It was time. We all sat in the Yankees-themed Applebees restaurant scouring our menus and realizing, to one degree or another, that the trial had begun. Minds were made up and then changed, decisions rethought and questioned, leading to the changing of minds again. This was the first time I had sat down in the context of a restaurant, with the actual intent of ordering something real and nourishing, in a couple of years.

We were a group consisting of five patients, my peers, and four of the unit’s staff members. The long table was two smaller ones that had been pushed together and we were seated in a section of which we were the only patrons. The Applebees had ample room to accommodate us with it being noon on a Wednesday but, apparently the cooks weren’t properly equipped for a larger group such as ours. It took a good 45 minutes for our orders to emerge from the kitchen if I started counting from the point of the waitress jotting them down.

Noon was the normal kick-off point for lunch on the unit and we were all in tune to that schedule so, by the time it showed up at 1:15 our stomachs were louder than our conversation. Talia was the main staff member to oversee portions, prices, and consumption of each of our meals and she tried her best to do so without seeming too obvious about it. From start to finish there were little things that went unnoticed, or at least unaddressed, but this was meant to be a less stressful venture as far as protocol went. All of us were already riddled with anxiety at the meer thought of deciding what to eat and doing it in a public restaurant setting.

For me it was sort of rough in the way that I really wanted to know what I was going to order before we got there as an attempt to thwart the upcoming stress. A few of us found the menu online, which we were told we could do, and looked over their offerings since we hadn’t stepped foot in an Applebees in 2 or more years. This act seemed to backfire though because it seemed that once I saw their online options I then had too much time to think about it before the trip. Laura, Benji, and I were just torturing ourselves trying to come up with the perfect balanced meal that would satisfy all of our lunchtime requirements. This went on for a couple of days until, the night before the trip, I just told myself to leave it alone and decide what I wanted when I got there. There is definitely something to be said for wingin’ it on occasion.

In the end I wound up getting a 7 oz. sirloin steak with broccoli, a side of fries, and…wait for it…it needs a pause to emphasize its decadence…an Oreo chocolate mousse shooter with whipped cream for dessert!

(This picture doesn't do the taste justice.)

Don’t let the name fool you. The term “shooter” makes it sound small but really it is just the right size for a single person’s portion in all its chocolatey richness. Out of the meal I ate all of the steak, about half the fries, and just some of the broccoli. The shooter I ate almost all of myself except for a few bites that I gave around the table so some of the others could see what they were missing.

All in all I’d say the lunch was a success. When I start to get passes and am able to go out on my own I can only hope that not having a staff member around to keep me in check won’t change how I feel. Right now I am looking forward to getting passes and having a chance to try all the good foods I have been missing out on and I don’t want to lose that excitement. I think I will do what I did when I had been trying to pre-plan the meal though… I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.