Hi Vernon - welcome to the family. Several times it was mentioned above to maintain your food and liquid intake. While we are/were all told this at the beginning of our journey one important factor is often unknown until it's too late, and that is why is food intake so important.

There's two things going on here, 1. cancer and the treatments for it are hyper-metabolic. That means that the disease and the treatment are high calorie consumers. It's like the pregnant woman who is eating for two; well you are eating for three. After the disease and the treatment get their daily portion if there is anything left, that's what you get, so you literally have to double (maybe even triple) your daily intake.

2. With the loss of taste that we all go through, the loss of appetite also comes. You just don't have any desire to eat. Imagine how devastating that can be to your health, to not eat and then the little bit that you do eat to be consumed by the disease and treatment. It doesn't get said a lot around here, but it's easy to become malnourished to the point of requiring hospitalization.

I'm one of those people who think it's important for people to know the why of what we're doing, not just the what. To me it just makes everything more understandable to know why.

I managed to choke down usually 3/4 of what I needed on a daily basis throughout treatment. Still I lost 44 pounds overall. Now, I was a plump little dumpling before treatment began, so I had some extra to be able to lose. If you started out skinny like a bean pole, it will be super important for you to eat during treatment.

Hang in there and welcome to the family. We will help you get through this.

Tony