1. Maybe I'll leave the house on Tuesday.
I woke up today, on Monday, with a plan in my head of things I thought would be good to do.
But, I cracked open After That Night, Karin Slaughter's Will Trent detective mystery thriller again, and I was a goner.
I never left the house.
I read the last half of this book with classical music on KWAX-FM and Spotify and learned how all of the pieces of this story of depravity and exploitation and serial sexual assault fit together.
Outside of the stories of rape, I enjoyed the other multiple stories Karin Slaughter developed in this book. The book's primary love story was fun, I enjoyed entering into the behind the scenes world of law enforcement, and very much liked the amount of attention Slaughter gave to Will Trent's professional partner, Faith Mitchell, and her work as an investigator and the chaos of her single mother home life.
I also enjoyed the dogs and cats in this book.
My enjoyment of these relationships and the details of these main characters' domestic and professional lives stood in stark contrast to the story's criminals and the crimes they committed over the novel's past sixteen years.
Getting to know these criminals, these wealthy medical doctors/specialists, and how they regarded their crimes as sport was haunting and sickening, as was reading the details of how they targeted their victims and carried out the assaults.
Throughout the book, a missing piece to the puzzle of these crimes stumped the investigators and in the novel's dramatic (or was it melodramatic?) climax, that final piece falls into place.
2. Frequently, I put down After That Night. I took a very satisfying break when I fixed Debbie and me dinner. I got out my always reliable electric frying pan and returned to making an everything but the kitchen sink combination of foods.
First, I fried bacon and removed the pieces from the pan. I then cooked red onion slices, minced garlic, celery pieces, along with diced Yukon gold potatoes. Once these vegetables softened, I added ground beef to the pan, let it brown, and then folded in half disks of zucchini with mushrooms and frozen broccoli florets, green beans, and corn. I also added a chopped up small chunk of meatloaf I discovered on Saturday in the freezer.
Before doing all this frying, I had made a small pot of basmati rice. Now the rice was cooked and I put it in the pan, returned the bacon, and after this all cooked a short while, I topped it with shredded sharp cheddar cheese.
The dietician I work with in the transplant program emphasizes that I balance protein, starch, and fresh fruits and vegetables in the food I eat.
This dish didn't have fruit, but it was well-stocked with protein, starch, and vegetables.
Seasoned with Montreal Steak Seasoning and the flavors of the meatloaf and bacon, whoa!, this was a tasty meal.
3. I monitor my temperature, blood pressure, and pulse rate twice a day. I weigh myself every morning.
My weight is stable, and that's good, but I'd like to bring it down slowly. The medicines I take stimulate my appetite a bit, so my intention over the next few months is to work with my appetite, my calorie intake, and exercise and see if I can lose at least a little weight. (By the way, the transplant team never brings up my weight. Their main concern is that I don't have a sudden increase due to fluid retention. I'm the one who brings up my weight with myself!)
My blood pressure is at times erratic, never dangerous, but recently it's been golden and stable. Likewise, my temperature has been stable and hasn't even come close to registering a fever.
This is great news.
Oh! My pulse -- stable and in good shape.
I sure feel fortunate.
I'm getting close to it having been nine months since the transplant and the one element of my health I need to improve is exercising and possibly losing some weight.
Nine months ago, as my surgery site was healing and in the early days of my recovery, the dietitian told me not to concern myself with my weight. Eating to help my healing was more important than how much I weighed.
I will talk about this more in March with Dr. Bieber, but I'm thinking that the time has come to do my best to take off at least a few pounds and figure out sensible ways to deal with my appetite -- increased appetite is a normal result of transplantation and taking anti-rejection medicine and the small amount of prednisone, an anti-inflammatory steroid, I ingest daily.
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