Anna N

Thank you. The board survives because members keep it alive and interesting and I like to do my bit. Of course I enjoy it too. It does make the time go faster. And the support I get from so many people probably does more for me than all the pharmaceuticals in the world.

You are right. Once I start feeling a little more like myself I will do so.

Oh that would make sense. I lost it yesterday at lunchtime when my tray was delivered and the service worker unceremoniously shoved aside my Vietnamese rice paper rolls to make room for it. I said, “Watch it. That’s real food.” I am usually very polite.

I can’t confirm for sure because I haven’t done any serious experimentation – – like taking the lid off. But I think the 0% refers to the fat content.

Water is not an issue. I can get a very large Styrofoam container of ice water as often as I wish. There is an ice water dispenser right outside my room and the nurses bring me as much as I want. Once I am out of isolation I will be able to help myself. Our municipal water is just fine. We don’t need no fancy spring water brought from ALBERTA using many carbon footsteps and wasting plastic and aluminum.

So just a word of advice. Never get yourself admitted to a hospital on a Friday. You will spend at least two days spinning your wheels. So here it is on Monday and hopefully things will start to happen in terms of moving along my journey out of isolation and eventually home. So here we are. Apparently there is an acute shortage of toast in Oakville. But I was able to put together something that will hold me for a little while. I think somebody perhaps dropped the cinnamon shaker into the carrot loaf batter. It was wicked strong. But the cream cheese masked some of it and the peach took care of the aftertaste. This morning breakfast collided with medication and vitals and everything because the routine of the hospital must go on! But it wasn’t like there was a nice plate of bacon and eggs getting cold.😂 Major fail on the jar of Robertson's shredded marmalade! Can’t open the lid. May take a knife to it later and see if I can knock it loose. My handy-dandy Lee Valley gadget for doing this is at home.

A glass of stout was not considered outrageous even in my lifetime as a tonic for hospital patients. We’ve lost the ability to deal on a case-by-case basis. So much easier to lump everybody together and treat them all as though they came off the assembly line. Bureaucracy at its best.

Please. This is the family channel.

When @Kerry Beal visited today we discussed something along those lines. Just for the sake of argument and not to offend anyone at all what would be best declaration you could make about your dietary needs. Nobody asks you about your dietary likes and dislikes! Nobody asks you if you keep kosher. Nobody asks you if you are vegan but I guess such people don’t need to be asked. They make their preferences clear. But on further thought it is not a matter of food preferences but of the taste or lack of it. I don’t think vegan or kosher or halal would fare any better. We are a multi ethnic nation so I wonder how our non-WASP hospital population does. I am suspecting it is far worse. Oakville is largely an enclave of WASPS. I am guessing their families feed them while they are in hospital. And perhaps we should consider that as an option to solve the whole problem. There are countries I believe where the feeding of patients is not the responsibility of the hospital but of the family. Now there is a thought! In the back of my mind something is niggling and suggesting that perhaps hospitals took over the feeding of patients to ensure that they had nutritious food which they were not getting it home. Nutritious food was at one time considered vital for recovery from an illness.

More real food. A lovely evening snack. See, I’m not that hard to please!

I will let @demiglace answer for her experience. But often trays are refused before they ever enter a patient’s room. They may have also sent up trays to people who have just been discharged either out the front door or out the backdoor.

Perfect!

Yes that is a real plate! I, too, was taken aback. I think that they’re making a big deal of Sunday dinner! In fact, that was my first instinct when I took the lid off before I read the menu. With my poor eyesight I thought, “Oh my goodness it’s a Sunday joint!” Lamb? Roast Beef? I can be quite silly sometimes.

Thanks. I kind of figured that. Because last night I was really hungry and I mentioned that to one of my nurses and he offered to see what he could find in the fridge. But I knew very well it would be something that I had already turned down at lunch or dinner and I didn’t want him to have to go through that exercise so I could say no thank you to everything!

