<p>Costco has come out with a new (huge) box of organic instant oatmeal packets. It contains six flavors (one flavor in unflavored, or course). I just like the plain ones, but even the flavored ones are not too strong. It’s organic and it’s cheap. It might be worth having one of your buddies with a Costco membership pick up a box for you. If it doesn’t work - no big investment. And oatmeal is great for whatever ails your GI tract.</p>
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<p>Lance Armstrong</p>
<p>Whenever I needed bland food, my mom used to make me milk toast. It never failed to make me feel better, although now I can never make it taste exactly the way my mother did. </p>
<p>I make it with Texas Toast slathered in butter. Either butter both sides of the bread or put it buttered side down and pour hot milk over. </p>
<p>Note: only about 800 more views and this thread will hit 200,000! LTS, you are amazing and inspirational and have had a positive influence on all who read these posts.</p>
<p>How about the BRAT diet – the one we were advised to give our children when they had tummy problems. If I remember correctly it consisted of bananas, rice, applesauce (soluble fiber which is much easier on the system than insoluble) and toast. Bananas are really excellent – easy to digest and the potassium is good for you. I second the oatmeal suggestions. Oatmeal is kind of the perfect food – maybe cream of wheat as well. GI doctors often put people on dairy free and low fiber foods who have severe problems. Red meat is also hard on the digestive system but fish and chicken are much easier. I think you mentioned eating corn – corn is insoluble fiber and hard on the digestive system – soluble fiber (like applesauce) might be a lot easier to tolerate.</p>
<p>The BRAT diet is not nutritionally diverse enough for a person on chemo to be on for very long. It is the most basic, though.</p>
<p>Have you spoken to your oncology team about the use of medications such as Zantac or Pepcid, or anti-emetics? Also the team would have an idea about whether dairy products would be easy or not to digest while on chemo, and in this regard which are the best sources of protein which can most easily be metabolized while on chemo. The Betty Crocker cookbook sounds good, and there must be others that they can suggest!</p>
<p>Good luck. Food is so important for recovery.</p>
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<p>[Senators</a> Chuck Hagel and Dianne Feinstein Make Lung Cancer Matter](<a href=“http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/06/prweb1061494.htm]Senators”>http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/06/prweb1061494.htm)</p>
<p>[CareCalendar</a> - Filling the needs](<a href=“http://www.carecalendar.org/]CareCalendar”>http://www.carecalendar.org/) Have you seen this? We use it for surgeries and new babies.</p>
<p>Has anyone read the August issue of Sojourners Magazine? I saw an advertising blurb:</p>
<p>“Heal Thyself?”: In her critique of our health-care crisis, Elizabeth Edwards challenges market-based solutions, asserting “consumer-directed care” is double-speak for “youre on your own.”</p>
<p>It would be interesting to see what she has to say.</p>
<p>I just want to thank epistrophy for helping LTS on his vacation. You go over and above to offer support even when you are so busy. It’s really a testament to what this thread offers. Hope and human kindness to the nth degree.</p>
<p>LTS I hope and pray that you are feeling better and are able to eat without too much discomfort. I don’t post very often but always think about you and it’s what I have to check every day.</p>
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<p>[Dave’s</a> Happy Little Hodgkin’s Web Site - Six+ years cancer free!](<a href=“http://www.davesite.com/hodgkins/_sixyear_.shtml]Dave’s”>Dave's Happy Little Hodgkin's Web Site - Six+ years cancer free!)</p>
<p>Incidentally, the game took a while to load, and I had to reinstall Shockwave, but it’s a lot of fun. =) You’re a T-Cell and you run around blasting evil cancer cells.</p>
<p>[The</a> Cancer Game](<a href=“http://www.cancergame.org%5DThe”>http://www.cancergame.org)</p>
<p>Incidentally, the creator is now 25 years old, is cancer-free, and is about to publish his second book!</p>
<p>I don’t have much to contribute but just want LTS know a lot of people like me are sending her well wishes and rooting for her. </p>
<p>I read a previous post about eating yogurt, and that reminded me of kefir. Kefir supposedly contain more beneficial bacteria than yogurt. Also commercially prepared yogurt contain high fructose corn syrup which is supposedly not healthy. I personally cultivate my own kefir from milk and maple syrup. Most of my digestive problems (the runs ) went away after drinking kefir regularly. </p>
<p>Re yoga, I think tai chi is in a way similar to yoga, but is less challenging. It is gentle and easy enough that elderly out of shape people can practice it easily.</p>
<p>Deb922, thank you for posting that, I sincerely appreciate it. I felt so bad asking E to hang in here through such a very serious trial for his client and then again still…on vacation…but I became so addicted to the positive posts here, it has become for me sort of almost a lifeline…and I am very, very appreciative of all of this support. I can set google alerts too but the reason this way is so helpful is that I do not have to read through information where people are dying of this or other cancers…I can just read positive, supportive information that makes me feel better…</p>
<p>My daughter arrived from Miami to stay with me through the holiday weekend; she told me that it stands to reason that a very strong person is going to have a very strong cancer; she said that if the chemical mix is making me feel so horrible, the cancer must be feeling even worse. My daughter refuses to hear negativity of any sort and insists we’re going to do something fun on the 4th. I tried to explain to her how difficult it is for me to even just walk from the house to a waiting car and she said even if it takes us all day and we go very very slow, we’re going to go do something fun. </p>
<p>I have been doing a little better with the food today - I have learned that what I need to do is eat very, very small amounts, spread over time, and, as bland as possible.</p>
<p>I did have a misfortunate event yesterday - conference call I could not get off of in time. I ended up committing myself to an extraordinary amount of work this weekend, just trying to make the call conclude so I could rush off the call to get to the lady’s room in time. It didn’t work - to my shock, horror and dismay, I had the accident anyway. Luckily I was able to clean up discreetly, go right back to my desk and keep working. And I learned something from it - eating lots of corn is a good thing (I think). My oncologist wasn’t really very sympathetic; he said everyone else in my position is bedridden; comparatively, my chief complaint of the day was having to abort a conference call, from my offices on Pennsylvania Avenue…given that, I am lucky…“don’t lose weight” was his final comment on the matter. He also explained that one of the four drugs in the regime causes something called mucusitus (sp?) that causes upset stomachs. </p>
<p>Thank you very much for all of the food suggestions - it helps. Some of the foods I have never heard of before but it is interesting researching them. Riverrunner, thank you, the book is on order and should be here by tomorrow…</p>
<p>Blood counts are all good and so tomorrow is more chemotherapy.</p>
<p>Cottonwood, did you mean SOUP? Or SOAP? LOLOL. :)</p>
<p>LTS,
While looking something up for my mom, I found something which made me think of you. Though it may be a duplication, I sent you a PM.
