Pemphigus may have poked its head out of the sand again, or so we suspect. I underwent a biopsy earlier this month, to get more details about a mysterious sore at the back of my mouth. My pemphigus doctor wasn’t completely sure what it was, so she referred me to an ear, nose and throat colleague of hers. I saw that fellow for the follow-up. The sore looked like a “bump” with a crater in the middle the ENT said. It had gotten worse since the last time he’d seen it and warned I’d need to schedule surgery to completely remove it. “Would you like me to do a biopsy?’ he asked. “I don’t think it’s cancer or anything like that,” he explained. “But this way we can be sure.”
“Do you think it might be pemphigus?” I asked.
His answer didn’t surprise me. “Probably,” he said. The biopsy would let us know more so I agreed.
Biopsies are not my idea of a good time. I’ve had four since my initial encounter with pemphigus so I knew what to expect and got exactly that. It started with two injections of novocaine on either side of that aforementioned bump. I resisted the temptation to tear the the arm rests off of the chair as I waited for the medication to numb my mouth. Fortunately, it did so in short order. From there the ENT did what he needed to do and sent me on my way. I made another telephone appointment for the next week to discuss the results of the test as my husband put away his book and collected the rest of his belongings.
The novocaine wore off on the hot and crowded ride back home. I tore upstairs once we got back to rub liquid novocaine in my aching mouth, then popped a tramadol to try to quell the pain that way. These were minimally helpful as the tissue in the back of my jaw continued to swell . After a day I was unable to open my mouth wide enough to admit food. Vanilla Ensure rode to my rescue once again as I sucked it down through a metal straw.
I needed something to distract me from the damage to my mouth and decided to continue with some cooking and baking projects. By that point I could open my mouth wide enough to slip small bits of thinly sliced food in. I remember making a chickpea curry that I ate one chickpea at a time. I tried to slip some rice in there too, although most of it ended up dribbling down my shirt. It was that kind of week.
The swelling continued to go down as the days went by. I carefully increased my intake of food and found that I could manage small, careful bites. Meanwhile, our CSA farm share was bringing in its usual bounty and I set to getting as much of it out of the refrigerator and into our stomachs as I could.
I also determined to use up the last dribs and drabs of things still lingering in my fridge. I had a carton of buttermilk I’d used to bake a blueberry buttermilk coffee cake for my in-laws’ 66th wedding anniversary. I folded more of it into blueberry buttermilk pancakes the following weekend but still had a bit left. My father-in-law had called me earlier that day to thank me for the various food gifts I’d brought them, so figured I couldn’t go wrong with another coffee cake. I’d cut it into slivers so it would fit into my ever-widening mouth. I decided to call it comfort food for a woman who needed some comfort.
I got this recipe from one of my favorite recipe blogs: Alexandra’s Kitchen. She’s also the author of one of my best bread recipe books: Bread, Toast, Crumbs. I wrote about this book in an earlier blog post and still recommend it to anyone who wants a relatively stress-free bread-baking experience. The coffee cake recipe is extremely well written and there’s even a step-by-step video illustrating the process. Don’t have buttermilk? Not to worry, there’s a recipe for making it using milk and lemon juice. The post also includes links to other blueberry recipes in case you’d like to try something else.
I printed out the recipe and killed the carton of buttermilk. It was an oddly satisfactory feeling. I think it was the first time I’d actually gone through a whole quart of the stuff without dumping leftover milk down the drain. I hate wasting food. I rinsed out the empty carton, squashed it and tossed it in the garbage. I felt great. My project was working!
I used my KitchenAid heavy duty mixer to combine softened butter with sugar and lemon zest, then mixed in the egg and vanilla. Next came half of the dry ingredients, then the buttermilk and then the rest of the dry ingredients. I folded in the blueberries by hand to create a thick batter. I scooped it into a greased 9 x 9 pan and tossed it in the oven. It came out of the oven 35 minutes later looking as beautiful as a cover girl which, in a way, it was.
I used a wider pan to get a thinner cake, seeing as my mouth wasn’t quite up to admitting anything wider than a pancake. I cut a piece for myself as soon as it cooled and started to surgically cut it into slivers. I somehow managed to get a piece in along with the fork and carefully chewed it.
Alexandra came through for me once again. The cake was moist and light, with the suggestion of lemon from the zest. It was sweet but not cloying. I wanted more but my mouth said nope, that’s enough. I cut a few squares for my husband then packed the rest away for the freezer. This recipe freezes well, or so the recipe notes say, so I plan to take it with us when we go on vacation next week.
Take that, biopsy!And the biopsy? The ENT called me a day or two ago and immediately said, “it’s not cancer.” It wasn’t anything else worrisome, he continued.
“Is it pemphigus?” I asked.
“Probably,” he replied, in a reprise of our last conversation.
I’m sure my pemphigus doctor and I will be discussing this when I see her early next month. My guess is that she’ll prescribe a steroid ointment or mouth rinse to treat the still-unhappy sore, but at least it’s nothing worse. I can work with that.
Want the recipe for blueberry buttermilk coffee cake? Here you go: https://alexandracooks.com/2011/06/29/buttermilk-blueberry-breakfast-cake/
And have a great summer!