Regarding nutrition: I found a wonderful free site called www.fitday.com it enables you to keep a food diary daily and it tracks the calorie, protein, carb and fat count. My new "deal" with Dan is if he gets at least 2500 calories and 150 grams of protein per day that I will leave him alone about the meal supplement drinks.

RO said he thought skin reaction was nothing to worry about - just comes from Dan being mildly fair skinned... I asked him should we see a Dermatologist and he said when this was over, but not now. I don't know if I'm comfortable with that - I'm going to do a little research on my own.

I do have a new question though. The choking mucous is causing Dan to throw up on occasion (becoming more common) and he says he feels weird, but he doesn't think it's nasuea? Did yall's nasuea present in the usual "quesy" way or was it different? Dan is not a big fan of taking pills and he's like I don't want to take a nasuea pill because it's not that... But he just threw up his supper and he doesn't want anything else.

Dan was prescirbed some extended release morphine today - the lower 15 mg dose. We'll see how this works for him.

Michelle,

I know the feeling about Dan throwing up and it not being nasuea. I usually threw up in the morning after my first feeding due to all the mucous settling in my stomach overnight. I learned not to eat right away after waking up and that seemed to help. During the day I would rinse my mouth out with the baking soda/salt mixture to break down the mucous and get it out of my mouth. I would go through at least a quart a day of this mixture to rinse my mouth out. I seemed to not have any problems during the day with throwing up. The mixture is 1 tablespoon salt / 1 tablespoon baking soda / 1 quart of water. I would rinse a lot throughout the day and also get up and rinse during the night. I always had 2 - 1 quart bottles made a day.

Most of my husbands vomiting was triggered by the choking. He uses nausea medicine that desolves in his mouth. He doesnt mind taking them because it is so easy to pop one early morning any time he thinks the trigger might get pulled.

My husband created his own way of dealing with mucous. I buy cheap little paper cups and expensive viva paper towels. He would then spit it into the cup and cover it with the paper towel he used to wipe his mouth. Then he could easily throw it away. The doctor saw him do this in the hospital and said that his system was the best thing he could do for recovery....get rid of all you can. Sometimes throwing up large monsters as he called them...made him feel better for a couple hours or days.

Everyday is different; sometimes every hour is different
Cindy

I,like many, developed what I call a gag reflex. I got so use to throwing up that the slightest thing could trigger my gag reflex and I would throw up. Nausea, per se, had nothing to do with it. I remember many times waking up with a mouth full of STUFF and would hope I made it to the BR sink in time. I didn't find anything other than time that cured it.

Did the dietician tell you 150 gm of protein a day? That sounds like an awful lot. Assuming he were on an ENSURE PLUS only diet, that would be 11.5 cans and 4140 calories. The most I ever heard anyone taking is 6 or 7 cans which is about 91 gm of protein. I don't know the numbers for Carnation VHC. Your calorie count sounds good, but the protein seems way to high.

Eileen

VHC has a whopping 23 grams of protein in each 8 oz can so in my heyday I was drinking 6 cans for 3360 cals and 138 grams of protein. None of my docs though mentioned protein, just calories and water.

Eileen - the dietician didn't give me a number for protein - she has just said high-protein and high-calorie diet. I just went back and calculated an average day of food intake for Dan and I came up with that number - not that I think he would have to "hit" that number during this cancer "saga". Dan is very active in his daily life with work and hobbies and he loves to eat and loves meat - hence the high protein. We are supposed to meet the dietician again Friday and I hope to find out more specific numbers at that time.

David the only reason I haven't ordered the Carnation VHC yet is because I have to buy a whole case and today after MUCH arm twisting I finally got Dan to even try his first supplement drink - a Boost Plus. So I hate to order them and he not like them... Kind of a Catch 22 over here. I don't know why I stall though - in the scheme of things I'm probably better off to have them.

Our dietitian calculated a protein goal based on Dan's weight from day 1. She was very diligent on checking up on that weekly. Michelle, if you don't want to invest in a case of VHC, ask your dietitian for samples. Our dietitian gave us lots of different samples to try to increase calories and protein. My husband was about the only person I know of who couldn't handle the VHC because of the thickness and problems with swallowing. But, for most people it has been a lifesaver.

Margaret - thanks for the tip, I did ask her and she said there was no longer a supplier in our area so she has no samples and she said that she didn't recommend it because the majority of her patients said it was too thick. Of course that is another reason I am a little leary of ordering it. But based on a totally unscientific poll - reading this board - it seems that to the majority it's a lifesaver.

Michelle,

Believe me he won't care what VHC tastes like, because he probably won't taste it. I had to drink it room temp and I could actually taste a little sweetness but I didn't care as I was ONLY interested in swallowing that can to get the most cals I could with the least amount of effort. I ended up drinking the VHC for over a year post Tx to help supplement my eating because I just didn't care about eating all these foods that tasted like ....