Eating

Did you know that most chemo patients now gain weight during chemo? I did not. And I didn’t believe my doctor when she told me. Surprising no one – she was right. Again. Shockingly! But that doesn’t mean that eating, especially right after chemo, is going to be easy or simple. Your doctor and nutritionist will tell you what you need to eat. I had to mainline food with magnesium and potassium. But they gave me a list of the best foods to eat, and I ate them, and only ended up needing electrolyte infusions a few times. Potassium infusions can take 2 hours since they don’t want to explode your heart while fixing you and that is time that is spent in a chair in the infusion center that might have been avoidable. And who wants to add extra hours in an infusion center. I did not and so I spent those hours in a resentful funk and apologizing to my support person for the day.

Smoothies

Your doctor will likely tell you about the wonders of smoothies. I do not find them wonderful, but they did get the job done. We pretty much took the list of foods from the “please eat these” list and blended them up with some fruit, honey, full fat yogurt, and pea protein powder.

Be aware: lots of protein powders and other powders formulated to add to smoothies have added vitamins. If you’re using one, run this past your doctor and pharmacist. Some of the powders we looked at had levels high enough to match a daily multivitamin, which I was not supposed to be taking. We ended up using the Whole Foods Pea Protein Powder Unflavored. It has a grand total of one ingredient: peas.

Making the smoothies on demand was disruptive and time consuming and I was too sick to help so we needed a better solution. Our first solution was to make a large batch in the morning, then I would just pour out servings as the day went on. But with two little ones running around and 6 cycles of chemo to get through, there wasn’t always a good time to actually make the smoothies. Solution 2! The week before chemo, when I was actually able to help, we’d make a large batch and freeze it in servings that were big enough for a day. We’d let it defrost overnight and be ready to go again in the morning.

On Demand Snacking

According to my doctor, eating lots of small meals so my stomach was never really empty was key to staving off nausea and being able to keep eating well; and that, when I’m hungry I should eat then, right away. Your doctor should have guidance for you that’s appropriate to your chemo. As time went on, I found it more and more difficult to follow this guidance. I was just so freaking sick. One of the hardest things was getting to the kitchen to get food or a snack in time. Or sometimes, when I got to the kitchen, deciding what to eat. So I’d stand there, or there, being hungry then getting nauseous, while trying to make a decision. Or I knew what I wanted but it was just too hard to do, or, near the end of the truly awful chemo, I honestly couldn’t remember the steps to get the cereal into the bowl.

Baby Food Pouches were my solution to this dilemma. I kept a couple by my bedside. When I got hungry I’d have one, then get to the kitchen in good shape to actually pour a smoothie or make some toast. The pouches from Aldi (Little Journey) and Target (Good and Gather) are cheap and have the added benefit of being full of things you’re supposed to being eating anyway. Just take your list of food you should eat to the store and pick the pouches that match your list. I’ll admit, there were times that I woke up, had a pouch, then went right back to sleep. Not ideal, and I totally would not have that admitted that to my oncologist or dentist but it got me through some of the worst days.

What to drink when your mouth tastes like a dumpster fire full of melted aluminum spoons

Some chemotherapy drugs have a strong effect on your sense of taste. Mine was freaking awful. And your doctors are like “drink lots of water, you gotta stay hydrated” but you’re like “my mouth tastes so bad it is literally painful to drink water.”

Strong flavors! On the internet, so much advice tells you to eat bland foods and foods you aren’t going to miss after chemo because you will start to associate them with vomiting. This is kinda outdated. Your doctors prescribe all kinds of drugs that manage symptoms well: I did not vomit once during 18 months of chemo and my doctors would have been annoyed as hell with me if I’d skipped taking the drugs they so wisely gave me to avoid getting sick. So my concern was more around pushing past the taste. I needed flavors that were strong enough to cover the dumpster fire that was my mouth. The more bland the food, the stronger the taste of melted camp spoons.

My smoothies were full of strong tasting fruit and honey and bitter strained yogurt. I, who only ever liked milk chocolate, started eating 100% cacao dark chocolate covered espresso beans like they were candy. I mean, they are candy, but the chocolate also has lots of magnesium so, totally pretended they were not candy. And I started adding more salt to my food. I had a pretty low salt diet before this started so my doctor said it was ok to add a little more.

Water

Water was a horrible challenge. It literally tasted so bad that it hurt to drink it because all I was getting was the terrible, terrible taste of my own mouth. I had to add flavors or Gatorade powder to my water for at least 2 weeks after each cycle. Sometimes all the way through to the next cycle. I now hate Gatorade with the fire of a thousand suns, but it got me through. Gatorade has electrolytes – so check with your doctor first. Once I was a little more stable I switched to Ultima electrolyte powder, which tastes better, has more and a larger variety of salts and minerals. Ingredient-wise, Liquid IV is pretty similar, but I haven’t tried it. I ordered the Ultima from Whole Foods – it was often significantly less expensive there.

Other Drinks

Citrus and carbonation were not only gross-tasting but also painful as hell. And grapefruit can be contraindicated for some chemo drugs, so, like everything, check with your doctor. Coffee and tea were nice, but they needed to be on the cooler side. Apparently those mucus membranes protect against heat, cold, and acid and your mucus membranes are not going to be up to snuff for a bit.

I’d recommend you have a lot of options ready to go if you’re prescribed a drug that affects taste. My mouth tasted horrible, but a good friend lost the ability to taste sweet things and corn tasted like grass. Lying in bed exhausted is not the time to need to make a grocery run when you get a craving for guava juice and can only think about drinking guava juice and nothing else can satisfy you because you really, really, really are craving guava juice.