We are waiting for the IV nurse to come back. She is seeing a patient nearby, whilst saline fluid is dripping into KS’s vein. His calcium is too high again and he was been feeling more unwell this past week. This weekend he is getting two litres of fluid in four bags: one in the morning and one in the evening. The medical team members are fantastic, without exception. It is wonderful not to have to go into hospital for these procedures. In the meantime I am preparing a slow cooking tomato soup. Yesterday evening as the nurses were waiting for the second bag to finish, I baked a cherry cake. Which included eggs. And I hadn’t cooked with eggs for 20 years.
Food has been all over the place since KS became ill beginning of April. At first it was him not being able to eat at all and being constantly nauseous. That week in hospital he was eating mainly custard. When he came home he shifted to porridge. That was the only thing he could ingest. This was also the period in which he could solely drink Pellegrino, and even that was challenging. There was an episode of liking seedless grapes. This was soon over. He could not bear any cooking smells, which made cooking at home difficult. He would sit near the open window to inhale fresh air. We had of course stopped eating together by then. Which I found difficult. I would cook a batch of four days of food for myself in a multi-cooker with the lid on.
When the nausea receded with the help of medication, cake entered the scene. And chocolate. And fruit gums. This was also the result of medication to stimulate his appetite. He became quite voracious for a while. Later on he started eating fairly normally again. And we resumed having meals together and then also cooking for each other. This is where we are now, though my healthy eating commitment is on a slippery slope these days. All the way through our living together we have mostly taken turns cooking. But I have had periods of time in earlier years when I was too tired and uninspired to cook on coming home from work, and then KS would be the main cook. He would send me pics of what he had prepared, so I knew what was waiting for me. I tried to find one of those pics just now, but they have all been deleted. I felt a pang of loss.
Last week my drive to cook took a nosedive and KS kindly did most of the cooking. Luckily my inspiration has come back again this weekend. So yesterday evening I finally made that cherry cake. After trying lots of shop-bought cakes that always fell short because he felt there were not enough cherries. This one was a triumph. And a sweet, much needed pleasure.
