Summer Squash Pasta by Janie Busch (and heart surgeries for both Dads)

Heart disease just will NOT leave my family alone already. I know I've been absent from the blog for a while - but I'm back and back with a vengence. Training for my first half marathon, and exploring more heart-healthy cooking.

Those of you that know me well know that my biological father, Kenny, had a bajilliontuple bypass surgery right before Thanksgiving. It was really scary - he had been having a few minor symptoms but didn't mention them to anyone (and still doesn't think they were symptoms - stubborn, stuborn man). He did have some real symptoms one afternoon and told my stepmom, Barb, about it. Thank goodness. He had a doctor's appointment just a few days later and Barb mentioned them. When they did a cardiac cath to take a look around it was a mess in there - they thought they were going to need to do a quadruple or possibly quintuple bypass. Jeremy and I grabbed our stuff and rushed across the state to be with him in KC. We got there shortly after the surgery - he ended up having a sextuple bypass. Yep. Six. And they would have done seven but they ran out of good arteries to use for the bypasses!

That was seven months ago and things are much better now. He struggled for a bit in the hospital and it was hard to see my dad in so much pain and struggling like that. But now Dad is doing well, still stubborn and probably not doing everything exactly the way he should. But I did mention the stubborn thing, didn't I?

Then just five months later Dad (Louis)* had a stent put in! He'd had an unexplained chronic cough so Mom asked Dr. Stoffa to do a chest x-ray to look at his lungs. It didn't show anything scary, but in the background they noticed some calcification in/on an artery. When they did a follow up CAT scan for his lungs, they noticed the calcification had become stenosis (narrowing). So Dr. Stoffa (the life saver, you know her by now), said we're going to skip the stress test and go straight to the cardiac cath. A few days later Dad had his cardiac cath and ended up with a stent in his lower decsending artery - just like Jeremy. Precious, aren't they?

Granted, Dad and Dad were both much older than Jeremy when they had their surgeries, but it's a lesson for everyone. We should all pay attention, we should all exercise and eat healthy. There is no reason to ever put transfat in your body. Ever. Stop smoking, start moving and eat right!

So now Mom and Dad have hopped on the heart-healthy bandwagon. Dad has never had to worry about his diet much, so like Jeremy he wasn't real clear on saturated fat vs. healthy fat, cholesterol, sodium, limits, etc. He'd never paid any attention really - if he wanted to lose a little weight in the past he'd cut back on portions, eat mainly soup and it would melt right off. So this has been a big adjustment for him. Mom, on the other hand (like me), has had a lifelong struggle with her weight, so she is quite familiar with dietary restrictions.

It's actually much handier for Jeremy and I when we go to visit now because 90% of what is in the house is healthy food and we can both just dig in to whatever Mom makes. We are visiting her now and she just made the MOST delicious summer pasta dish I've ever tasted. Ever. She adapted it from a recipe she found in the July 2012 Southern Living. I made her write it down and I'll share...

Summer Squash Pasta

(adapted from James Lewis' July 2012 Southern Living recipe by Janie Busch)

Makes 8 to 10 servings

2 medium yellow squash, divided

2 medium zucchini, divided

2 medium carrots, divided

1 small onion, chopped

1 garlic clove, minced

3/4 cup chicken or vegetable broth, divided (I use low fat College Inn)

4 T olive oil

1 t salt, divided

1/2 c chopped fresh basil

3 slices turkey bacon

8 oz Ranzoni Smart Taste spaghetti

1 T whipped cream cheese

1 T nonfat greek yogurt

1/4 c grated parm

1/4 c reduced fat parm

1. Cut 1 squash, 1 zucchini and one carrot into 1/4" slices. Place in a Dutch oven; add garlic 1/2 c veg/chicken broth, 3 T olive oil and 1/2 t salt. Cover and cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, 20 to 30 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Stir in 1/2 c basil; cool 10 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, saute turkey bacon in lightly greased large non-stick skillet over medium heat until browned and crisp and remove from skillet.

3. Process cooked squash mixture and remaining 1/4 c broth in a blender or food processor until smooth. Wipe dutch oven clean.

4. Cook pasta in dutch oven according to package directions; drain, reserving 1 c hot pasta water. Return hot booked pasta to dutch oven.

5. Cut remaining squash, zucchini and carrot lengthwise into very thin, ribbon-like strips using a mandoline or Y-shaped vegetable peeler. Stck ribbons, and cut in half lengthwise.

