Chicken parmigiana with garlic ciabatta

Like many (most?) people with a chronic illness I take a lot of medications, some to control the symptoms of my condition, others to control the symptoms caused by the first set of medications. (I’m not yet up to meds to control the symptoms caused by the meds I take to control the symptoms caused by the meds I take for my condition, but it’s surely coming.)

I tend to underrate the second type of meds, until moments like 26 minutes past midnight last night (or early this morning, depending on how you look at it) when I wake up with a burning in my chest, a mouthful of acid, and a head full of the jingle to the Pepto-Bismol advert. (I know the point of a jingle is to be memorable, and oh, how that one achieves it. 😠🙄) I eventually got back to sleep, but I can’t say I slept well and, in combination with yesterday’s unscheduled day of activity, I woke this morning with a head full of unvocalised swear words relating to the necessity of getting up.

Mum was also struggling this morning, physically more than mentally, but I didn’t want to leave her alone or make the long walk to my grandmother’s house¹ unless it was really necessary, so I waited until I was called by the family members clearing the house. As the hours passed it became clear they weren’t going to call, so I sent a message asking if / when they would need me, only to be told they had already done it all and were about to leave.

This of course meant I didn’t get to take anything as a memory of my grandmother: mum was very indignant on my behalf, but I figure that I have already run out of room for things in the small bedroom that is my only personal space, so not having one of the small, tile-top tables that would have been my choice (oh, the hours I spent sitting with one of those tables with a glass of lemon squash, and later with a cup of coffee!) was more a snub than a physical loss.

Dinner tonight was necessarily simple: breaded chicken topped with the rest of the tomato sauce and mozzarella from last night’s pizza, served with Tesco Finest garlic ciabatta and, in mum’s case, the last of the salad. (If I order one bag we don’t have enough, if I order two it goes off: I can’t seem to get it right. 🤷‍♂️)

Mum didn’t want hers, so I had to pull the adult equivalent of “you’re not getting any dessert unless you eat your meal first”: I believe my exact words were “woman cannot live on coffee ice cream alone”, and she suddenly found that she could manage some of it after all!

And so to bed – shortly, anyway – in the hope that I will sleep better having today received a refill of the missing medication. If it doesn’t work, it’s totally the fault of the meds and not of the bar of hazelnut chocolate I’m eating while writing this. 😳

1. It’s actually just across the mini green, a 30 second walk at most, even with my crutches, but on days like today it feels quite considerably further. ↩︎