The day before chemo, we go grocery shopping like a snowstorm is coming.
Not because we need a ton of food, but because nobody knows what I will actually eat once chemo kicks in. We buy a little bit of everything and hope one of those things does not completely disgust me by Tuesday.
You would think by now I would know what to buy, but I do not. Every round is different, and chemo is very committed to keeping things interesting.
One week I can live on soup. The next week, the smell of that same soup makes me want to throw up. I will drink the same thing for days because it is the only liquid that tastes right, then suddenly it tastes like it came directly out of a swimming pool. I have permanently ruined foods I used to love because I ate them on the wrong treatment day.
So before chemo, I walk through the store trying to shop for a version of myself who does not exist yet.
Will I want salty things this time? Sweet things? Cold things? Will my mouth hurt? Will everything taste metallic? Will I be starving from the steroids, or will the thought of chewing feel like too much work?
The answer is usually yes to all of it, just on different days.
We get crackers, bread, applesauce, noodles, soup, popsicles and enough drink options to stock a gas station. I grab things that worked during the last round, even though we both know that means absolutely nothing. I also buy whatever sounds good while I am standing in the store because I am still feeling decent enough to believe I will want real meals.
That is always very optimistic of me.
The refrigerator will be full of food I personally picked out, and two days later I will stare into it and announce that we have nothing I can eat.
Pete knows this routine. He also knows that when I finally say something sounds good, he has to move quickly. There is a very short amount of time between “I need this exact thing right now” and “Why would you bring that near me?”
I do feel bad about it. He will go out, find exactly what I asked for, make it and bring it to me. Then I take two bites and cannot do it anymore. He never makes me feel guilty, but I still hate wasting food and I hate that he did all of that for nothing.
Except it was not really for nothing. For those few minutes, I thought I might be able to eat. That matters more than it sounds like it should.
Eating during treatment is exhausting. Sometimes I am nauseous because I have not eaten, but I cannot eat because I am nauseous. I need food in my stomach to take some of my medication, but I need the medication to calm my stomach enough to get food into it. Then the nausea medication helps, but now I cannot poop for three business days.
Cancer is very glamorous.
There are days when I am genuinely hungry, but nothing sounds good. I will scroll through food delivery apps like I am going to find some magical meal that my stomach has not already rejected. Everything looks amazing and disgusting at the same time.
Then there are days when the steroids take over and I could eat everything in the house. Those days make absolutely no sense either. I will finish eating and still feel hungry, like my stomach somehow forgot we just handled this.
People are always telling cancer patients what we should eat. More protein. Less sugar. Fresh vegetables. Lots of water. I know most of it comes from a good place, but when water tastes like metal and the smell of chicken makes you gag, you are not worried about building the perfect plate.
You are trying to eat something.
Sometimes my meal is toast. Sometimes it is crackers in bed. Sometimes I eat half a popsicle and decide I have done enough for the day. Sometimes the only thing I can tolerate is something that would make the internet nutrition experts lose their minds.
They will survive.
On the hardest days, eating anything is better than eating nothing. Drinking whatever I can tolerate is better than becoming dehydrated because plain water suddenly tastes terrible. Treatment is not the time for me to feel guilty because my dinner was beige and came out of a package.
Food used to be one of the easy parts of life. Pete and I could go out, order whatever we wanted and enjoy it without having to think about nausea, mouth sores, medication or whether the smell would follow me home and make me sick later.
I miss that more than I expected.
That is the part of cancer people do not always understand. It does not only show up during appointments, scans or the hours spent sitting in an infusion chair. It follows you home and gets into the most normal parts of your life. It is in the grocery cart. It is in the food going bad in the refrigerator. It is in Pete standing in the kitchen asking if there is anything, anything at all, that I think I can eat.
It is in the guilt I feel when the answer is no.
By the end of treatment week, our kitchen looks ridiculous. There are several open boxes of crackers because apparently I have opinions about crackers now. There are drinks I loved for exactly one day. There is soup I begged for and never opened. There are enough bland foods to feed a very boring army.
Eventually, things start to turn around. Food begins tasting like food again. I can smell dinner without wanting to leave the room. I start asking for things because I am actually hungry, not because I am desperately trying to put something in my stomach.
For a few days, eating feels normal.
I get to sit with Pete and finish a meal. I get to enjoy something without wondering if I will ever be able to look at it again. I stop thinking about every bite and remember what it feels like when food is just food.
Then the next chemo day gets closer, and we head back to the grocery store.
We refill the crackers, replace the drinks I now hate and buy another round of foods that might work. We know I may not eat half of it. We know Pete may still end up making an emergency trip because I suddenly need one very specific thing from one very specific place.
But we do it anyway.
There is love in that grocery cart, even when most of it ends up untouched. There is Pete learning every strange little rule my body makes up. There is both of us still trying, even when we know treatment will probably change the rules again.
And somewhere underneath all of those backup snacks, there is still a little bit of hope that this round might be easier.
Even if I end up eating toast again.
Subscribers ❤️
If you made it this far, thank you. I know a blog about grocery shopping might not sound like much, but this is what everyday cancer looks like. It is not always a huge scan result or some life-changing appointment. Sometimes it is standing in the middle of the grocery store wondering which crackers you will hate the least after chemo.
That is what Mojo & The Mess is for. This site is where I share the parts of cancer that do not fit neatly into a medical update. The funny parts, the ugly parts, the things that hurt and the things nobody warns you about. There are blogs for patients and caregivers, resources I wish I had earlier and plenty of Mojo because he is convinced the entire website is actually about him.
You can subscribe for free and new blogs will come straight to your email. Reading, commenting and sharing may feel small, but it helps this site reach more patients who need to know somebody else understands.
If you want to support me and help keep Mojo & The Mess going, I have a support page with my Amazon gift list, PayPal, Venmo, merch, books and all of my other links in one place. Support is never expected, but it helps me continue writing while going through treatment and helps with the very real expenses that come with this life.
Both of my books, Life’s a Mess and Before the Flowers Die, are also available through my Linktree. Every book purchase supports my work, and I match each one by putting another copy into a local cancer patient’s treatment survival kit.
I am also currently building The Village, a free cancer community event for patients, survivors, caregivers and their families. If you would rather help with that, there is a separate survival-kit wishlist and more information about what we are creating on the website.
Whether you donate, buy a book, share a blog or simply keep showing up to read, thank you. This started as somewhere for me to put all the things cancer left me carrying. Somehow, it became a place where other people could put some of theirs down too.
Read and subscribe: Mojo & The Mess
Support me and the blog: Keep Mojo & The Mess Going
Books, merch, donations and social links: My Linktree
Learn about The Village: The Village
Leave a comment