6. Put 1 T olive oil in skillet over medium heat; add vegetable ribbons, remaining 1/2 t salt, and saute 5 minutes or just until tender. Transfer to a plate and cover.

7. Cook squash mixture, cream cheese, greek yogurt, 1/8 c parm and 1/8 c reduced fat parm for 3 to 4 minutes or just until squash is hot and cheese is melted. Pour sauce ov er pasta; toss to coat, adding desired amount of reserved hot pasta water to thin sauce, if necessary. Top with vegetable ribbons, turkey bacon and and remining cheese and basil.

8. Dig in!

Nutritional information for 1/10 of recipe: 205 calories, 9.2 g total fat, 1.7 g saturated fat, 13,5 mg cholesterol, 510 g sodium, 27.4 g carbohydrates, 7.3 g protein

*Yes I refer to both of them as Dad. I can't help it. People just generally try to figure out which one I'm talking about from the context. I've tried to diffentiate but it's not organic. So it's Dad and Dad.

753

Peanut Butter Cream Pie for Mikey (and Low Fat for Jeremy)

I truly enjoy writing my blog(s), in spite of the fact that I've been MIA quite a bit in the last year or so (I promise that's over). I love to write, but even more than writing, I love to read. I had my nose in a book throughout my entire childhood (much to Dad's chagrin since he thought a farm girl should spend more time OUTSIDE). I was such a dorky bookworm that my favorite thing ON EARTH was a trip to the bookstore.  I'd burn through books so fast that I'd be out of reading material before we'd even get home from the bookstore. I had a thirst for knowledge and I wanted to know MORE. More about everything... except science. Everybody knows science sucks and is lame and is boring. Totally. (Editors Note: This opinion has nothing to do with the fact that science is the only class I didn't get As in. No matter how hard I tried. Because science sucks.)

As an adult, blogs have replaced Nancy Drew and Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle in my reading repertoire. I have a whole list of blogs that I check on a regular basis: Alinea at Home (the sequal to my all time favorite blog, French Laundry at Home), Bookslut, The Old Hag (I want to be Lizzie Skurnick when I grow up), and then a whole host of food blogs.

You all already know how much I love to cook. One of the blogs I drop by on a regular basis is In Jennie's Kitchen. Jennie is living out the dream I don't have the guts to live - she became a lauded personal chef (by the New York Daily News, CNNf and Time Out New York no less!) in 1999 at only 23 and then entered the New York City restaurant scene and has worked with Tom Colicchio and Alain Ducasse (my fellow foodies will know how impressive that is).

I dropped by her blog Sunday night to find incredibly heart-wreching news. The week before, on August 7 at 5:52 PM, Jennie's husband's heart stopped beating. Mikey suddenly collapsed to the floor and died of a sudden heart attack. He was Jeremy's age. I gasped and then started sobbing immediately. I pulled my knees up and wrapped my arms around them and cried with the ugly face. I was struggling for big gulps of air and starting to feel my lips go tingly because I was beginning to hyperventilate. This is my greatest fear. This has been my greatest fear for the last 372 days. Thank goodness I was alone. I don't have a pretty or dainty cry, people.

Just three days prior a group of friends gathered with us to celebrate Jeremy's "Heartaversary". On Thursday, August 11, 2011, it had been one full year since Jeremy's heart surgery. I had every intention of writing a blog about that dinner, about what we had, about fnding healthy food choices when dining out and how this experience has changed the dining experience for us. But when I read about Mikey I lost all inspiration for a light-hearted and celebratory blog post. That can come later.

As I clicked back through Jennie's blog, I saw that she had asked her friends and family who kept asking what they could do to help to make a peanut butter cream pie. Peanut butter cream pie was Mikey's favorite and she asked everyone to celebrate Mikey's life by making a peanut butter cream pie for someone you love on Friday, August 12 and then "hug them like there's no tomorrow because today is the only day we can count on".

I then started visiting other blogs I enjoy and saw that many of them had posted about making peanut butter cream pies that Friday for Mikey. The blog world really is a small world, isn't it? So many of these other blogs I read also read one another. But then I googled "peanut butter pie for mikey" just to see who else had done it, and I saw that even CNN's food page Eatocracy made a peanut butter cream pie for Mikey.

I've never met Jennie. She doesn't know me and it's very unlikely that we'll ever meet. But I sobbed for her. I sobbed for her and her kids and for myself.

