (Carolyn Purpura ) successfully replaced the sour cream and mayonnaise with healthier ingredients and still had a creamy potato salad.  The new numbers were 130 calories and 1 grams fat with 0 grams saturated fat. 

The key was in the dressing:  By using mashed potatoes with a little of the potato water and some Greek yogurt a “creamy” dressing was possible.  Mr Nut tried this approach with his potato salad recipe with great results.

Mr Nut went back to the blog of May 9, 2011 and revised the Mr Nut’s Potato Salad recipe

That it for today from our cabin in the North country.

À bientôt,

Mr Nut

Bread Zucchini At Our Cabin In Brainerd Minnesota

Hello loyal follower(s)

     It was a hot and humid day as opposed to “A dark and stormy night” referring to the winner of  the worst start of a story.  We are back near Brainerd, at or cabin, which this year will just be a place to visit between trips to Wisconsin.

This picture was taken from the end of our dock. Notice how clean the water is.

     Without my macho heavy duty stand mixer, bread making will be by hand, literally. 

Hand mixing by hand by Mr Nut.

However, the recipes will be written for my macho heavy duty stand mixer, as Mr Nut rewrites his recipes to reflect the recent purchase of the perfect sized  cast iron Dutch  ovens.

The first recipe to be rewritten was the yeast Zucchini bread. 

The dough was now in the second fermentation stage.

The Dutch ovens in action in the first step of baking (50 minutes).

 The finished loaf--- nice crust.

 The crumb was very good considering the amount of walnuts craisins and zucchini in the loaf.

That finished the zucchini we brought from our garden in St George, Utah.

Mr Nut went back and made a few minor modifications to the recipe from the July 13, 2011 blog.

À bientôt,

Mr Nut