My daughter and I went to the doctor's today and the cold I've been fighting since before Christmas turned into bronchitis so he prescribed some antibiotics, a steroid burst, and refilled my ashtma inhalers.  My asthma has been really good for a long while, so I haven't had to use them on the daily up until I caught this cold and I was almost out of doses.  My other boxes were expired.  Insurance only covers one of my inhalers and the other one is $50, but it will cover everything else with a $15 co-pay.  Ah, the beginning of the year when we have to pay for everything again.  It was nice having the deductible and out of pocket max met while it lasted.

I went to the pain clinic yesterday as a follow up to my second nerve test to see if radioablation was something indicated for me to try.  And it is based on my second set of results, but...  I'm still kind of wary of the possible risks.  So we decided to try a steroid injection into the hip joint instead and hold off on the radioablation for now.  The one they put into the L4 space really helped a good deal and it has been long enough that I can get another injection at a different site.  So maybe this will be enough to give me relief.

I have also lost 8 pounds since the beginning of the year and weight loss is helpful to lowering my back and hip pain.  I haven't been trying.  I've been too sick to try.  But we haven't eaten out at all or had processed food more than once and that was some unbaked cheese pizzas from the store deli that we then doctored up with our own toppings at home so they weren't full of sodium.  I make my own sausage and it doesn't have salt in it and then we use one slice of prosciutto for an entire 15 inch pizza and some uncured pepperoni which I used sparingly.  Then I put on sweet yellow onions and purple onions, all the colors of bell peppers, zucchini, and then five minutes before it is done baking we throw on some basil leaves.  I can load it up with veggies and strictly control the amount of salt in the toppings and then the sodium on the pizza is on the label and it is much lower altogether than just getting one of their loaded pizzas.

Yesterday I managed to make a huge pot of loaded baked potato soup.  I tried a new recipe that uses cream cheese instead of sour cream, but in the end it still needed sour cream, but not as much.  So I think I will go with how I made it last night in the future, but with a different cheese than I had on hand.  I used Beecher's Flagship because I didn't have any shredded Romano or shredded sharp cheddar and I didn't feel like getting out the food processor because it is such a mess to clean and I haven't taken the new salad shooter out of the package to wash yet.  But the Beecher's is just not strong enough.  It was still really good, though, but I just like that kick.  Or it might have been my taste buds were off.

There were plenty of leftovers so my daughter had some of that tonight and my husband made tacos for dinner.  My daughter is having trouble with spicy foods right now so we take advantage of days we have leftovers for her to eat to make spicy foods.  I might do sausage and peppers tomorrow, just because I can throw them in the oven on a sheet pan instead of stir-frying them.  Just make it easy on myself while I am this sick.  And probably some Instant Pot baked potatoes.  Dinner doesn't have to be super complicated when I am sick.

I bought some Souper Cubes with some of my Christmas money and they finally came today.  I am happy to have them, because now I can freeze soup and broth in them and pop them out and vacuum seal them and have nice stackable blocks in the freezer.  I do try to can my broth, but if I am too sick to do that, this is a nice option.  As for soup, you can't can soup with noodles in it and you have to have 3/4 of broth to 1/4 amount of stuff in the soup in order to safely can it, and I like my soup to be about half and half, which means freezing it.

I don't like all my containers in the freezer, though.  So this will be nice.  Plus, vacuum seal bags are also safe for boil in a bag use, so I can toss one in a pot of boiling water to cook and then put in a bowl instead of thawing and pouring out into a pan and then cooking and then transferring to a bowl.  I just have a pot full of water to dump and a bag to throw away, instead of a pot to wash, which when you are sick is extra helpful.

We have had to buy a few things at the grocery store, but haven't spent more than $50 this week.  Our grocery budget is $200 a week so we are doing really well.  My husband did get lunch one day off the food truck that will be coming to his work every two weeks, but he used his own spending money for that and it was from a local pizza restaurant that went out of business 15 years ago that we used to go to.  They had the absolute best pizza and now they've started up a food truck.  He said it is just as good as it ever was.

They also sell take and bake pies, so after the challenge is over I will have him pick up one to bring home.  He doesn't work far from home, it is 3 minutes on the freeway and 2 minutes off of it in one directions, so he could run it home on his lunch break.  They will let him take a long lunch as long as he has his hours in at the end of the week.  Most people work either four days or four and a half days anyway.  DH tends to do four and a half, so adding a half hour on Fridays is no big deal for him.

I don't have to go anywhere until Thursday when I have a chiropractor appointment.  I'd stay home, but I really need to go to it.  I'll wear my mask.  If she was going to catch it, she would have caught it from the last two weeks of me going, but I'll still wear it.  I have a lot of credit on my account there from before the out of pocket max caught up with the payments I was making, so I will have a while before I have to make any payments to her.

I think for Thursday I will plan crockpot beef stew, so it will be another easy meal.  I can used my canned meat, potatoes, and carrots and just mix up some packet gravy to dump on top and let it heat for a few hours and not have to worry about anything.  Or maybe I will do that tomorrow and save the sausage and peppers for after I've been on antibiotics for 24 hours.  Yeah, that might be best.  I'll figure out the rest of the week Thursday night.  Probably spaghetti for Friday night since I have a bag of meatballs in the freezer.  Oh, I could do crockpot spaghetti and meatballs.  Now that sounds good.  I'd have to carmelize onions, but other than that, no real work involved.

Okay, well, I better get to bed.  It is almost midnight.