I'm a week late, and for that I apologize, but here's my peanut butter cream pie for Mikey.

I've made peanut butter cream pie a few times in the past, so I had an old recipe. I did a few searches for low fat peanut butter cream pie and didn't see anything too terribly exciting. So I decided to just use the old one I had in my recipe box (I have no idea where it came from) and try to make it low fat. It's ridiculously easy:

Heather's Low Fat Peanut Butter Cream Pie

9" premade cookie crust (I use chocolate)

4 oz fat free cream cheese

3/4 cup Splenda

1/2 cup Better'n Peanut Butter

1/2 cup skim milk

1/2 tub fat free frozen whipped topping, thawed

Beat together cream cheese and Splenda. Mix in peanut butter and milk. Beat until smooth. Fold in whipped topping. Spoon into pie crust and freeze until firm. I add a dollop of whipped cream and half a sugar free Reese's peanut butter cup. 8 servings

Nutritional Values per serving:

Calories: 198

Total Fat: 5.8g

  Sat Fat: 1 g

Cholesterol: 7.3 mg

Sodium: 328 mg

Potassium: 31 mg

Carbohydrates: 31 g

Protein: 6.3 g

Was it good? Ask Jeremy - he thought so!

Whole Foods

I enjoy food a lot - a whole lot. Not always such a good thing. But I love to cook and I love feeding the people I care about. Going to new restaurants and challenging myself to try new things - it's a passion. I'm addicted to The Food Network and have a list a mile long of culinary things I want to expore - curing my own bacon, learn to sous vide, make duck confit, etc.

With all of that having been said, it's not a passion that Jeremy shares with me. He'll eat anything I make for him, but he'll very rarely get excited about it. When Whole Foods opened it's first location here in St. Louis I was really excited and couldn't wait to go check it out. Jeremy couldn't have cared less. Thank goodness my best friend, Mary Beth, is as dorky a foodie as I am so she went with me (we even took off work and went to see the Top Chef road tour in their parking lot).

So now that Jeremy takes more interest in the food he eats, he has fallen in love with hummus. He'd had it before, but wasn't aware of how healthy is was. Now it's his favorite replacement for bean dip - or really just dip in general. He goes through so much of it so quickly, he decided he wanted to learn how to make it himself. Unfortunately, our local grocery store doesn't carry tahini (one of the main ingredients of hummus). So I suggested we head to Whole Foods and spend a little time going through the whole store.

There are a ton of healthy options at Whole Foods and I knew if he spent a little time there, he'd find a lot of new things to try. And I was right (duh).

It's for a completely different reason now, but Jeremy now has a passion about food and it's something we can share. The challenge to make something healthy and delicious at the same time isn't always easy - but we're working on it together.

I love that it took him longer to get through the store than it took me. I love that he reads the nutritional content of everything he looks at. But even more than that I love how open-minded he is about trying new things now!

See what's in the middle of our cart? It's a TOFURKY PIZZA! Seriously. It is. If I'd tried to get him to try a tofurky pizza before his surgery he may very well have left me. He would definately have laughed or scoffed or called my intelligence into question. And this was all on his own - he picked up a ton of new things to try and picked them all by himself (while I spent some serious time drooling all over the cheese counter).

So we have a LOT of new items to try and I'll let you know about each and every one of them. We plan to go back about once a month and pick up another batch of new things to try. Honestly, in a truly selfish manner, I'm incredibly excited about this. I'm excited about going to Whole Foods together, I'm excited about trying new things and I'm excited that he cares now.

Products that simplify our lives... and Project Jeremy Needs To Learn To Cook

Seventeen pounds. In five weeks. Seriously - seventeen freaking pounds in five weeks. Ladies, don't you hate him? I know, the male metabolism is a wonderful thing... if you're male. He didn't really need to lose weight, he's not trying to lose weight, it's simply a side-effect of his new healthier lifestyle, and it shows us that it's working. And I'm thrilled for him. He now weighs one pound more than me. Buttface.

Honestly though, I have to give Jeremy credit, it hasn't just fallen off - he said he was going to change his lifestyle, and he has. Completely. He pays close attention to his fat, cholesterol and sodium intake and makes sure he stays within his daily guidelines. Which really isn't easy, folks. He can't walk into a quick shop and grab something to eat when he's hungry, there's almost nothing in there he can eat unless they happen to have fresh fruit. And fast food is more or less out of the questions. So we (and by "we" I mostly mean "me" - but we'll get into that later) make most of what we eat from scratch these days. He either takes his lunch of chooses from a stockpile of heart healthy Lean Cuisines in the freezer at work. (By the way - not all Lean Cuisines are heart healthy, make sure you check the labels.) So let me tell you about some of the products/services we've found to help us out in this journey.

