Thanksgiving eating

Well, Thanksgiving break is almost over. Tomorrow the kids go back to school and Rocket Boy flies back to Missouri.

It's been a good break, a good visit. We didn't go to the cabin on Wednesday, but we went to the Denver museum. I hadn't been there in ages, even though we're members. We saw two exhibits: one about ice ages and one about color in nature. I enjoyed them both. We also had lunch and a coffee break (I had chai, twins had Italian sodas, Rocket Boy was still making his way slowly through an exhibit).

Teen A complained nonstop the whole trip. Why are we here, why can't we go home now, why does Dad have to take SO LONG to look at every display, why am I going faster -- we're going to lose Dad and then we'll never find him again, why did we come, why can't we leave now, etc.

This was after he claimed, in the morning, that he had no underwear, causing me to do a rush wash & dry of the kids' clothes, making it impossible to go to the cabin because we didn't get out of the house until close to 11 (we had already decided not to go there, but this made it definite). On the way to the museum, our alternate plan, he confessed that he really did have underwear -- he'd just hidden it so that I would think I had to do laundry, thus delaying or (he hoped) cancelling our day's trip.

Very bad teenage behavior. The thing is, Teen A was very difficult back when he was Baby A and Kid A, too, so this stuff kind of rolls off my back. He's actually better behaved now than in the old days.

Anyway, it was a nice outing (despite Teen A's complaining, which I ignored). 

When we got home, we needed to do something about dinner. We had eaten at home the night before, Tuesday, and although it was supposed to be a simple meal, scrambled eggs or whatever, it turned out to be very complicated because everyone had something different. Rocket Boy made himself an omelet, which first required that he steam some spinach to go in it. When we were done cooking and eating, the kitchen looked like a tornado had hit it -- or at least a strong winter storm. So I said we'd eat out on Wednesday night (so that the kitchen wasn't a disaster the night before doing all the Thanksgiving cooking).

Teen B requested the Bohemian Biergarten, in downtown Boulder, so that he could get "Kulturpunkte" for his German class. That was a fun choice -- it was full of large family groups doing the same thing we were doing. Very warm and festive, almost like being in Europe. I had delicious jagerschnitzel with spaetzle and red cabbage, Teen B had gnocchi, and Rocket Boy had some vegetable thing (Teen A stayed home to play video games and eat a frozen dinner -- he'd had about enough of family time by that point). I only ate half my food so that I could have dessert. 

Ah, dessert. I was reading something somewhere recently about easy ways to improve your life, and one of them was "Always order dessert." That resonated with me, because I like dessert and I mostly dislike main courses. But normally I plow my way through whatever I've ordered and then I'm too full for dessert. In fact, even eating half of my dinner at the Bohemian Biergarten left me a little too full for dessert, but I was bound and determined to have it. Rocket Boy and I both ordered the apfel strudel. It took extra time to make it. Then it arrived. Yum.

I'm trying to remember when I first felt the stomach pains. My dietician had suggested I order something called Thorne Advanced Digestive Enzymes, which she thought would help with the stomach issues I've been having -- like vomiting and diarrhea and heartburn -- so I did, and they arrived Tuesday. She had told me to take one with dinner for a week and then see how I felt. So I took one Tuesday night with dinner and *I think* my stomach pains started Wednesday morning. But I could be wrong about that -- it might have been Tuesday morning. I remember sitting in the blue chair in the living room and every time I moved I felt pain. But was that Tuesday or Wednesday? I'm not sure.

Thursday was Thanksgiving, of course, and Teen A and I kicked off the morning by making a lovely pumpkin pie. Seriously, it was the best do I've gotten on one in a long time. The pie didn't crack! And it didn't puff up and then collapse. It was cooked, but not overcooked. I don't know what we did differently. It'll probably never happen again. 

Then I made the spinach dish and the sweet potato casserole myself. And then Rocket Boy and I went outside and raked leaves. It was getting very cold -- a storm was due in that night.

Early in the afternoon, Rocket Boy made a quick trip to the grocery store and came home with a cake! He'd been driving with the boys for the last few days, of course, and he'd noticed that their combined totals had just hit 25 hours (we need 50 hours per boy to get their licenses, so this was a quarter of the total). So he wanted to celebrate. He said the woman who checked him out was puzzled by what he'd asked the bakery worker to write on the cake: was this for a new baby, born just over a day ago?

I thought, as I so often do with my husband, what a sweet, lovely thought -- and WHY NOW?!?! But we ate it. The fact that in a few hours we were going to sit down and eat an enormous dinner, complete with pumpkin pie and whipped cream, well... when you're married to Rocket Boy, you just go with the flow.

Returning to Thanksgiving preparations, Rocket Boy made mashed potatoes and gravy and I set the table. I put the rolls in to bake when I baked the vegetable dishes. Then I broiled the swordfish, spread the basil caper butter on it, and we were ready to eat. A nice dinner. The twins ate what they wanted -- Teen A ate swordfish and spinach dish, Teen B ate swordfish and sweet potato casserole. Rocket Boy had everything except the cranberries (which I'd made on Tuesday). I had a little bit of everything. We killed a couple bottles of sparkling cider. I had a glass of milk. 

