Today

I lay in bed last night and thought and thought about this. I don't know what to do. I'm not losing weight, but that's not the biggest deal... I will be able to get this together and exercise and so forth as soon as the semester is over. I think so, anyway. My hip is better than it was. I'll be ok... or I can be, anyway, if I can stop worrying about Michael.

He is gaining weight every day. He says he wants to lose weight, but he's not doing much that looks like it to me. The problem with the porphyria diagnosis is that it's given him latitude to say "I need more carbs." And to some extent, he does, truly. But he cannot eat this level of carbs and lose weight. It's how we started on all this. There's some balance... and some days, he's there with it, his head's into it. But more often than not, it isn't, and when it isn't, it's all about, what can I eat next? He's not ready to put real effort into this, and if he was just maintaining, I'd be ok will that. But he's not. He's gaining, and every pound is less mobility, and more important, it's a pound farther from being able to have that crucial PET scan.

I am trying to stay the hell out of it, because it does NOT help when I say anything. But I cannot bear to watch this. It depresses the hell out of me. And it makes it harder for me to take care of myself; the only way I can do it is to try to separate myself from him, and that's not good for anything.

Sometimes I feel like I'm building this invisible wall around myself, brick by transparent brick. It hurts. It keeps me safer. And it's all wrong.

Where to go from here

I haven't posted in ages. Partly because I had the cold from hell for nearly two months straight, but more because I don't know where to go from here.

When I started this blog, years ago, Michael and I were on the low-carb journey. He was losing weight, I was at least maintaining, and it seemed like mostly a matter of patience and so on. Then he got sick, stayed sick, got sicker. And continued to lose weight, down to his low weight of 325. And I mostly maintained my weight, until recently.

But then everything got so much worse, so much scarier last fall. I gained weight again while he was in the hospital, partly because I just didn't have time to eat right, partly because I didn't have the will to do it, and partly because I was comfort eating like mad, burying my head in a book and all the food I could grab. And now, nearly six months later, I'm probably 40 lbs. heavier than I've been in a decade, with a hip that's killing me, and a lot of sadness and anger and frustration.

And Michael? Well, the good news is that in a certain way, he's a billion times better than he's been in years. Alert and lively and himself again. Which is wonderful. The bad news... he's also 100 lbs heavier than his lowest weight, somewhere around 425. The result of steroids during chemotherapy, plus not being able to eat a low carb diet, plus some odd metabolic things... but also because of depression and the lack of will to really work at the weight stuff, because it's hard, so hard, when everything else is so difficult.

I look at him, and I see his mobility decreasing and his weight rising by the day. I see the neuropathy from the chemo, and the joint pain from the excess weight and whatever other reasons... and it breaks my heart, but at the same time, I can't make him do anything. I only drive him crazy by worrying at him about it. He has to get to the right place.

But I can't wait for him. I have to figure out how to take care of me, and now. I have to change the way I'm doing things, how I feel about food, about nearly everything. I have to do this, or in a year, I'll be fatter and immobile and then what will happen? We can't afford to have both of us incapacitated.

I'm scared. And I feel very alone with this, because I can't talk to Michael about it without the other question hanging there... the "why aren't you doing something" question.

So I think I need to be back here. I think I need to rethink what I'm writing here, the focus... less about us, more about me. I can't do this alone. Well, I can do this alone, because I have to. But I'm hoping that some of you will be here with me.

I hab a code

Woke up this morning to nasal congestion, sore throat, and a kid who missed the bus. AND I have people coming over for dinner tonight. Bleah. Maybe we can just eat them. That would be low carb, right?

So this is Friday of my first week back on hard core low carb, and I'm doing... ok, I guess. I don't know why everyone else in the world gets this whoosh thing and loses something... I am down 1.3 lbs. That's it. But I feel better, and I'm moving more easily. I just need to get through the double challenge of people for dinner and being sick without hitting the bread or something.

