Hi Anita: While I'm sure you are helping a lot with your friend's journey through oral cancer, nothing will be better than her joining the forum herself. Her reading these posts and the educational information on the OCF website (instead of getting it all second hand from you) is even more valuable; it will bring up so many questions she didn't even think to ask.

Now, if she can't (or won't) for whatever reason, then of course we are all here to help you in any way we can.

All of us have already been through most everything she will face during treatment and after. For some, treatment is horrible, painful, every bad adjective you can think of. For others, it's not so bad (my treatment wasn't bad at all). Where will your friend fit on this spectrum, no one can guess at this point. But, where ever she falls in the spectrum, good nutrition and hydration will make it way better than it will be without. When they say, 2500 calories per day, that's a minimum, more is better. Tell her to try to gain weight through eating. If she gains even one pound she will be the first I ever heard of gaining any weight (I lost 42 pounds during treatment, and I ate most everything I was supposed too).

Okay, enough rambling, lean on us when you need help, we are here for both of you.

Tony