I can't eat that, sorry

Do you know the feeling when you just made your choice in a restaurant or pub and ordered what you thought would be a good meal, but then you see what your neighbour table got and you think that that would have been much better? I don't have that anymore. Other people's plates contain food I can't eat anyway. A sausage barm with red and brown sauce wouldn't have gotten my attention anyway, but in place for all the other plates that go back and forth. I finally can concentrate on the choice I made for me and not look what other people got. Quite metaphorically speaking because today was also my cancer group meeting that I have started this August and it's always great to share and listen to all sorts of stories. Realising that you are just somewhere in the middle between bad and worse. 

Potatoe is usually a guarantee of a dumping free meal. All shapes or forms are welcome. The problem is the ingredients that go with it. Nobody eats a dry jacket Potatoe, there will be beans, or cheese, or mushrooms or all together. The fries will be dirty or with red sauce. And the crisps... The crisps come with salt. While that won't cause a dumping episode it will certainly cause acid reflux. A lot of esophageal cancer patients had heartburn before the diagnosis but I didn't but since surgery I have regular problems with reflux. Followers of my blog will know why, if you look at my diet. Anyway, crisps are still a good snack in the pub when you're peckish and can't eat anything else.  *update* Never try to rinse the salt down with orange lemonade. In a desperate attempt to get rid of the burn I grabbed the only drink on the table, which was my daughter's and it just made it far worse. 

Honestly I am not sure how my body is doing it. I eat very little (at least in comparison to before diagnosis) and most of it passes right through me but I have not lost any more weight. I am losing 1 or 2 kilo but a week or two later they are back again. Most of this up and down is water or water intake. I fill my times between meals with snacks. It can't be to sugary or too heavy. Those peanut curls are originally German and are called "Erdnussflips" there. I love them and could ear a whole pack in the evening. But usually I eat a few everytime I come into the kitchen... And I go a lot into the kitchen.  They are the perfect snack and don't cause any problems. Only it I combine them with chocolate or other sugary snacks. 

Getting a child of 8 years to eat vegetables is almost as difficult as putting a tire on a car. You have to learn the tricks first, you need the right tools, and other people seem to get it done faster and easier than you. A few years ago, when I was desperate for her to eat something, I made an old recipe of my grandmother and called it magic soup. She was ill and that soup was supposed to get her healthy and luckily she did real quick. Quick enough for her to believe this soup was magical indeed and since then she would ask me every now and then, if I can make it again. She doesn't call it magic soup anymore but I think she still believes in the magic. Since surgery this soup was the best way for me to eat vegetables too. You can blend it as much as you like. Cream it up with milk, oatmilk or full fat cream, if you need it and it is very mild on the stomach. You'll need a big pan with a lid and a blender.  2 potatoes  Half a swede 3 carrots Hot dogs or German ...

So why not cover them in caramel and chocolate before eating then? Another unhealthy snack but great to gain weight. I can even eat them in the evening and they don't cause any reflux. As long as I don't eat too many of course. 

During the last year I have certainly lost most of my dignity. After having given birth to two children and presenting my most private parts in their worst condition to complete strangers during that process, I really thought my dignity was already damaged enough. But having been forced to talk about my droppings not only with doctors, but with my partner, our children, random pub owners, my husband's ex wife and my boss, it might have reached a level that can not sink any lower. I don't know why it is so important to share every detail and why a short "I am indisposed" is not enough. So let's talk about it just once - and only once - here too. It is one of the most embarrassing and restrictive side effects of the surgery.  It is well known that diarrhea always happens when we eat something that our digestive system can't handle or just disagrees with. Bell pepper for example was always something I had to avoid. Or Eggs. Stomach bugs caused diarrhea for me som...

Dehydration is a real issue for me ever since I started to have real problems swallowing. It was still 2 months till diagnose but eating and drinking was a problem. During chemo I was multiple times in the a&e and on the chemo ward with dehydration, connected to IV fluids. It was a bit better when I finally got my feeding tube as I could put as much water down the pipe as I wanted. My body made a huge sigh of relief in those weeks. Since surgery swallowing and nausea has luckily improved but because of the dumping episodes sometimes two or three times a day, I just can't catch up on the water that my body loses. The real issue here is, that I just can't drink any water anymore. It burns through my intestines and gives me cramps. Only recently I discovered that tea is okay so I stocked up on some fruit and herbal teas. Camomile is my favourite at the moment but the strawberry and raspberry combination is also very nice especially in the evenings. Since I discover...

