The Drama of Blood Tests

Every month PKU'ers are supposed to get a blood test done. It's unpleasant but it needs to get done. There are 2 ways to do this. Finger pricks or Arm shots. Which one is better? For me I prefer Arm shots. I don't bleed in my fingers, and usually it takes multiple pricks to fill the 2 circles they told us is bare minimum. Then it turns out the sample was soiled in some way... every time. So I prefer a clean blood shot in the arm.

This is abnormal. According to my new doctor every PKU'er in the clinic does finger pricks, so why can't I? For several days I have been thinking about this. With the new lancets they have all you need to do is place it in the right position and push in. A little needle comes and goes; you hardly even see it. In my daydreams and nightmares it's a stabbing motion. Can I really stab myself? Even if it's in the finger?

I know that finger pricks are a ton cheaper. I can do them at home. But... if the sample is spoiled then I have really sore fingers for nothing.

The doctor's at my clinic are trying to force me to finger prick myself. There is no way to avoid it anymore. At this stage of life I need to have consistent tests taken because my brain is growing right now. If I don't I will get brain damage. I simply have too many plans in life to get brain damage. So I will try to do it even if it means: having sore fingers continually. It's going to be hard to get over my fears. I realize I do fear those lancets they have right now but we all need to do things we don't want to do. Even when they can cause a lot of pain.

I don't mean to sound self-righteous or heroic. I feel very the opposite. It's just one piece of the baggage that comes with PKU... one I've been avoiding for a long time. It's time to get over my fears and prick myself... and prick myself... and prick myself. Hopefully I'll get a clean sample someday.

New Favorite Recipe!

I just got back from a friend's house and soon I need to unpack, then repack. At noon I'll be off again. But before I go at my friend's house we tried this really good recipe that turned out great. It's pretty easy, so here we go:

Ingredients:

• Sliced veggies (we used potatoes, asparagus, sweet potatoes, onions,and other random veggies)
• A pan
• Pam/ or some other nonstick spray
• 1/8 cup olive oil
• Garlic Salt
• Salt
• Non salt seasoning

What you do:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees
   
2. Spray the nonstick spray on the pan/sheet
3. Lay out the veggies
4. Drizzle the olive oil over the veggies
5. Then season it (use very little salt, the garlic salt should take care of it.)
6. Cook it in the oven until all the veggies are soft (about 10 minutes... sorry if I'm off)

That's it!

The fun thing about the friend I stayed with is that she's vegetarian. When I stay at her house it's not just "potatoes and salad" no we eat a variety of foods. It's nice that her family tried to learn what I could and couldn't have. But it's also good if you know it yourself. Well I better go do what I'm supposed to be doing... :) I'll see you next week!

Zupa Pictures

My salad is the one on bottom, my sister's in in the middle, and a cup is on top.

Salad Paradise!

First off did you notice I changed my layout completely? Because I did. I like it a lot, and am currently thinking about changing my background every other month. There are a lot of cool backgrounds on Blogger.

Next item of business: My first (!) restaurant review! (Sort of... in an unprofessional they didn't know I was going to blog about them kind of way.)

A little while ago, probably a couple weeks ago my mom, sister, sister's friend, and I went to a cool restaurant called Zupas. It's this salad, sandwich, soup restaurant. When I go to restaurants most of the time I get a salad. It's what I can have, a lot of the time it's the only thing I can have. Zupas had this nice item on their menu called "A Create Your Own Salad". They let you choose everything for the salad! The lettuce type, the dressing, the toppings! I chose a green mix of lettuce, poppy seed dressing, and 6 toppings: olives, strawberries, cranberries, diced apple, pineapple, and avocado. They had a chose of meat or tofu but I chose not to. Without meat you can actually get 8 toppings! I couldn't find any others I wanted on this salad though. Which is kind of rare because I usually have more toppings than lettuce on my salad if i can help it. They gave each person a chocolate covered strawberry with our orders!!!! After finding a booth we took our cups and went to the soda counter. They had a normal soda fountain but Zupa's also had a bunch of flavorings! I filled my cup up with sprite then added raspberry flavoring... yum! (I also learned right about here that a little bit of flavoring goes a long way :) ) This restaurant was PKU heaven for me. Everything was delicious,and they make the salad in front of you while making it look advertisement worthy. I have some pics to prove it too. I would tell you what everyone else ordered but then this post would get boring. Let's just say everyone (PKU'er or not) was satisfied. I give this restaurant a 8 on the PKU Food Friendly Scale. (I took away 2 points because besides the create your own salad there was maybe 1 other thing I could have.)

Now I'm going to have a fantastic Spring Break! I suggest you do too (that is if you have Spring Break if you don't have a good weekend) ! I'll post a little about it in a not going to reveal intimate details on the internet kind of way ;) ! Bye!

Sleeping Angels

Right now I'm babysitting. The house is quiet as the children are asleep. I've had difficult jobs before; this one was from hard. The kids were so good and everything went smoothly. I don't think I had a single problem! We played games and dressed up. They showed me their secret club and we had a mini dancing party. The most creative part was when I had them get on their movie star clothes (which turned out to be more like princess dresses and tiaras). I went downstairs and closed all the blinds, popped popcorn, and laid out a blanket for them to picnic on. We pretended they were famous movie stars attending the premiere of "Kung Fu Panda". Then it was bedtime. I don't think I've EVER had kids go to bed that easily ever before! I wonder... will it be this much fun when I'm a mom? I know there will be hard days. But will there be days just like this one? Full of fun and creativity, laughter and smiles? I know this blog is about PKU but I'm getting there I promise. Then there's the question. Will my kids have PKU? It is genetic after all. It really depends on my husband's DNA I guess. If he doesn't have PKU and isn't a carrier the stats say all my kids will be carriers but none will have PKU themselves. If he IS a carrier then they say there's a 50% chance they'll have PKU, & a 50% chance they'll just be carriers. If he has PKU then... let's just say it'll be hard to get insurance to help us pay the medical bills. If they have PKU what trials will they go through. Will kids make fun of them? (I never was made fun of but who knows what may happen?) Will they feel left out? Or will they realize how special they are and how PKU is a lifestyle that makes them unique. Will they stay on their diet? What will tempt them to stray? I want to have a family someday. I have so many great ideas I've thought of and collected over the years. Things to do, how to teach them certain things, and things like that. I imagine having little kids who won't finish their food will be a temptation to me. Maybe I should include a dog in my daydreams (?) to eat the scraps. Anyways... kids. In a dark, silent house when you peek in their rooms. Their faces display peace, innocence, and they look like angels. That is until they're awake... when the real fun begins. ;)