RileyMc

What are you doing for depression?

Tim, Unless your peg is driving you nuts, why don't you consider keeping it until you are within 5 lbs or so of you weight gain goal? In the event you cought a cold, flu, sore throat or something over the next few weeks, it would be real handy for hydration, medications, etc. Glad to hear you are gonna get to go home.
Linda, you sound like you are doing great![even with the frustrations] One day at a time, Lady. You will get there. Amy

Tim, my primary care doc prescribed Wellbutrin, 150 mg/day first, then up to 300mg. For me, it works, with no side effects. I'll be seeing him tomorrow for followup to find out if there's anything else I should do.

Stoj, my husband had his PEG put in as preparation for surgery on May 15. I remember the dat eclearly because it was 2 days after we got married. They prepped him for partial glossectomy by inserting trach and PEG. Then the surgeon came in, looked at his tonugue and said the cancer had spread too far since the CT scan 2 weeks previously. He would have had to remove the whole tongue and the larynx. So he cancelled the surgery and we switched to rad/chemo. He did not actually start using the PEG until early July. He had it removed 9-1-06. So the short story is 2 1/2 months, used it for 1 month. By the way, they left the trach in for a week until one of the doctors overrode the others and insisted it be removed. Thank goodness! That was the worst part of my caring for him. Every time I had to clean it, I would cry. I couldn't help it.

anemone70,

Thanks for letting me know. I've scheduled my PEG to come out next Wed, before I go back to GA. How is your husband doing today?

Linda,

How are you doing, how goes the eating?

I have a dilemma. I only weighted 155 lbs pre tx and lost 32. I have since gained 13 lbs back in 8 wks all due to 2800 cals daily from carnation VHC which only requires me to drink 5 8oz cans. I can eat anything I want but I choose not to simply because I can't see how I could eat that many cals a day because of the time that would require. I have had 2 blood tests post tx and passed both with flying colors. I am still as weak as a 3 day old kitten and my wife (neither of us with expert knowledge) wants me to abandon the liquids and go to the solids claiming it will bring my strenght back. My CPA brain says stick with what's working but I still wonder if I'm doing the right thing.

David, I would suggest that much of your being tired and weak is due to the IMRT. John had 30 rad txs and they wiped him out by the end. He spent many hours doing nothing but sleeping for the next month. After that, he would work in the morning and rest in the afternoon. You could try a comprimise with the liquids vs. food arguement. Set a base of 2000 cals in liquid nutrition and try to add another 800 with solids. Cheese, cream soups with veggies, pastas with rich sauces, baked potaotes with sour cream and cheese, any meats you can eat will get those calories up. As long as you continue to gain your weight back, experiment. But don't discount what the IMRT did to your system. It sound like you are doing pretty well. Amy

David,

Even though I was putting a fair number of calories into my peg with Boost, I was really still pretty tired 4 weeks post treatment. However, as Amy stated, that also has a lot to do with the radiation and chemo. I started feeling stronger around week 8 when I was eating enough solid food to have my PEG taken out, but I can't isolate it just to eating the solid food.

I think that you should try to eat a combination of the liquids and the solids. The liquids are your comfort food right now, they are what you know works to get the calories you need. However, it is important that mentally you don't start convincing yourself that liquids are the only option, so try and replace one or two of the cans with that amount in solid food.

Sarah

I have said it may times here before and I will say it again, the correlation between calories and nutrition is tenuous at best. While we all know that trying to maintain weight as our eating becomes compromised during treatment and for the short term thereafter is a challenge, and too many people have posted here that they ate whole cheesecakes etc. to pile on the calories