Ground Flax Seed Packets: In The Healthy Heart Cookbook: Over 700 Recipes for Every Day and Every Occasion, Dr. Piscatella recommends including two tablespoons a day of ground flax seed in your diet. As you may know, flax seed has become more and more popular in health circles in recent years. Pretty much every book, article or website I read about a heart healthy diet suggests you include ground flax seed in your daily diet. (Ground is better than whole because your body is more able to digest it - whole seeds can pass through your body undigested.) Flax seed is high in fiber, includes Omega-3 essential fatty acids and lignans (which has both plant estrogen and antioxidant qualities). It has been shown to reduce your risk of heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes. Research has shown that the Omega-3s help prevent hardening of the arteries and keep plaque from being deposited in the arteries. Kelley C. Fitzpatrick, M.Sc. (director of health and nutrition with the Flax Council of Canada - who may be a little biased...) says "Lignans in flax seed have been shown to reduce atherosclerotic plaque buildup by up to 75%." It reduces LDL ("bad" cholesterol). On a side note - it is also commonly used as a laxative, and... um... he doesn't actually need that assistance. Our niece and nephews don't call him Uncle Stinkybutt for nothing.

So at first, I went out and bought a bag of ground flax seed. You can sprinkle in on your oatmeal, in your yogurt, over your salad, etc. You can add it to recipes and use it in baking... and there's almost no taste at all. It claims to have a delicious nutty flavor - but Jeremy and I can't taste a thing. It just adds texture as far as I'm concerned. I told Jeremy he needed to add it to stuff and he kept forgetting - and I kept forgetting to add it to anything I was making.

Mom to rescue! She found these individual packets of ground flax seed at Schnuck's. Each packet contains 2 tablespoons - so Jeremy took a box to work and actually remembers to make sure he gets one into his body every day. I can't find them at Dierberg's, but they are at Schnuck's. Or you can order them in bulk online. I'm hoping to find them at Sam's or Costco the next time we're there.

Fruit My Cube: Several month ago I read about Fruit My Cube based in Belleville, IL and out of the Belleville Farmer's Market. It's a corporate program that delivers a box full of fruits and veggies to your workplace every week. They require a minimum number of subscribers to deliver to a company location. So I sent an inquiry to our HR department... and heard nothing. And forgot about it. But just a few weeks ago, Express Scripts started hosting a Farmer's Market every month in our cafeteria... and they're doing it in cooperation with the Belleville Farmer's Market... and Fruit My Cube is a part of the whole program! We just received our second cube on Monday. I get it and hand it right over to Jeremy to keep at work. It's a great service and it supports a wonderful program, Taste Buds. Taste Buds is a program from the Belleville Farmer's Market that introduces healthy eating habits to children in schools in an effort to fight childhood obesity. Hey - Oprah likes 'em!

Fruit2day: Fruit2day is available in the produce section of most grocery stores. Each little bottle contains two servings of fruit. There's no added sugar or preservatives. It's basically pureed fruit - it includes bits of fruit, so you get the fiber you'd get from whole fruit - unlike fruit juices. Everyone needs four servings of fruit per day - so just one of these little bottles gets you halfway there. And they don't sit on the counter and go bad because you forgot about them, or because they looked so pretty in the store but aren't really ripe enough and then you forgot about them and then they went bad while you were gone for the weekend and now you have little gnats flying around the rotten fruit on your counter and it stinks...

Low Sodium V8: We've all heard of V8, but Jeremy's never had one. Instead of bopping him on the head and saying "You coulda had a V8"... which wouldn't have gone over real well... I told him it tastes like a bloody mary sans vodka. That was all he needed to hear - he was sold.

So he gets plenty of whole fruits and vegetables, but Fruit2day and Low Sodium V8 vegetable juice are great snacks and helps him to make sure he gets all his fruits and veggies in every day. Rather than reaching for a bag of chips or a sleeve of Oreo cookies or a package of cheese crackers with peanut butter, etc.