I haven't had a chance to really tell the whole long story, but at the moment, the other part of the challenge is eating low carb while living with someone who must eat a high carb diet. So far, this is going ok, because I'm pretty motivated (aka DESPERATE), but I succumbed to tasting the pasta yesterday, and that's not a place we want to go....

Bleah

Yesterday, ate less than 1500 calories. Weight: up that 2/10 of a pound that I was down yesterday.

I know I'm retaining water like mad for some reason; I'm just beyond bloated, and so tomorrow when I can be home all day, I'll probably take a diuretic and see if that helps any (not today! No fun teaching classes and running to the loo all the time, no way!). But I just have to wonder what in hell is going on with my metabolism.

For the last however-many years, it's been really hard for me to lose weight, no matter what I did. In a way, I didn't care so much, because I was more worried about other things, and I was at a weight that was not exactly uncomfortable for me. But now... I'm way above that weight, and Michael's relative health is giving me a chance to focus a little on me. And whatever's going on with my hip is making it mandatory. So this issue is becoming critical.

Trying to Get Back in the Swing...

I'm going to write the long update one of these mornings... one of these mornings when I'm not teaching, and I'm not half asleep... in the meantime, I'm just trying to get back in the habit of writing something.

So, the weight front... NOT GOOD. The consequence of having spent most of the fall and early winter with Michael in the hospital was a chain of bad, and to some extent, comfort eating. I find myself at a horrifying 311, about 30 lbs. higher than when last I blogged regularly. I have a pretty good idea how I got here, but I'm not quite sure how I'm going to get back, because my body is being incredibly stubborn about wanting to release weight.

But we try. My short-term plan: get back in the habit of writing down everything I eat. No, I'm not going to bore you with this, and I'm not going to get obsessive about it. But yesterday, I ate less than 1500 calories and very few carbs, just salad and green bean carbs.... weight today, down 2/10 of a pound. This is a tad discouraging, but we'll just have to see what happens. Start again, hang in there, try not to get discouraged. Get back to this as a way of life.

It's Been A Long, Long Time...

I'm back. Hopefully to stay.

There's been so much to say and update and everything else that it's kept me from writing anything lately... just too much; I don't know where to start. So I'm just starting, and I'll tell the stories later.

Michael is ok, and I'm starting to believe that he's going to be fine. And I'll tell that long story later, because I just want to get going.

And I'm ok, all things considered, but I've gained a fair amount of weight over the last six months, and I absolutely have to get it off, because my hip is incredibly painful, and overall I feel terrible.

So I start again. This moment, now, because all I've been doing is saying, "tomorrow I will do this, and tomorrow it will be like this." And so forth. And then tomorrow is always the same. So it's not tomorrow; it's now. Yesterday, today... every moment is about making choices that lead somewhere different. The one thing that it isn't about is tomorrow, because the future, in some sense, never happens. It's all about the choice of the moment.

Very Quick....

I swear I will tell this story better later, but I've had about 3 hours of sleep in the last 36.

Michael finally got home from hospital/rehab about 4 weeks ago, and was great. Weak, not exactly running miles, but great. And then about 10 days ago, he started getting weaker again, and terribly confused, and long story short, he's back in the hospital as of last night/this morning. He is ok, but they really don't know what's wrong with him. Not cardiac probably. Maybe related to the lymphoma. Maybe related to everything else. I finally got him into a room at 7:30 this morning and came home to sleep.

I am anxious and so sick of this never really knowing what the hell is going on. I'm hoping that maybe this time we;ll get some answers. And he was scheduled for his PET scan this Friday, and then they were going to start chemo, so I'm also scared that they may not be able to do that.

I will tell the story later, hopefully. I will really, really try to update more regularly (and thank you, lovely anonymous person, for asking. It means a lot to me that you care.).

Long-Overdue Update

I'm so, so sorry that I haven't updated in ages. I've just been so beyond exhausted that I haven't been able to put it together to tell the story.