After my body had successfully resisted all the attacks on its immune system during the last few months it has finally given in. The sore throat since 2 days was the first warning sign of what there was to come. Today I feel utterly rubbish and don't want to move at all. This is how men must feel with every cold.  It is obvious that my body just does not have any reserves left. Like a willow in the wind it gives in completely and makes me feel like this. No craft and gift fair today. No biscuit baking in the kitchen. I hope I will feel a bit better in the afternoon.  I hate to be ill and I am not used to being so wiped out. 

Christmas is already a challenging time for me anyway as all those hits of fate seem to have happened during Christmas time or made this time really dull. The last person, who made Christmas a holiday to celebrate for me died in 2014 and since then I had nobody really to celebrate it with. Apart from making a great fest for my children of course, personally I had no feelings for Christmas at all. It feels like this will be the first year, when I really would like to celebrate Christmas as I did when I was a child. With baking biscuits, putting up the tree and decorate it together, gazing at the neighbours lights and of course putting some up myself. I went a bit overboard with buying presents this year too.  I think the main reason for that is, that last year I thought that I would have had my last Christmas already. I was 2 days after Chemo last year and could not celebrate anything. Of course I tried for the kids but it was embarrassingly little to no fun for them - or un...

Every once in a while we like to take the kids to one of those indoor play areas, where they jump and and run and play as much as they want to. Kids need to be kids and those indoor play halls give them a somewhat safe environment to go mental for 1 or 2 hours. What I keep forgetting, when I plan the next trip is, that they barely play by themselves and you never get to drink your coffee. Earlier or later you will be forced into the maze, inflatable castle or down a quite scary looking slide. It just makes more fun together.  Since the surgery it got a bit more challenging. Apart from that it's exhausting to go through those jungle or space themed adventure climbing frames even when you are a normal healthy adult, my energy levels are just not the same and 30 minutes is all I can do at the moment. Jumping is also not a good idea. This morning I purposely didn't eat anything because I thought I wouldn't have so much reflux but it was still horrendous after the fi...

Usually I try to put healthy snacks and meals into my day to day meal plan. But every time when I am peckish I steal one or two of the bars that I actually bought for my children.  Not too many though, as they are highly likely to cause dumping. Two is just about okay.  For the little sugar kick in between snacks I also like those Belgium muscles or Ferrero Rocher. The only difficulty here is not to eat too many of them.

I used to love milk chocolate. The brighter the better. White chocolate was also one of my favourites. Both is now a regular cause of dumping and I had to stop eating those. But what still works is dark chocolate. My sweet tooth just needs something sweet to suck on once in a while and dark chocolate is a good alternative. Two pieces a day are even said to be very healthy.  Unfortunately those packs are usually quite small and quite expensive so I only ever eat them, when I know exactly, that my body is able to process it properly. Would be a waste otherwise. 

I was never a take away person. I just did not understand why I would pay more money for less quality food. Soggy chips next to cold fish that might have been reheated three times during the day already. The only take away worth buying was pizza or Chinese. During lockdown that changed a bit. When most pubs started to offer their dishes as take away. Great pub food to normal prices in the comfort of your own home. As much as I missed going out, I liked that you could order a real meal when you don't want to cook.  Lockdowns are long gone (thank God!) and also the take away option got back to normal. Hardly any pub or restaurants offers their dishes as take away or delivery anymore. But what when you really do not want to cook? Our goto solution is pizza. It's a risky thing. Usually I can't process more than one piece but today I took anti diarrhoea medication because I had such a tough day. I have to be careful with those. Even when it solves my biggest problem, it could ca...

 When I was young and naïve and heard of the concept of support groups for the first time I immediately put them into the humbug corner. Why on earth would it make an awful situation better, when you go to a group of people and talk about it. What I did not knew back then was first of all, that there are specific support groups for all sorts of struggles and problems but also I had no idea how much comfort you can get out of a single conversation with somebody who knows exactly what you are going through. Either because they have been affected by the same hit of fate or because they have been involved into that topic directly. With all the challenges that life has thrown at me the need to talk about it with somebody who actually understands grew in relation to the number of people who would just nod and say "This will pass". I did learn eventually how important support groups can be. When I was diagnosed with cancer I immediately started looking for a group close to me where ...