A couple of hours later we had the pie. Rocket Boy whipped the cream and couldn't find the vanilla extract, so he added the first thing he spotted -- lime extract. In case anyone out there is thinking of putting lime extract in whipping cream, I'll just say: don't. It tasted like a cleaning product.

My stomach pains continued through Thursday and Friday. My first thought actually (this was on Tuesday or Wednesday) was that it was a UTI, because I've been wondering for a while now if I might have one -- I keep having these bladder spasms, sort of like a mild version of what I had after my parathyroid surgery. Then I decided it was an IBS flare, caused by the rich meal on Wednesday night and then Thanksgiving dinner (and a driving cake). The pain moved around a little at first, but finally settled into my left lower abdomen. I've had IBS pain there before, although I also sometimes have it higher up.

Friday, which was possibly the worst day, might be when it occurred to me that it might have something to do with the new pills. One of their possible side effects is "abdominal pain." But what kind of abdominal pain, I wondered. I could not find any details on that. All the customer reviews I found were glowing. I finally found the negative Amazon reviews and read through every one. Nobody seems to have experienced what I have. Some people mentioned that it made their heartburn worse. I've actually found that it helped with that. The last five nights I have not had to take a Pepcid AC at night -- which, considering what I've been eating, is pretty amazing. Oh, and some people said it made them constipated. Constipation can cause abdominal pain, but I haven't had that problem either.

But it hurts to get up and down, and it hurts to lie on my side, and it hurts to bend down (like to clean litter boxes or get laundry out of the dryer) and it hurts to get in and out of the car, and to some extent it hurts to sit. Or to stand. It just hurts.

Our storm started Thursday night and when we woke up on Friday, the ground was white. But it wasn't a lot. We looked at it through the windows. It was pretty, but not very impressive. I said I wasn't going to do anything on Friday, just take it easy. Rocket Boy took Teen B out driving again -- he got his "Snowy Day Badge" from the driving app. 

But then on Saturday it was still snowing. Maybe even more than on Friday (later I read that we got 7.4 inches). Our trash pickup was delayed a day by the Thanksgiving holiday, so I dragged the trash and compost bins out Saturday morning, plus 7 of the leaf bags we'd filled (after first attempting to scoop out some of the snow in them). There were 6 more bags that I didn't drag out. I just thought the garbageman would be so depressed if he saw 13 leaf bags. I think I'm right about that. When he finally showed up, around 4 pm, he looked distinctly unhappy when he saw the bags.

Rocket Boy took Teen A out driving midday and he got his "Snowy Day Badge." In the late afternoon, after the snow finally stopped, I agreed to go out with Teen B and Rocket Boy. We took some movies back to the library and then went to World Market, where we spent almost $100 on tea, chocolate, hard candy, and stollen. I've never spent almost $100 at World Market before. It all fit in a normal sized cloth grocery bag. With room to spare.

Later still, we decided that since it was Saturday, we would go out to eat -- even though we still had lots of leftovers. We went to the Gondolier, where we had also gone the previous Saturday. We need some more restaurant choices! But that's a good restaurant, anyway. We like it because it's not downtown. It's in a strip mall with a Safeway, so there's lots of parking. Take that, Boulder powers-that-be that want to get rid of cars. When it's 20 degrees (roughly) and snowy and icy, if people leave the house at all, they'll want to take their cars, not the bus. And certainly not their bicycles.

I had salmon. And dessert (again). Crème brûlée. The bill, with a generous tip, came to almost $150. (That included an appetizer, 3 desserts, and soft drinks for the kids. Rocket Boy and I just had water.) We've spent some serious money on food this visit. But I don't care. I keep thinking -- if Rocket Boy retires, we'll have to do some major economizing. And we will. But for now we don't have to, so why not enjoy ourselves a little? Not to mention the fact that most Saturdays the kids and I go to Subway or Macdonald's.

I was still in pain, all through all these activities, lack of activities, and eating. Last night I thought -- what if it doesn't have anything to do with the new pills? What if something else is wrong? This morning I googled "lower abdominal pain." In addition to the usual suspects (like IBS), lower abdominal pain is a sign of diverticulitis. Oh, no. This past summer, the daughter of a friend of my sister's was in the hospital for weeks with complications from diverticulitis. 

So now I'm trying to decide whether or not to go to Urgent Care. They're open until 5 -- that's in about two and a half hours. After today I won't have Rocket Boy to take me anywhere, because he flies back to St. Louis in the morning. 

But maybe I'm feeling a little better. The pain, while still very much there, is not as excruciating as it was on Friday.

If I didn't have IBS, I probably would have gone to Urgent Care on Friday. But abdominal pain is pretty normal for me. 

I don't want to end up in the hospital for weeks.

But what if it's just IBS, as usual? Or something caused by the new pills?

Sigh. I wish Rocket Boy weren't going back to St. Louis tomorrow.

Postnote: We didn't go to Urgent Care and I am feeling somewhat better. It was probably just IBS, as usual. We'll see what tomorrow brings.