Keep on hanging in there.</p>
<p>Mominva, thank you, I just read it. You’re spot on - that is one of the four drugs in my new treatment. </p>
<p>This is so new that none of my nurses have seen it before, so, they are not able to easily tell me what the side effects are going to be (because of the mixture)…</p>
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<p>–Ayn Rand</p>
<p>LTS:</p>
<p>I was reminded of our trip to Nova Scotia when the children were small. We were eating at a lovely restaurant. The nice waitress came over and asked something which my kids understood as :“Do ye want more soap?” “Soap?” they said, “We already washed our hands.” Of course, she meant soup.</p>
<p>I was going to write that one of the tricks to keeping food down was to eating small portions frequently, but you seem to have figured that on your own. I also think that the list someone else posted (fish and chicken instead of beef, and so forth) sounds right to me.
About the accidents: Keep a bucket close to your desk. You may not need it, but it gives you some peace of mind. And if you do have recourse to it, you can always clean it later.
Enjoy your time with your D. I think she’s right.</p>
<p>At the worst of my chemo days my kids remarked that I was on a “braces” diet - like what they needed after a visit to the orthodontist! It helped me to think that there were other situations that would require me to slurp oatmeal and soup instead of my favorites.
Don’t know if you live where there are Sonic drive-ins… but the Strawberry shake kept me alive for a few weeks. Pure milk, fat, fruit and sugar…wish I had a reason to have one now!</p>
<p>“About the accidents: Keep a bucket close to your desk. You may not need it, but it gives you some peace of mind. And if you do have recourse to it, you can always clean it later.”</p>
<p>Yup. I always made my kids carry a big bowl around the house when they were sick, etc. Also, the mute feature on the phone is handy if you need to get sick suddenly – just try to ask a question that will keep them talking for long enough I guess!</p>
<p>I am sorry to be graphic - I am not even sure why I’m writing this post - but it was the other end. To my horror. I literally pooped in my pants. Yep. Spent the last ten minutes of the conference call standing up at my desk, my mouth is deeply engaged in the conference call, saying things like revenues in Germany v. Asia blah blah blah risk assessment differentials blah blah blah, and my brain screaming things like oh, my, how horrible, now what in the world do I DO??? Cannot use the garbage can because of the smell, obviously. What would the cleaning crew think. How do I DEAL?</p>
<p>So I made a lot of promises, just in order to be able to end the call. We need an MOU? Great, I have the ball, consider it done. (NOT - this means more work for me this weekend.) </p>
<p>But worse (this always happens)…once the call ended, all the participants called me back right away of course - the debrief after the call - I am sure everyone here knows how that is, the call after the call, where everyone wants to know what everyone else thought of how the call went. </p>
<p>So I then have NO choice, really, but to say “gentleman, I need to leave the call for five minutes…” - the one person on the call who knows I have cancer, and who knows me well, and whom I adore sent to me a Skype IM, “are you all right???” - I Skyped back I was - what was I going to say - “just pooped in my pants, need a sec???”… </p>
<p>Then - very lucky for me I was wearing an ankle length skirt - I headed to the lady’s room, walking carefully the entire hallway, etc. Smelling simply horrible I’m sure. Walked past three or four people, couldn’t look them in the eyes. Cannot imagine what they must have thought, and don’t really want to think about it…(does anyone here happen to remember back, say, 40+ years ago, that “full diaper” feeling…)</p>
<p>Humiliation was complete when the stuff fell out onto the floor - although it’s good that this happened in the bathroom, vs. in the the hallway. I cleaned everything up and went back to work. And to Padad’s point in an almost immediate preceding post, it is very important to keep things functional. I decided it was a very good thing to have eaten a lot of corn. I think perhaps it’s good to eat things that help detox some of the poison from chemotherapy… </p>
<p>Later, when I shared this story with a caregiver, we got to laughing pretty hard about it. All things considered, I was lucky. It could have been much worse. We were able to fashion some pretty childish jokes about it…I am glad we were able to laugh about it, because at the time, it was just horrible, unbelievable…</p>
<p>Being in my situation, I try to prepare for everything that could reasonably go wrong. But I just simply was not prepared for this, and never in my wildest imagined that any such thing could ever happen. But it did happen, and, I got through it. And if it happens again, I’ll deal again, I suppose…and I will be grateful that this is my experience, vs. being bedridden…</p>