I Miss Food

I haven't written in awhile because right now my life is consumed with getting through chemo and its side effects, and I just didn't want to concentrate on that subject. But I will give a quick update, now nine weeks into chemo: I'm almost bald (I refuse to shave my head because of a weird superstition that if I shave off all my remaining head hair, the rest will follow); I still have most of my eyebrows and eyelashes; I'm often nauseated; I still have energy and can take care of my house and animals and do errands; I developed a very bad sore throat that now has become an throbbing ache; my taste buds are trashed and everything tastes awful to purely nasty; I have a constant weird aftertaste in my mouth; I'm losing weight; I've had a cold for 7 weeks; I have to shoot myself in the thigh 3 days a week with Neupogen to increase my white blood cells; after 8 weeks, I dropped out of the clinical trial I was participating in because I could no longer swallow the pills; my eyes water and get crusty; and sometimes I get downright cranky.

Out of all this, though, I miss the good taste of food. I find it hard to eat when what is going in my mouth tastes bad-to-the bone. Any type of meat or fish protein is like eating out of a used kitty litter box. Horrendous. Wheat and rice products -- almost as bad. Pudding, jello, soup, fruit, lettuce - all ugh. I can eat raw cucumbers and tomatoes for some reason; they taste half-decent. I make a smoothie in the morning comprised of almond milk (I'm lactose-intolerant), brown rice protein powder, unsweetened cocoa, and half a banana; it also tastes half-decent. Unless something changes, I guess I'll be as skinny as a supermodel in the near future. Too bad I won't look like one.....