So dinner arrived almost before I was finished lunch at 4:45. That is certainly a long way from my usual routine. This was the most visually appealing entrée so far. There is the menu. I can almost see @rotuts eyes light up! Turkey meatloaf. Here is the tray. And here is the entrée. You must agree that compared to all the other entrées you have seen this one is the most visually appealing. Nice colour, Reasonable plating for an institution. But I tasted the carrots. They could’ve been just about anything because they didn’t taste like carrots. And they had that very weird texture that frozen carrots always seem to get. And I why I never buy frozen peas and carrots. I tasted the mashed potatoes. Without butter and salt as a bare minimum mashed potatoes are meh. I tasted the gravy. No. Actually I didn’t taste the gravy. It didn’t taste like turkey. Didn’t taste like any meat I’d recognize. I’m guessing gravy browning and corn starch played a leading part in its construction. And as a major concession to @rotuts, I even tasted the turkey meat loaf. It too didn’t taste like turkey. My first impression was of salt but that couldn’t possibly be. I bet you wouldn’t find a grain of it anywhere in the hospital meals except contraband salt. So I’m not quite sure what to tell you about this. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant and I could see it appealing to some of our residents. Perhaps one could make it edible with a little sriracha and had I not just eaten something far better I might’ve tried that. I don’t think it would pass muster as it is with anybody who likes turkey meatloaf. Again the egregious water. From this tray I rescued the apple juice and the cookies. I quite like plain tea biscuits.

You cannot just ask to be removed from membership in their diners’ club. I tried that on another occasion thinking that we could save food that I was not going to eat. That upsets the whole smooth bureaucratic apple cart. First I have to have a breakfast tray so at least I get a warm cup of something before family can arrive with real coffee. But you can’t apparently do that. The system has little flexibility. We have 457 patients therefore we will deliver 457 meals three times each day. That number of meals may fluctuate from day to day but not by very much. Even the new hospital has a wait time at certain periods for beds. I am hoping my stay here will be brief enough that I will not develop too large a guilt complex about food that is not being eaten. I don’t think there’s much problem with that because it’s really quite awful. I’m guessing hundreds of meals are wasted every single day.

But I shall continue to post my hospital meals for your edification and amusement. And who knows around every corner there is a surprise and perhaps there will be something that I just might want to eat.

So here is Real Food! Vietnamese fresh spring rolls with dipping sauce. Vietnamese beef noodle soup well dressed! And then should I get a little peckish later: So all of you who thought you might need to send me CARE packages —Stand down. We are good. @Kerry Beal saved another life.

This hospital has a virtual food circus and the food there is extremely good. It’s not cheap. The problem is that I can’t leave my room and the only way I can get food like that is if someone visits and I ask them to go down there. Which I have done on other occasions. I quite enjoyed Timmys Thai soup on my last unfortunate encounter with this institution. There is even a sushi bar down there much better than you find in supermarkets but not a real sushi bar of course.

I have the Dick Tracy watch! Watch your PM for incoming.

Not me. That’s the way it arrived. I don’t think it’s an actual bite. Perhaps the angle or the lighting? Anyway it was quite a horrible orange and I only did take two bites of it before saying bye-bye.

Oh my God I missed that best before date! But don’t they say Twinkies never die? Maybe the bread uses the same formula.

But you gotta look at the other side of it. Only the food is an issue and that will be remedied in due time by my friends and family. Other than that I am getting expert medical treatment, caring and considerate nursing staff, friendly and obliging support staff and I would like to be better before I go home ! Otherwise I would be out of here AMA. And I’ve done it before.

I have some terrible news for you. I knocked my pepper collection on the floor and the cleaner cleaned it up!

Once again it looks and smells as if no broccoli was harmed in the making of this broccoli soup! Look me hearties – – fresh fruit. What do you think? Should I eat this or should I hold out for Vietnamese beef noodle soup that is on its way?