Escape to the Pantry

Happy Thursday everyone! Hope you’re bearing up, as the end of the four-day week, which usually feels twice as long, is coming into plain sight?

Isn’t the Easter bank holiday the best ever of the whole year? Four full days of relaxation, time with friends, good weather, plenty of yummy food, drink, biscuits, cake, tons of chocolate eggs….

Errrrrrrrrrrrcccch goes the needle scratching across the record (ask your parents, kids).

Biscuits? Cake? Easter Eggs? Fat (and I mean positively portly) chance of that this end.

Side effects are kicking in big time this cycle, and a new one has come upon me. As hard as I try to resist, it’s growing on me. No, it really is.

I became aware of it at the regular prescribing appointment with Consultant Onc just prior to my last cycle, two weeks ago. This is where he wants to know how I have been over the first 21 days, what symptoms or side effects I have had, and therefore, if there is any need to tweak the FEC dose and other meds for the next cycle, which is due later that week. There we were, shooting the breeze about bowels, movements, baked bean cream and other hilarious matters, and he asked me if I had any further concerns.

I might as well go for it. “Just one. I’m eating really healthily, not drinking alcohol, exercising four or five times a week – but I seem to be putting on weight, or rather, not losing any.”

“Ohhhhh! I forgot to tell you last time,” he said, over his glasses. “Your chemotherapy makes you gain weight.  Very common.”

You ‘forgot’ to tell me. YOU FORGOT??? Well cheers for that, Doc.

“In your case, you will only drop weight on chemo if you start vomiting, feel really nauseous, or lose your appetite – but we control that with medication, and I’ve given you very good drugs. You haven’t had those symptoms yet, have you?

As I shift in my chair to get more comfortable, my stomach puts its head, arms, legs and its own bloody stomach on to his desk, lays down and spreads itself out, gurgling contentedly. A complementary parp pops out for good measure. The question is rhetorical. The answer is unpacking itself before his very eyes.

“Hahaha – so I lose my hair and gain weight! Can’t I have option B, you know, the one that works the other way round?  Hahahaha ….ha? Please? “

He looks at me like I’m a small child convinced I’m getting a trip to Disney for my birthday when he knows full well there’s a week at Butlins all booked and paid for, and he’s about to hand me the envelope containing the tickets.

“No.  If it bothers you, just be sensible about what you eat.”

Sensible?????

In the last five weeks, I couldn’t have been MORE sensible. Let me elaborate. (I was going to say ‘expand’, but I think I’ve done quite enough of that.)

Between diagnosis and surgery, I had a weird and uncharacteristic cavort with fish fingers, pizza and Cadbury’s Freddo bars. (OK – time to fess up – the Freddo part is not uncharacteristic.) This did not go unnoticed on the scales, so straight after my surgery, I decided to sort myself out. About a week later, following some test results on Terry the (now homeless) tumour, I found out that instead of going straight to radiotherapy, chemo was to be the first stop.

I didn’t really know anything about chemo then, other than that the general consensus is that it’s not as nice a treatment as, say, a hot stone massage. So, I decided to knuckle down and get myself as fit and healthy as possible before it began.  I managed to get the moth family out of the cobwebs on the Nutribullet; the Dominos loyalty card got ripped up, Captain Birdseye took a dive to the watery deep and the Freddos hopped off. The exercise stepped up and the poundage dropped back to normal. I was ready.

After cycle 1 (specifically, the day I turned yellow), it dawned on me that I might need to do more – not so much for weight management, as I was now fine – but in order to equip myself properly for the tonking which chemo gives your system. My pagan thinking went roughly like this (here comes the layman’s science!):

Your liver is your basic powerhouse – it’s forgiving, but only to a point. God knows I’ve put the poor sod through enough since it came off formula 48 years ago, so now is as good a time as any to give it some TLC. Also, your immune system is going to be in big trouble, as the job of chemo is to kill not only any residual cancer cells (a very dear and spectacular friend described FEC as ‘the Domestos of cancer’, which I told her I’d nick for this blog – thanks P!), but any other useful, fast-dividing cells you possess. High up on that list – sitting next to hair follicles – are your white blood cells, which form the core of your immune system. Hence the measures you have to take to stop getting any kind of infection while having chemo – your immune system gets flattened, and you have no means to fight back. It can mean ‘thank you and good night!’ for the patient. I signed a form saying I understood that bit. (The same form that had the bit about weight gain accidentally Tippexed out.)

