When I was having chemo treatments, I didn’t feel like eating much of anything. My taste buds were all messed up and I would get mouth sores, so eating was not high on my priority list. But the doctors kept telling me that I needed to eat to keep my strength up and that I would have an easier time with the chemo if I could eat. They said eating high protein foods would really help, like meat and beans.
I was losing a lot of weight and knew I had to do something. Since crunchy hard foods hurt my mouth, I tried to stick to soft foods. I tried lots of soups and those were too salty. For some reason, everything tasted salty to me, even water, while I was on chemo. So soups were extra bad to my taste buds. Mashed potatoes were palatable, but I knew I couldn’t just eat mashed potatoes every day. Beans were nice and soft and tasted good, but you know what happens when you eat too much of that “magical fruit”! I even tried putting meat in a blender to try and get some protein in my body. That did not taste good at all, and turned me off of food even further.
I tried drinking those meal replacement liquids like Ensure or Boost, but they just didn’t work for me because of the smell. I had to hold my nose just to get one near my mouth. To me, they smelled like the liquid baby vitamins I used to give my kids. Yuk! They also left a nasty aftertaste in my mouth. I know a lot of people on chemo who used them with success, but I’m not one of them.
I was getting very frustrated until the day my mother brought me a smoothie from one of the health food places down the street. I really liked the taste and texture, and there was even protein in it! But when she told me what it cost her, I knew there was no way I could afford those very often. So I went to Walmart and bought a smoothie maker and made up my own special recipe.
Ingredients:
Juice or water
Frozen or fresh fruit (I found frozen worked better)
Yogurt or milk
Honey or sugar
Ice (if you don’t use frozen fruit)
As far as how much of each ingredient I used, it varied each time. I just experimented and never really got tired of them because each one had a little something different. They either tasted different or had a different consistency each time I made them. I drank them through a straw when I had mouth sores and that helped a lot because the liquid just went down my throat and not all in my mouth.
I hope this recipe, or a variation of it, will help someone else who is battling cancer. Be sure to check with your doctor to make the ingredients are okay for you, especially if you are diabetic.