Seven weeks ago today, Michael got up and was so weak that he couldn't stand. He basically slipped off a chair and onto the floor, and couldn't get up, wasn't making any sense, etc. I called the ambulance and took him to the hospital. When he was first admitted, they seemed to think that it was just a medication adjustment, not probably a big deal though not good.

Two days later, they told me that his heart was working so poorly that his other organs were shutting down, and that there was a 50% chance that he would die, and that if he didn't die, it was probably still only a matter of time, even if they pulled him through this one. And they took him to ICU, and I was terrified.

And then, two days later, everything started improving. His kidneys started working again, they did another echocardiogram and his heart was working as well as it had been a year ago, and everyone perked up and stopped talking about him dying. But he was terribly weak and completely delirious for weeks. After two weeks, he started really getting better... they moved him out of ICU and to the cardiac ward... and he was there for another two weeks.

A lot of other stuff happened in the middle, but there are two important things... the most important is that when they were trying to figure out what was wrong in the ICU, they did a lot of body scanning, and they found some unexplained masses in his lower abdomen. After a biopsy and much waiting and testing, it turns out that he has lymphoma. T-cell-rich large B-cell lymphoma, to be precise. This is treatable but scary. And he will be starting chemotherapy relatively soon, and I am... well, happy that they found this, because if the other things hadn't happened, I don't think that they ever would have caught it, not until it really was too late, because no one was looking. But scared. I have been through too much chemo and cancer and death with people I loved over the last seven years.

The other thing is that he has been in bed for the last seven weeks, and so he is terribly deconditioned. They finally released him to rehab two days ago, so he can relearn to walk. So he can get strong enough to do the chemo.

It's been a long, long haul. I hope we're on the downhill part, now, but it's still going to be a long road.

Whatever Is Prayer for You...

Michael is back in the hospital, and they are moving him to ICU this morning. His heart is not doing well, and as a result, nothing else is doing well. I can't tell exactly how serious this is, but it is not good.

We would appreciate all the positive thought and prayer that you can send.

And So On....

Every day lately has just been a matter of wondering what bad things might come along next.

Michael's heart rate is good (and his weight is great; he's 371.6 this morning), but he feels terrible, he's exhausted all the time, he's dizzy, and worst of all for me, he's really confused most of the time. He's been doing things like talking to the remote control instead of the phone and trying to eat his tea (the drink, not the meal) with a fork. I find this a little scary. Everyone seems to think that it's all about low heart function (and his blood pressure is low, too) but this is not exactly comforting to me.

Last night... or this morning, more accurately... he got up, and then I don't know what happened. He fell, fortunately not hurting himself, but we couldn't get him up and had to call the paramedics.

The cardiologist swears that he will feel better next week. We'll see, I guess.

Awfulness, Part II

My cat died this morning. And it was an accident, and I probably could have prevented it, one way or another, and I am heartbroken.

This morning, early, I heard barking in my backyard, and cat noises, too, but I was so exhausted that I didn't go check it out. I didn't even think that much about it, because (1) there's a dog that barks a lot a couple of yards over, and (2) there's a cat that likes to come by and scrap with my cats fairly often.

A couple of hours later, I woke up and found an actual dog barking and growling in my yard. I was a little scared to get close, so I called the police guy. When he came, he chased the dog farther back in the yard and found the dog... and another dog in my pool... and my beloved Crispin, dead, in the pool.

The gate to the yard was open last night... I didn't think twice about it because there are (before now) no stray dogs in the neighborhood, no small children, it's hard to get to the pool, and my own dog was away with my son, so I wasn't worried about him getting out. The cats never stray beyond the driveway, so I never worried about letting them out. But what must have happened is that the two stray dogs chased the cat and ran into the pool... the dog and poor Crispin couldn't get out.