So anyway, cut to the chase – I go off and research foods that are good for liver health and for boosting the immune system, buy them, and eat shedloads of them. I dump or restrict things that aren’t (Malbec, red meat and I had a very tearful parting, knowing we’d only meet infrequently over the five months to come) – and stick to it.

Well get your sunglasses out why don’t you, because the light from my halo is about to blind you! Easy peasy, unwaxed lemon squeezy – there’s not a vegetable, grain, pulse or plant protein I don’t love. I check out my approach with my lovely GP and she declares me to be ‘incredibly sensible’, which is as much of a shock to her as it is a moment of pride to me.

So I’m stuck to my wonder regime, deriving immense gratitude at the sound of ‘kerching!’ every time another devoured portion of kale or quinoa racks up my clean eating tally. I’m exercising throughout the 21-day cycle (apart from on the really pants days). OK, despite all this leafy healthy stuff, I’m still utterly dependent on Move-it-All to shift the lot out, and I’m not the most fragrant person on the planet right now but who cares? I’m glowing (that might be the FEC, thinking about it…) – I’m reinvented, I’m Deliciously bloody Smella!

That’s not to say a few mishaps haven’t occurred. Oh no. The other week, I broke the cardinal rule of dieting. I went to Tesco while I was hungry. Oh dear oh dear oh dear. Skulking under the Gluten Free Organic North African Bark Scrapings (lovely in a stir fry!) and the Free Range Grass Fed Grass Clippings (try them as a micro-green scatter over the tofu timbale for that cheffy touch at dinner parties!) somebody (ahem) has pushed in ten slices of corned beef from the deli counter, and four fresh cream éclairs. (89p for two; £1 for four. No FECing brainer). After the five-minute drive home, somebody (double ahem) seems to have stolen them.

But that aside, for someone whose usual approach to dietary regimes is to buy the book/blender/juicer then sit back with an almond Magnum declaring the diet complete, I am doing super-well.

The scales, however, have a different view. Three or four pounds WENT ON between the first and second cycles. I chucked those out as they were obviously faulty or the battery was flat – but strangely, the new ones say the same. Drat.

And the other, very weird thing. The weight is re-distributing itself around my frame. Creepy, eh? One morning, I just about caught my wedding ring as it slipped over my knuckle. Now, dear friends, I know where it was heading.

Yes readers, the hottest place in town is currently my stomach. It’s as though it’s grown two fat fingers which have poked out to whistle to the rest of me. “Oi! You lot! All her flubby bits! Come on over – the party’s at my place” and then been sucked back in to the lardy depths by a bacon double cheeseburger.  Not all of the flubbers were listening; there’s still a fairly well-populated gathering (pre-drinks?) going on around the thigh and backside area..but for the most part, they’re getting settled in around my middle. Oh joy.

There’s a little fly in the chemo ointment which is not 100% responsible, but certainly being super-helpful, in developing this new conurbation. Steroids. (Not to be confused with Asteroids – I’ve already got those!) I get them intravenously on infusion day; then three days’ worth in my goodie bag to take home.

They’re there for a good reason – anti-sickness booster, anti-fatigue and, an appetite stimulant. Suffice to say, they are very good at all three of their jobs – but boy, do I wish they’d take early retirement.

They know very well what they are up to. Every time I pop them out the packet I can hear them, chanting:

“We’re gonna make you fa-at, we’re gonna make you fa-at-….hahhahahaha!!! …Eat me! Eat me! You know you’ve got to!”.

Evil little shits. Well, I call them that, but they also contribute to my constipation. Hmm.

Not only that, they give me a massive face, which is not a great look on someone who already has a massive face. I swear, if Tim Peake dropped round mine on day 4 of a cycle, he’d be doing a double take and having an epic attack of déjà vu.

What’s a girl to do? Well, just go with the flub…er, flow.

It is what it is – and the upside is, I’m far luckier to have this than the opposite, which would make the whole shebang so much harder to deal with. I’ve seen others on the ward who are so weak from sickness they are really, really struggling. As ever, I seem to be getting a very decent hand from a challenging deal.

Nonetheless, I’m staying vigilant – it would be remiss of me to add voluntary obesity to my current list of complaints, after all!

So no, I did not indulge in plenty of yummy food, drink, biscuits, cake, and tons of chocolate eggs over Easter.

Am I bitter? No chance. I can’t even do 10% cocoa solids at the moment, let alone 70, as regular readers well know!

Now pass me my chia seed and organic dandelion porridge, while you look up where the nearest branch of Evans is for me please.

Pip pip for now 🙂