Thanks to all of you for your support and kind words. I know I can count on all of you.

I just thought of another thing to add to my self-care arsenal. I am going to cook some comfort foods. I recently bought a digital pressure cooker, which also works as a rice cooker, slow cooker, and lots of other wondrous things. I used it last night to cook brown basmati rice, and it only took 15 minutes. There is a recipe for old-fashioned rice pudding in the user's manual, and that sounds simple to do, plus I already have Arborio rice. It's less painful on my throat and ear to eat soft foods right now, so I'm going to baby myself.