Thanks, Jim. I'm coming to your house for dinner 🙂 Sounds like you've found some great (and healthy!) food to sustain you. I agree- I also think eggs over easy are easier to eat than scrambled. The runny yolk is helpful!

I hear you on the steak! Has it been hard to give any foods up?

I've gone through a couple of blenders over the last three years. Like you I can eat pancakes with plenty of cream - hmmm sour cream on pancakes - that's a good idea. Bread is a loss which is why I enjoy toast soaked in my soup. Jim, I don't miss steak because it makes me shudder to think of how hard it would be to chew ...

@alpaca @adriennef

I brought home a pancake that I didn't eat at a restaurant, and had fun putting stuff on it to make it taste better after zapping it too long. Sliced a banana, butter, syrup (the good stuff), ice cream and whipped cream. My wife was at her knitting group, so I was fending for myself. I had a frozen yogurt at Costco today, and found it harder to swallow than the polish dog. I haven't given up anything, really, except straws.

My sister died a few years ago of undetermined causes. She saw dozens of doctors at Stanford university school of medicine and in other places, but no one ever came up with a diagnosis. It began with swallowing issues, and the last year or so of her life, she had a feeding tube and couldn't take anything by mouth. She was almost 60.

Having watched her waste away to nothing causes me anxiety because we were so much alike. She was also the only sibling out of 5, with whom I was close.

Multiple medical issues and dual diagnosis (mental and physical) make for challenges for many of us.

Jim

Maple syrup is very expensive here! Yes, it is important to keep the weight up for those of us who have swallowing issues.

Jim,

I am so sorry about your sister. It is tough to see someone so close suffer like that. My sister has had cancer of the tongue, and last year she was diagnosed with jaw bone cancer. After a very successful surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, she started suffering from nerve pain in her jaw. It is though.

In a way, I am like you. I have not given up on anything. My taste buds are being restored, and I can even enjoy a good glass of bordeaux. I juice in the morning. A glass of organic apple, lime, ginger, kale and celery juice, without the pulp. It is not tasty and it is stringent, but I drink it quickly with my daily vitamin d and some supplements like spirulina. Are you low on vitamin D? Everybody? I think that we people that have suffered from cancer, share the vitamin D deficiency. I would like to find more about it. I also do vitamin B injections for a week, every three months.

One thing that helps me mentally, is to give some money to St. Jude's . They send me a picture of a child suffering from cancer every month. I collect them at my desk, and whenever I look at them, I see a child smiling, and I think "if they can do it, I can do it" Forgive me for repeating myself, but I thank God every day for the beauty of the universe. Reflecting on it gives me pleasure and strength.

@alpaca

It's expensive, I know. We found that Costco has the best price. It's one of my 2 splurges, the other being real butter. My wife uses the cheap syrup, and we're very frugal with our grocery shopping.

Jim