I could have stopped this. I could have shut the gate. I could have checked out the noises when I first heard them. I could have left the big pool steps in... we took them out because they were causing problems with the liner and Michael was unable to get into the pool anyway. I could have prevented this. Yeah, I had no way of knowing. But I could have prevented it.

I loved that cat like no other. I used to think, I love you so much, something will happen to you.

Something did.

Goodbye, Crispin. I loved you the best and the most from the moment you came to me as a starving kitten. No other cat will ever be like you.

Awfulness, Part I

So... when last I posted, we were in the midst of trying to figure out why Michael was getting these spells of feeling terrible, plus trying to get him well enough for the hernia/stomach surgery that was scheduled for the end of July.

Leaving out a good part of the middle bit... two weeks ago, he went in for his annual echocardiogram, and they discovered that his heart was pumping at 15% of capacity (normal, FYI, is about 60%). They immediately put him in the hospital and diagnosed congestive heart failure. And we've spent the last two weeks in the hospital... I say, "we" because I stayed with him the whole time.

The good news... I guess, if there is really any great news here... is that they put him on a whole lot of drugs, which he seems to be relatively ok with, and that the prognosis seems... well, ok I guess. He is relatively young. He's lost a lot of weight (and they said, for whatever it's worth, that if he had not, he would probably be dead by now). CHF is rarely completely reversable, but it can get a lot, lot better. And this explains a lot of the weird symptoms that he's had for so long, although no one has at all explained why it has been so cyclical. There's a lot of hope that maybe he'll really start feeling better.

The not-so-good-news... well, the condition in general. And of course, the surgery has to be postponed for some time until cardio clears him. And he's on a ton of medications which slow his heart rate (good) but lower his blood pressure (bad, because it wasn't high to begin with, and very low blood pressure makes you dizzy and confused). I don't know... it's hard to get any perspective about this right now.

I am worried and scared and overloaded and exhausted... so is he. But his weight is the lowest ever (378), and we are home, and we can rebuild.

Saturday

It's another about-the-same day here, but I'm trying to make it different. I'm trying not to get upset. Im trying not to cry. I am trying to take care of myself.

Part of the problem with this cycle of awful stuff that happens is that Michael is so miserable; he says nothing at all (and those things that he says are mostly disturbing, like "where are all the painkillers") and most of the time, he sleeps. I feel desperately isolated and alone; I lose my best friend and confidante as well as everything else. When he's well, he's everything I need... and so, when things are like this, there's nowhere to turn.

We see the doctor on Tuesday.

And in the meantime, I will do what I can. And I will try to focus a little harder on taking some kind of care of me, too.

I'm Back. Sort of.

I'm sorry for just vanishing... and not checking email and not updating and not responding to anything and all the other things that I should be sorry about.

It's been rough. And I get tired of posting things that say, my life right now is rough, and I am trying not to be discouraged. But it's all been stacking up, and I don't know how to make it better, and I don't know what to do to get my head above water, and I feel so desperately alone.

But you know, that makes for pretty tedious reading.

Michael is going through another spell of this mysterious crap that no one can figure out, and this time, it's hit him so hard that he can barely stand up. He sleeps all the time. Two weeks ago, we we thinking that he would be finally able to have surgery for his hernia (which is constant pain these days) and to have the skin on his stomach removed, and that's all actually scheduled for the end of July, but unless things get a lot better, I can't see it happening.

He's been having iron IVs to help with the anemia... one reason I haven't been on the computer at all; it's been so much time seeing various doctors and in transfusion centers and so on... two series so far, and whether it's doing any good or not, it certainly isn't stopping this mysterious weakness and associated symptoms.

We see the doctor on Tuesday. And I will say, it has been more than a year, and this is not better. Send us to someone who can diagnose this. Or figure out how we can go somewhere like the Mayo Clinic. This has to stop. We are exhausted and discouraged, and we cannot live like this.

It's almost a year since my mother died. She would have known how to approach this. As it is... Michael can't make decisions; he mostly can't even stay awake. And so it's me. Just me. And I will have to figure this out somehow, alone.