So now let's talk about cooking. I love to cook and I honestly enjoy it... however, free time is just not something I have an abundance of. I work 50-60 hours/week and am in grad school full time (or will be again as of October 2 - I had to drop last semester due to Jeremy's surgery). Which means the workload involved in doing so much cooking is too much for me to handle. So that brings me to "Project Jeremy Needs to Learn to Cook".

Just because I enjoy doing something and am pretty good at it, doesn't mean I can TEACH anyone else to do it. This issue has come up now and again in the last eleven years, but Jeremy was just unwilling to move beyond chili, burgers & brats on the grill and omelets. He figured that I like to cook, he doesn't know how, why should he bother to learn. If I don't want to cook or get angry that I do all the grocery shopping and cooking... he'll just drive through Taco Bell! Well, that doesn't cut it anymore.

I did finally force him to start cooking his own game a couple of years ago when he complained that I wasn't using it up. So I told him - you killed it, you cook it. So he's managed a few crockpot roasts and a duck breast or two.

In the past when I've tried to teach him to make something it's been... unpleasant. He goes into it feeling resentful that I'm pushing him to do this and I go into it irritated that he doesn't want to do it. He gets mad that I use terms he isn't familiar with (like sauté), I get mad that he doesn't remember something I said thirty seconds ago. You can see where this is going. It usually ends in a huge fight, results in a nice expensive piece of cookware having been ruined and the smoke alarm screaming.

This time it's a little different. Jeremy agrees that he has take responsibility for what goes into his body - it can't all be on me. So he's willing to learn to cook. He wants me to teach him. I, however, want to stay married.

I had hoped he'd be willing to take a basic cooking class at The Kitchen Conservatory called Basics of Cooking. It's 3 hours a day, once a week for four weeks. It's a hands-on course that focuses on simple techniques - how to roast, pan-sear, stir-fry, make soups and simple sauces, bake from scratch - and you cook the food and eat it there! That way, someone who does this for a living would be teaching him in a setting that is geared toward beginning cooks, surrounded by other beginning cooks (mostly other men). I've taken other classes there and it's wonderful. But he nixed that idea. We did have one cooking lesson last week and it went relatively well (neither of us needed to call a lawyer) - but I still don't think it's a good idea. Especially after October 2 when I won't even have time to cook if I wanted to!

So I'm open to suggestions. Anybody have any ideas? Would anyone like to volunteer to teach? Has anybody else learned to cook as an adult or taught any adult to cook?

(P.S. The moral of the story here, for those of you with young sons, please teach them basic cooking skills for them to build upon as they grow up. And teach them proper nutrition. What cholesterol is and where it comes from, the different types of fat, etc. It's SO much easier to learn when you're young than it is when you're in your mid-thirties!)

A Silver Lining... actually it's usually red!

Stick with me folks - once we get past all the medical talk and informational stuff, it gets interesting.

Before Jeremy was discharged from the hospital his cardiologist, Dr. Hess (he went to medical school at Tulane and interned in New Orleans as well - what's not to love???), came in to talk to us about all kinds of things. While he was there, he went over Jeremy's blood work with us. Predictably, his total cholesterol count was high, his LDL (bad cholesterol) was high and his HDL (good cholesterol) was low. I already knew that to lower his LDL level he'd need to start exercising, watch his fat intake and cut out as much transfat and saturated fat as possible. But I didn't know much about increasing his HDL - so let me tell you what we learned.

Your HDL kind works like a janitorial service for your blood vessels. It scours the excess cholesterol from the walls of your blood vessels and transports it to your liver for processing and disposal. So when your HDL level is taken, it's a reflection of how thoroughly your blood vessel walls are being scrubbed. HDL levels between 40 and 60 mg/L are considered the normal range. And here's the best part - an HDL level greater than 60 mg/L is now thought to actually PROTECT AGAINST HEART DISEASE. Let me repeat that part - PROTECT AGAINST HEART DISEASE. For those of you at home that aren't taking notes, let me spell it out for you - this is a very good thing.

