Nutrition is one of the major controllable factors in cancer treatments and recovery. I can not stress enough how vitally important it will become!!! Since you are already on the slim side I would recommend drastically upping your daily intake to at least 4000 or more calories per day. Your body is burning up calories at an incredible rate making weight gain very difficult. Think of this as if you are a professional athlete in their basic training phase. Those athletes eat special diets often over 7000 calories a day. Of course talk this over with a nutritionist and/or your doc (whichever treatment center you select) to make certain anything else in your medical history will not impact your diet. Family docs are a great resource for this type of thing as they usually know the patient the best. Ive been going to my family doc's practice for about 25 years and they know everything about me, even things Ive long forgotten. Im sure if you are taking warfarin, Coumadin or other blood thinners this could play a part in your treatment plan. For patients with special medical issues it is even more important to get the very best medical care you can, if possible a CCC.
Try to get into the habit of making each bite or swallow count by getting the most calories you can per bite with minor changes like buying regular fat items like whole milk instead of 1%, no diet versions of bread, ice cream, etc. If you are interested I can give you my chocolate, peanut butter super sized milk shake Ive made myself for years to help stabilize my weight. Depending on how you make it, each shake has anywhere from 1000 calories to over 2200 calories. I also add high protein whey powder, carnation instant breakfast, half and half to further boost calories and anything else I have on hand to help make it the most nutritional shake I can.
Heres a few links with lots of info to read about. The better you can understand your cancer, the better of an advocate you can be for yourself. An informed patient is a strong patient!
Main OCF Site, Understanding sectionList of Cancer CentersUS News Best Hospitals ListMain OCF Website... Financial Assistance including Air travel/LodgingBest wishes!!!!