Catching up

Yes, it's been a while....

It's been a crazy few weeks, mostly because it's the end of the semester, and everything happens at once, but also because we've been running around like mad to doctors appointments and so forth. But all the news, for a change, is pretty much good (although there's nothing really weight-related to report).

Michael finally started taking an antidepressant (Cymbalta, along with me), and miraculously, he's actually feeling a lot better. Not physically, but the scary level of depression that has been characteristic of (and increasing) for the last six months seems to be largely gone. It really does seem miraculous to me.

This week he starts iron transfusions to try to deal with the anemia (which has abruptly worsened again) and, at the end of the week, sees the bariatric/hernia guy to see if anything can be done about the increasing pain from his umbilical hernia. I am hoping that the answer is yes... and that they might want to deal with the excess skin in his stomach at the same time. That would be just such a good thing, even if he had to spend some considerable time in the hospital. But there are so many unknown things about that... we should have a better idea later in the week, I hope.

And I am trying to get refocused on actually losing weight instead of simply holding my own. I think I can do this. It makes such a difference when Michael's state of mind is better... it gives me the ability to think about something else, mainly.

There have been so many other things, too. A sad Mother's Day... the first without my mother. I swear that she made an out-of-season flower bloom for me, though.

And in news of the weird, my ex announced that he and his live-in girlfriend (it is hard to call this woman a 'girlfriend' because she looks 20 years older than him, but what other term is there?) are getting married. Not my business or my problem, but sad in a way. I'd like to see so much more for him; he's a genuinely great guy, although we couldn't make it work. But my son said, I think he's marrying the first girl he was with because he can't figure out how to do anything else, emotionally or financially. This from a 14 year old, and absolutely correct. It's just hard to see people you care about screwing up their lives by making the same mistakes over and over again, but what can you do? And he's screwing up the relationship with our son at the same time, and he doesn't see it, and the last person he could hear that from is me.

But you never know, I suppose.

399.7

Three years.

220 pounds.

Yay, Michael!

The interesting thing, for whatever it's worth... I have tons of data on all of this, because I've been keeping spreadsheets for the last few years... low calorie, food-pyramid-style, "ordinary" carb sort of regime... total loss, about 70 lbs in about a year and 3/4. Low-carb... and he doesn't eat ultra-low carb, because he eats a fair amount of fruit... year and 1/4, 150 lbs. And his blood sugar is almost normal, without medication or insulin.

The world at the moment...

I just haven't had the heart to post lately, when you get right down to it. Things have not been very happy here, to say the least. And I am not happy with my response to not being happy, which is, you guessed it, a combination of eating too much and just making myself incredibly miserable.

But it has to stop here. It has to stop now. I realized this last night when Michael went to bed, and I sat here and basically ate everything I could get my hands on in 15 minutes (hey, you can eat really low carb, and still stuff your face! Great....). And then felt sick as anything, and just... I don't know. Not so much angry at myself, but awash in that nauseating sea of familiarity, that knowledge that I've done this a thousand times, and here I am again. Everything I've done, everything I've learned, and still, you get the right combination of stress and unhappiness, and I'm right back at square one.

What can you do, though, but try again, try to do something differently, try not to lose heart?

The situation here is... well, hard to explain, I guess. On the weight side, Michael continues to lose, and with luck will actually be below 400 lbs. this week. Very exciting, very good. But he is so uncomfortable, so depressed, and in so much pain that it is almost meaningless. He has lost nearly 220 lbs. now, and he arguably feels worse than he did before he started. I don't really know why that is. That is, I understand some of the reasons, and I think most of them have to do with a combination of his hernia and the weird collection of symptoms that he gets from time to time, but I have no idea what causes this. Plus I think that his overall level of depression plus just how long this has all gone on contribute to everything.

And then there's the chair saga, which is the only remotely funny part of all of this.

