Mary, I am absolutely amazed now at what I can eat and drink sometimes. Of course, it might be good one day and intolerable the next. Right now, I'm sipping a coke from having taken the kids to lunch at Sonic. I didn't think I'd ever be able to drink a soda again. One thing I've noticed that helps is when eating out, the coke usually has ice in it. Anymore, I put ice cubes in it at home and it helps me to sip them down. As for spicy foods--my range of ability to eat them isn't what it was, but I can handle mild spicy stuff. When I go do my Mexican craving, I always order the shredded beef chimichanga smothered with MILD sauce.

I've also been a huge fan of buffets. There's only a few of them in town, but there's usually something in the food line that I can eat, even if it is a big batch of mashed potatoes and gravy (not to mention most buffets have these wonderful soft serve ice cream machines) Anyway, I like going thru the line and if some food isn't working for me, I get another plate and try another selection of foods.

Ironically, since I've been eating out alot lately (I either drag a kid with me or go by myself) almost all the places I visit are viewing me as a "regular" Most of the people who wait on me know I'm recovering from cancer treatment and have patience with my pile of plates or multiple dishes of ice cream.

Now, I've been hitting my nearest Starbucks quite often. Yesterday, I went twice. They aren't use to hearing someone say "I want the maximum calories in that thing" and now they know because I've explained to them. I think the barrista that whipped up my carmel frappacino yesterday put in extra squirts of carmel and had the whipped cream way above the dome cover.

Every week now, I seem to feel an improvement on eating. Although I envy the people I see in the buffet lines that can eat HUGE piles of food. Right now I have to work on getting more volume.

Jen