Some mornings I wake up and immediately have to use the bathroom. I would be trapped there for 30 minutes while the kids need to get ready for school, breakfast and packed lunch need to be prepared and the other half might want to follow the call of nature too at some point. I don't understand why this happens. There is no relation to what or when I have eaten last the evening before. Also it doesn't matter how the night was, if the kids were ill and needed attention at 2 am or slept peacefully through the night.  Some mornings are just like this. So today I am extra hungry, which leads us to our favourite café again. Let's see how this works out, usually if the day starts like this, the rest of the day is not very easy on my digestive system either. 

 A hypo or hypoglycaemia attack is one of the side effects of an oesophagectomy that every patient experiences at least once at some point after the surgery. The first sign is shivering or shaking even though it's not cold. On the contrary you might feel very hot especially in the head, the heartrate increases suddenly and you could feel dizziness or faint. Those are the first symptoms. When you feel like this you better eat some easy processable sugar like fruit sugar (fruit juice or juicy fruits like orange, watermelon or pear) or dextrose (icing sugar, glucose or dextrose tablets and sweets) and sit or lie down.  I always find it more comfortable to sit because when I lie down and have this faint feeling where the whole world turns I am scared I could get sick and this is easier when sitting. When it happens the first few times it can be quite scary. It is important to not panic, it feels dangerous but it is actually not too dangerous. Eating sugary things will help to ease...

Just started to prepare myself for that beauty when a hypo hit. I managed two bites before I needed to take some dextro energy and breathe through the attack. I am used to it now but the first was very scary. In no information or talk was ever said that this could happen once in a while. Only when I mentioned it to my surgeon during a follow up appointment she shrugged her shoulders and said that this is normal and I have to deal with it.  Luckily this usually passes quickly with some sugar and a break and I could enjoy my tomato-halloumi-bagel. Some days it makes problems but I feel fine today so I was up for risking it. 

The OPA is the oesophageal patient association and is one of the cancer charities which are specialised in oesophageal and gastric cancer. They are not as prominent as the bigger names cancer research UK or Macmillan for example, but they are really helpful. One of their free services is that they provide you with a card when you had your surgery which you can use in pubs and restaurants. It is not always easy to explain to someone that you are not able to eat big portions or an adult dish or that you need the toilet in a quick and discreet way.  I like it a lot even though I barely ever have to use it. Usually nobody asks a question but if they would, I could show them the card and wouldn't draw to much attention to me.  Especially the backside of it, which explains that a toilet might be needed urgently has helped me several times already.  This card be ordered on the pages of the OPA. 

Because my body is very bad it processing nutrients and is throwing them out as soon as it gets the chance to do so, I am hungry. Always. That means if I am not suffering from dumping with cramps and nausea, I will be hungry and get into a hangry state. I have never been like this but my body just has no reserves and can't cope. Also I have cravings, almost worse than during my pregnancies.  My afternoon snack today is therefore a bun with strawberry jam. It's one of those you have to bake in the oven for 8 minutes. Unfortunately I forgot that I had put it in already and it must have been in there for 15 minutes or more. Just on the border between eatable and bin. 

Ever since the cancer struck I wasn't able to eat bread or buns. First I couldn't swallow it, then I couldn't process it. I was never a breakfast person and used to have a coffee in the morning and wait for lunch but now I need a breakfast. Naturally, living in England, I tried fried breakfast and after a few setbacks which involved eggs, butter and tomato I found the perfect breakfast for me. Beans, hash browns and mushrooms. No salt or spices added just a bit cooking oil. I have to take my time, it can't be too hot and presumably I can only eat half but this is my go to breakfast if I need to be somewhere and can't use a toilet any time soon. 

Out at my favourite café for a coffee and breakfast. The biscuits are self made and so tasty! Unfortunately they have added ginger into the recipe for Christmas and ginger just burns the rest of my oesophagus and gives me heartburn for the rest of the day. Luckily I don't like ginger anyway, but I really liked those biscuits.  I can't wait until they go back to normal.  The coffee is an oat milk latte with a tiny but of hazelnut sirup. Sometimes it causes dumping but today I feel okay to try again.