When Michael first came here, I bought a lift chair for him... he was 620 lbs then, and getting up was a huge issue. There wasn't much available then... three years ago... all very expensive. I bought... oh, I've forgotten the brand now, but it was the only company that made really large lift chairs (which are mostly made for tiny grandmothers, I think). It was huge and terribly uncomfortable, and it cost about $1,500. So, after 2 years of it getting more and more uncomfortable, last summer we bought a new chair.

The new chair was a LaZBoy... normally pretty good chairs. They didn't have a floor model, so we had to order one, but the smaller one was almost ok, so we thought, fine, it's a LaZBoy, it will be great. Well, to make a long story short, it is not great. I don't know who this chair is designed for, but not really for someone with a human body, let's say. No one is comfortable in it. No combination of padding and such can make it comfortable. It is just structurally all wrong. Oh, and it cost about $1,500, too. So now we're $3,000 into the chair saga.

Fast forward to something like October. Chair is becoming intolerable. So in a flash of... well, not exactly brilliance, as it turns out... I go out and buy another chair. Beautiful leather recliner, very comfortable... or so I thought. $1200. Very comfortable for a week or two... and then it's clear that this isn't working, either, the size of the chair isn't quite right, plus it doesn't lift. Back to the horrible lift chair.

And back to being incredibly uncomfortable. He's in a lot of pain a lot of the time anyway, so this discomfort thing isn't just a matter of not the perfect chair or something; it's never being comfortable, and being tempted to just go to bed and stay there (which is the last thing I want to see). So last week, I can't stand it any more, and I go buy another chair. $900, and I sat in EVERY chair in the store, I think. (No, I couldn't get him to go pick one out.)

So this chair is wonderfully comfortable until he tries to get up from it, and then it becomes clear that he's not going to be able to actually get out of this chair, because it's too low, and it rocks, so it's tippy. So we put it up on concrete blocks to get it a little higher and keep it from rocking. Which, after about 3 tries, is maybe going to be ok. So now we're $5,100 into the chair saga, and I'm still not sure that we have a chair that is workable. If I even say the word "chair" to my son, he runs screaming because he figures he's going to be dragged into more furniture moving.

I wrote all of the above a few days ago, and then I just stalled out, kind of at a loss for where to go from there.

But since then, things have actually gotten a little better. Michael is on an antidepressant, and, miraculously, it has made a HUGE difference in just a couple of days. And when his mood brightens, the whole world seems like a different place. And he has agreed to see about hernia surgery... maybe still not possible, but just thinking about it is a step in the right direction.

So... well, no brilliant wrap-up, just restart, try again, see what happens.

Tomorrow will be our third anniversary.

Sunday wrap

I just don't seem to be doing that well lately, not with my fitness goals, not with the rest of my life.

And there are explanations... the obvious one is just that Michael has been so continually unwell and depressed about it and generally testy and unhappy, and I can separate myself from this for a while, but eventually, it wears on me. I try very hard to separate my mood from his, and I try to stay up... but the problem is that, well, it does just wear on me, plus his withdrawal kind of sets off all the needy junk that I tend to revert to under stress, and he can't handle that, and... oh, ugh, it all turns into this vicious circle of unhappy things.

I know this, and I've gotten better at it, but it takes a lot of mental effort for me.

Sometimes, it's really hard to know how to be true to yourself while doing the best for others. And the corollary is, it's hard to know what the best thing for others really is. It's easy to guess, easy to think what you would want in the same situation. But everyone is different.

I know what would be best for me. Or at least I think I do.

I don't know what is best for Michael. I like to think that I do, but the fact of the matter is that I don't.

I spend a lot of time trying to cushion him from things, both literally and figuratively. I'm not at all sure that's the best thing to do. There's a lot on my shoulders, too, but there's no one else to carry it right now, so that's ok, and it's just the way it is.

I need to put some hard thinking into figuring out how to take care of myself better in some way that can be sustained when everything just goes to hell like this.

