Calm before the storm

Hi @byo_boy, you have lots of good tips there. I ate whatever I wanted during chemo.

I drank lots of water in the couple of days before and after chemo to help flush it through. Walking is also good if Rebecca is up to it. 

In addition to help my liver process all those drugs I made a juice every morning of celery, beetroot, carrot, ginger and berries to sweeten it. Beetroot is a great liver cleaner.  It made me feel good.

I ate lots of vegetables and healthy food and hardly any sugar. It was how I always ate so no real change for me. 

Take care of Rebecca's skin and mouth is important. Chemo is very drying of the skin so lots of moisturiser. I used moogoo products because there are no chemicals. I figured I was getting enough chemicals and wanted natural products. 

We mouth hygiene it is important to floss after meals and gargle with salty water. I did this after every meal and never got a single ulcer. It is very important to floss to get any food out because any bacteria left in the mouth will cause ulcers. 

Take the steroids with chemo to ensure no reaction and then if tolerated try to reduce them. Take the antinausea too as that helps. Having  said that I only had nausea once.

We are all different but I did tolerate chemo ok. I had 4 months of it. 3 x AC and 9 taxol. I was meant to have 10 taxol but I got neuropathy in toes so they reduced my dose and I had one less treatment. 

Good luck to you both.

Hi everyone - thank you so much for your messages, each of them really helps to just clarify things even further. Given everyone's experience and just how individual a lot of the experience seems to be, I think our best option is to just strive to find a good balance and basically just "play it by ear". As some have said, probably not worth getting super hung up on "ultra good", but rather just really work through the side effects and try to fit in with what's doable while still trying to maintain a healthy standard.

I've also spent today throwing together a chemo treatment journal (thanks to @GinGin for the inspiration there) which I'm going to use with Rebecca to make note of any symptoms, mental state, diet / fluids etc - hopefully that'll also give us a bit more insight as to any patterns that pop up and when things might be better or worse, especially around diet and fatigue. Would welcome any feedback on this too :)

I'm so grateful for everyone's help on here - it really is making this process much less scary and more manageable - thank you all <3

George

I forgot to say you can also ask for a referral to a dietitian as well.

Hi George and Rebecca 
Everyone is different with their experience of the AC chemo, I found eating a challenge initially and remember sitting at the table eating rockmellon and zucchini together because that tasted good to me! I had a good tip from the pharmacist, sometimes people mistake nausea for heartburn,  that was certainly my experience, I  didn't get a lot of nausea. The heartburn was well controlled with pantaprazole and that allowed me to eat. Also I was given a 5 day anti nausea tablet on treatment day and steroids to curb nausea and Maxalon and gastrostop on hand to take home in case of vomiting or diarrhoea. My oncologist told me to eat whatever tasted good to me ( even if it wasn't a healthy choice!), I had quite a bit of altered taste sensation and it is 7 weeks post chemo and it's gradually coming back! I am still not able to eat garlic, chilli and curry. The cancer council have a really good publication on cancer and nutrition that has lots of good tips:

https://www.cancercouncil.com.au/cancer-information/living-well/nutrition-and-cancer/

Hope that helps you.

Best wishes for Friday! 

Hi George, I just want to say how thoughtful you are to be looking after Rebecca so well and planning ahead.  Some of us don't have that added extra care and I'm sure it will put her in good stead for handling the treatment.

I am still on my first set of Carbo/Taxol treatment and have (at week 6) really noticed a change in taste sensations - everything I used to love tastes bland - which is so frustrating when you sometimes just want comfort food.  But being on steroids does seem to have increased my appetite at times - though I appreciate AC is a different concoction.  

I think you'll be 'playing it by 'ear' for a little while seeing what goes down easily, stays down and also what tastes good.  A friend of mine said that sometimes it may be that you have to try foods you haven't tried before in order to get the 'taste' sensation.  Good luck. And be gentle on yourself as well.  You are doing your best.

I kept most of my taste, and had no nausea on AC but totally went off coffee (which I love), it tasted musty. Dinner after chemo was always mash potatoe and veg. I seemed to crave lots of veg, and ate much more fish, lots of veggie stirfrys, and soup. My love of coffee returned when I switched to paclitaxel. Best wishes for Friday.

Hi George,
For me, the side effects of AC kicks in around the 5-7 day. It got worse after each chemo treatment as the effects are cumulative. Rebecca’s taste bud is not likely to change dramatically after the first chemo. So hopefully, it is safe to stick to your normal meal planning routine for the first treatment. 

Hello.  You will get lots of different responses on this so you might just have to play it by ear the first week or so
i didn’t lose my taste or appetite on chemo and had no nausea or trouble with mouth ulcers so I was able to eat and drink normally with a few exceptions, some foods gave me indigestion, mainly richer foods like creamy sauces ect but that was easy managed with quickeeze
The day of chemotherapy I usually wasn’t very hungry and just had smaller serves, like Allyjay I found salty foods went down really well and even a bit of takeaway like fish and chips seemed to help me feel better 
We still just did our weekly meal plan and shop and most nights I was ok to cook or help cook
Home Delivery of groceries was very handy and also having a few meals in the freezer for nights when we couldn’t be bothered cooking 
Having 3 kids that obviously still needed to eat we found just keeping the regular routine worked and if I didn’t feel like dinner I just popped my serving in the fridge for the next day. 

Hi to you both and good luck with chemo. When I was on AC chemo, I more or less lost my sense of taste...well not lost, perhaps more changed would be a better word. My mouth tasted like an old, wet dog smells and most foods just tasted like boiled cardboard. I went totally off chocolate and also coffee. I developed a liking for salt and vinegar chips as the sharp and salty taste seemed to get through the wet dog. I had problems with mouth ulcers and found that acidic foods such as tomato, orange juice, pineapple and the like, burned my mouth. I found the lemonade icy poles really good to numb my mouth before eating, and again, the slightly tart taste made my mouth feel fresher. Each person has different experiences, and as a dietician(from a large Sydney hospital) told me, "If you can eat it...eat it...you can worry about 'healthy choices' after chemo."