Hangin' in there...

Last Sunday (the 8th) I cracked. Like hard.

Before church I had to tell Steph that I officially was canceling my trip to Utah for her wedding. We just hadn't seen enough improvement with Chris, so I couldn't leave him behind for 4 days.

After taking Chris home after Sacrament Meeting, I was heading to Sunday School when a member of the bishopric approached me and asked how Chris was doing. I explained the latest to him, and turned to head to class. Then he asked how I was doing. Oh man did he regret asking that question. He told me not to try to be a hero, but to let people step in and help us out. He encouraged me to ask for help with meals (which I was super hesitant to do because of the diet restrictions), and to let someone else mow my lawn, and to let my visiting teaching companion worry about doing the visits this month.  He also told me not to feel bad about taking some time for myself every once in a while. He had been caring for a family member who was ill and knew how draining it can be on the loved ones, so he told me to make sure I was looking out for my well-being too.

I don't think I stopped crying until after I got home, except for a few minutes that I pulled myself together to play the piano in Young Women's. I didn't ever make it to Sunday School. Instead I sat in the hallway with two parents who were each out with their almost 1 year olds. I talked to a lady in my ward named Jenny, and she just let me cry and tell her everything. It felt so good!

After church I was approached by a couple who has had a rough year because of various health problems. He's been hospitalized like 3 times since March... basically it's been a rough rough year. He asked me how Chris was doing, and asked about Chris's cane. He asked if Chris had gotten a blessing recently and then offered to come give him one (when I said that I was looking for someone to come give him one--both our home teachers were out of town). He and Jenny's husband came over later to give Chris a blessing. And then they offered to give me one too. Yeah... cried the whole time they were at our house. It was great to have them come and just talk with us for a few minutes. We laughed so hard, it was hilarious.

Monday morning I got a text from Jenny asking if she could bring us dinner around 5:00. Bless her! This meant I could spend my day cleaning and doing laundry instead of researching meals, counting sodium content, and grocery shopping. I just had to be alive when she brought the food. It's been more than a week and we are STILL talking about the delicious crock pot chicken that she brought us. The chicken was so dang tasty, the sauce was INCREDIBLE, and Chris was convinced that the broccoli was homegrown. It was all just so tasty. And low sodium! It was so worth asking for help, I learned a new recipe that we LOVED and that is totally fine for Chris to eat.

Thursday night was hard, I knew that I would've been at a surprise bachelorette party for Steph, and having one last sleepover with her before she got married the next morning. Friday morning was even harder. I cried when I looked at the clock and thought "oh, I would've been arriving at the temple about now" and "they're getting married now" and "now it's time for the luncheon". It was hard not being there, but I was so happy to know that while she was sad I wasn't there, she totally understood why I wasn't there, and actually felt bad for me. She was sad knowing that she couldn't even just come down here and have a girls night and make things better. I'm looking forward to the day that Chris is feeling better and I get to use my flight to head up to see her! I'm thinking General Conference weekend in October would be awesome, because of our tradition of watching conference together, but we'll see. I'll go whenever!

Friday the couple with lots of health problems invited us over to their house for dinner, and some time to sit in their reclining massage chair that they had gotten to help alleviate some of their pain. Oh man, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. We hung out at their house for several hours, with all 4 adults taking turns in the massage chair, with soothing music in the background, and having a delicious dinner! Chicken Parmesan. So good, and not too high in sodium count if you either make your own sauce or take the time to go through every bottle of sauce at the store to find the lowest sodium count. Their 5 year old asked if I could come back sometime and just play with her, it was so cute.

Later this week I'm getting together with my visiting teacher to make some no/low-sodium foods. She's been looking all over pinterest trying to help me find some things that we could enjoy. She found a no sodium granola that would be excellent at breakfast or as a snack, and it would be fantastic to have some totally sodium free snacks/breakfasts so that we can save our sodium allowance for lunch and dinners!

Tonight we're having Manicotti, and with the specific sauces/cheeses/everything I have to use with it Chris will only get 665 mg of sodium for 2 stuffed shells, and that should be enough with our side veggies to get him full! Since he's supposed to limit himself to 1500-2000 mg per day, we're pretty excited to see that this Manicotti is totally fine for him! I still am going to keep looking for lower sodium sauce, because that's where the bulk of the sodium comes from. I may just make my own!

We're getting better at finding meals. It definitely helped to have a few meals brought to us which sparked some more ideas of things to try. Oh, and we invested in a few different bottles of Mrs. Dash which is AMAZING! It's a seasoning that has no salt, no msg, and adds a ton of great flavor, depending on which variety you get. We got one that is for grilling chicken, one that is like garlic and herb, and I don't remember which other two we bought... Mrs Dash also makes some marinades that I'm looking into since they also would meet his diet restrictions! It's always fun to find something delicious with no sodium in it!

With all that said... Chris is kind of doing better? I guess. He is able to sit for longer periods of time. He doesn't get the headaches too often anymore which is AWESOME! It's actually pretty nice. He's to the point where we can play a few rounds of MarioKart Wii without having to pause it (unless we pause for a bathroom break... he's on a diuretic and goes to the bathroom way more often). He also asked if we could watch an old season of The Biggest Loser, so we started that this morning. With the most recent season he sometimes would catch little pieces here or there as I'd watch it, and he thought it was interesting, but wanted to watch a whole season. Hulu has most of the seasons, so I picked a season that I really enjoyed in the past and decided we'd start with that one! For any of you Biggest Loser fans, we're watching Season 9-the one with Sam & Koli, and Michael (who starts out at 526 pounds!). I think that Season 11 will be the next one we watch, if Chris wants to watch another season.