Jeremy's HDL level on the day of his surgery was 37 mg/L. We just received his lab results from the physical he had the week prior to his surgery and it was 40 mg/L in that report. Anyway - not good enough. Dr. Hess said he wants Jeremy's HDL at 60 mg/L. He also said that raising your HDL isn't an easy process. Here's what you can do:

• Aerobic exercise, more specifically, at least 20 to 30 minutes of aerobic exercise that raises your heart rate. But that's a minimum. Recent research shows that it's the duration of the exercise that counts as far as raising your HDL, rather than the intensity. So as far as our desired outcome goes, it's better to jog for 40 minutes than it is to run for 20. Done deal - he bought tennis shoes, we're walking an hour every day and just as soon as Dr. Hess clears him to work out he's going to start jogging/biking.
• Lose weight. Obesity contributes to both raised LDL and a low HDL. So losing weight can improve things for folks that are overweight (Why hello there, mirror!). But Jeremy was blessed with a genetic metabolism that makes me want to punch him in the kidneys. Suffice it to say that Jeremy isn't obese and he is well within the normal BMI range. Shrug.
• Cut trans fat from your diet. Cut. Them. Out. An explanation of what trans fatty acids are would be even more boring than learning how to calculate cash flows from a company's annual report (guess what I'm studying...). So if you want to know, go here. But basically trans fat is liquid oil that's had hydrogen added to it to create a solid fat - this gives processed food a longer shelf life... but gives you a much shorter shelf life. Suffice it to say that they're mostly man-made (very small amounts occur naturally), and there's nothing good about them. Check your labels. Avoid fast food. Cut. Them. Out. Done deal.
• Alcohol. And here, ladies and gentlemen, we've come to our silver lining. While the American Heart Association doesn't want doctors encouraging their patients to start drinking, if you already drink - here's the scoop. One drink a day for women and two drinks a day for men can significantly increase your HDL levels. Again, I'll repeat that for those of you who aren't taking notes... can significantly increase your HDL levels. Particularly red wine. And I will directly quote Dr. Hess here, "So a glass or two of red wine every night would be a great idea." I love Dr. Hess. (I will note, however, that going over that moderate amount has the opposite effect - so don't try to rationalize that if 2 is good then 3 is great. Jeremy.) And of course, if you already have health issues related to alcohol - ignore this one.
• Increase the monounsaturated fats. This means more canola oil, avocado oil, olive oil, avocados and peanut butter! Yay. This doesn't suck.
• Add soluble fiber to your diet. Really this means you need to eat a lot more fruits, vegetables and legumes than most of us do now. The American diet is totally effed up. Meat should be an occasional side dish - not the main course of every meal. And by occasional I mean once or twice a week. Red meat and processed meat also contributes to colon cancer as well as horrendous cholesterol levels. We're working on this one, and it's going pretty well, shockingly enough. Especially for the hunting-obsessed...
• Increase Omega-3 fatty acids. This means oily fish (halibut, tuna, salmon, etc) - so we're trying to get at least two serving a week in. We're getting more than that so far. We both love fish and seafood - so it's not a burden, trust me.

So now all the teaching and stuff is over. Let's get back to bullet #4 - DRINK RED WINE! We like this one. Neither of us were particularly fond of red wine before, we both liked dry whites. However, some sacrifices must be made... Sigh. (/snerk)

So the Saturday after his surgery, we hit The Wine Cellar with our friends, Dan and Juliet. And I think it's fair to say we tasted every single red wine they had. Every. Single. One. Keep in mind though, there were only 8 or 9. Anyway, we took home a couple of bottles to get us started. We bought a bottle of Jeunette Rouge from Les Bourgeois Winery. It's a mild, medium bodied blend of Chambourcin, St. Vincent and Syrah with a fruity character and a soft finish suitable for an array of occasions. No I did NOT just copy that from the website. Leave me alone. Okay, maybe a I did - but you don't know that stuff either. Anyway, we also bought a bottle of Charleville Chambourcin. We'd just been in Saint Genevieve (where Charleville Winery is) to visit the wineries the weekend before this for my birthday, so we already knew about that one. But we're going to become red wine connoisseurs. It's a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it.

Tonight we're having Gascon Malbec while Skyping with Roy and Cathy (Jeremy's mom and stepdad). So far this one is our favorite - but it's pretty full-bodied. It's much more an occasional sipping wine rather than a regular rotation wine.

So that's Jeremy's silver lining. He has official permission to have two glasses of red wine every night before bed. But that's no the only silver lining - we've reconnected with several friends, our relationship has always been strong but it's stronger than ever, we're both improving our health, many friends have been inspired to get their butts to the doctor, etc. There are good things that have come of this - and as cliche as it sounds, we have many reasons to count our blessings!

Jeremy's Heart... and Mine (Part 2)

As most of you already know, Jeremy had emergency heart surgery two weeks ago. Here's the story of that day... So that brings everyone up to date. While we were in the hospital I was leafing through St. Louis Magazine. And the August issue just happened to be the Best Doctors 2010 edition. And sure enough here was our primary care physician, Dr. Maureen Stoffa; as well as both of his cardiologists, Dr. Hess and Dr. Lite. That provided a bit of comfort.