Monkfish with Curried Lentils and Brown Butter Cauliflower

This recipe is based on a Bon Appetit recipe that I got via Epicurious, but I modified it to (1) reduce the carb level, (2) deal with some of the blandness issues that the commenters complained about, and (3) correct the very wrong cooking times.

Monkfish with Curried Lentils and Brown Butter Cauliflower

• 1 small head cauliflower, cut into florets
  
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 4 garlic cloves
  
• 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg (use fresh nutmeg and grate it yourself)
• salt and white pepper to taste
  

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/4 cup finely chopped onion
• 1/4 cup finely chopped peeled carrots
• 1/4 cup finely chopped celery
• 1/2 cup French green lentils
  
• 1/2 teaspoon curry powder
• 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  
• 1-1/4 cups water
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 2 tablespoons butter
  
• chicken or other stock as desired
• salt to taste
  

• 2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter
• 1 small head cauliflower, cut into small florets
• salt to taste

• 4 6-ounce monkfish fillets (each about 1 inch thick), skin removed
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• fresh lemon

This recipe is really three (or four) parts, and they can all be done separately. (And, yes, there are supposed to be 2 heads of cauliflower; you use them in different parts.)

1. The cauliflower purée "sauce"

Bring first 4 ingredients to boil in medium saucepan. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer until cauliflower is very tender, about 17 minutes. Cool slightly. Transfer mixture to blender (or food processor, or just use an immersion blender); puree until smooth. Season with salt and white pepper. This can be made far ahead of time and reheated.

2. Lentils/cauliflower

Heat oil in medium saucepan over medium heat. Add onion, carrots, and celery; sauté until just soft. Add lentils, curry, paprika; and cayenne pepper; stir. Add 1 1/4 cups water and wine; bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer until lentils are tender, stirring occasionally. The original recipe says that this this will take 30 minutes. I think this depends entirely on the type of lentils that you use, and the wonderful French green ones take quite a bit longer than that... more like 45 or 50 minutes. So start this way ahead of time, and don't start the cauliflower step until the lentils

Meanwhile (see note above), cook butter in large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat until browned, about 2 minutes. Add cauliflower; sauté until beginning to brown, about 5 minutes. Add 1/4 cup water; cover and cook until cauliflower is crisp-tender and water evaporates, about 10 minutes longer (at least). Stir in lentil mixture. Season with salt and pepper.

This can be made ahead and rewarmed, too. In fact, if you were making this for something like a dinner party, you could make everything except the fish earlier and just reheat.

Finally.... sprinkle monkfish with salt and pepper. Heat oil in large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add fish; sauté until just opaque in center, about 6 minutes per side. Squeeze fresh lemon onto the fish. (You could use any firm white fish).

Divide sauce among 4 plates. Spoon lentil mixture alongside. Place fish atop lentils.

The original recipe, which you can find here, had a gremoulata for the top of the fish, but I didn't have any parsley, so I skipped it, and I really don't think it's necessary.

The main carb source in this dish is the lentils. I cut them in half (relative to the original recipe), so if this recipe serves 4, it's about 15 net carbs from the lentils (and a little more from the cauliflower). Not induction-friendly, but not excessive.

The vegetable mixture in this is great without the fish, too, just as a side dish for anything. It has a nice curried kick to it. It's also really easy after you do it once; it looks complicated, but it's not.

The hard thing...

...is taking whatever comes with grace and generosity of spirit.

The hard thing is understanding that not everything is about you.

The hard thing is allowing there to be things that are about you, some of the time, because you can't have a life without conflict. People don't work that way. People have different needs, and sometimes they crash right into each other.

The hard thing is stepping back and giving time to let things sort out. The hard thing is not trying to control the outcome of things that make you unhappy.

The hard thing is not letting things that belong to other people affect how you feel about yourself.

Today, for me, everything is a hard thing, I think. But these things do pass, if you let them.