We decided before we even left the hospital that our lives were going to change from that day that hour that minute forward. This is a whole new lifestyle and we're going to do it together. It wasn't my decision, it was Jeremy's. I've been running for the last few months and had asked Jeremy to join me repeatedly - now I finally have the workout partner I wanted! As I said in the other blog, we stopped at Border's and bought heart healthy cookbooks on the way home from the hospital - we weren't wasting a single minute.

That first day I was scared to death to give him anything to eat. I didn't know if we had anything in the house that I wanted him to have! I love to cook, but we've never watched sodium or cholesterol. We've watched fat content now and again - but not in many, many years. We got home and I began pouring through all the nutritional information they sent us home with and my new cookbooks. Jeremy's cardiologist wants him to keep his sodium intake below 2,000 milligrams a day, cholesterol below 200 milligrams a day, and fat at about fifty grams a day - but transfats and saturated fat at an aboslute minimum, and plenty of fiber. I dug around in the pantry and found foil packets of flavored tuna. So Jeremy's first meal at home was a foil packet of StarKist Tomato Pesto Tuna Creation! At least I knew it'd be okay for him to have while I found a few recipes, made a shopping list and hit the grocery store.

That first night I made low fat spaghetti with whole wheat pasta and ground antelope from his Wyoming hunt last winter. AFTER dinner we looked up the nutritional information for antelope. Uh... we probably should have done that before dinner. We just assumed (as we'd discussed with the nutritionist that morning before we left the hospital) that wild game is more or less really good for you. Turns out antelope is the exception to the rule when it comes to cholesterol content. So that serving of spaghetti with ground antelope had all 200 milligrams of his daily cholesterol intake for the day. Great job, Heather, big FAIL on day one.

The books I bought have been wonderful - especially the The New American Heart Association Cookbook, 7th Edition and The Healthy Heart Cookbook: Over 700 Recipes for Every Day and Every Occasion by Dr. Joseph Piscatella. So many people have given us information, helpful hints and great ideas. One of Dad's friends gave a whole packet of information he'd collected online to Mom and Dad to pass on to Jeremy (thanks Hubert!). And Jeremy sat down and read the entire thing from beginning to end as soon as Mom handed it to him. Jeremy and Michelle Moring came over to visit that very first weekend and made a heart healthy dinner for us - that was a really special treat.

We've had a lot of friends stop by to visit since he got home from the hospital. Everyone kept asking if we needed anything, or what they could do for us - so Jeremy said to tell them all to come see us. This was incredibly scary and it makes you want to surround yourself with the people you care about.
Jeremy had his first follow up visit with Dr. Stoffa (our PCP) last Monday. I went with him and had a nice long list of questions. We were happy with most of her answers and I think that visit made Jeremy feel a lot better about everything. She was pleased with what she saw and didn't really have any further concerns. We talked about his upcoming antelope hunting trip to Wyoming (she said no), another upcoming tropical trip (she said yes), firing high powered rifles (she said maybe), hunting in extreme cold (she said no if it's below freezing)... I'm sure you can guess who asked those questions. I asked about his limitations regarding exercise (start walking now, but wait until Dr. Hess clears you for anything strenuous), sex (none of your business), and his carotid arteries. His heart was checked during the angiogram, and since Dr. Hess felt this had a lot to do with diet - I wanted to make sure his carotids were clear. Dr. Stoffa thought that was an awfully good idea too - so we scheduled an ultrasound of his carotid arteries for later that afternoon. When we left we were both feeling about a hundred pounds lighter as we walked out of her office.

In the last two weeks Jeremy's returned to work, we've explored the heart healthy options at the grocery store, we've been out to eat a couple of times, we've had several new recipes, Jeremy's been taking his lunch to work, we've started walking and we've learned a lot. A lot about our health and a lot about the strength of our relationship. I'll start tackling all of that material in the next few posts.

So I hope you all join us, not only in reading about what we're up to -  but in making some healthier choices in your own lives. Stop smoking. Start moving. Eat better. Manage your stress levels. I know it's easier said than done. Doing something because "it's good for your health" is such an abstract concept when you're in your twenties. But now we've had MS, cancer and heart disease touch us on a very personal level - it hits home. For all of us.