Cooking for someone going through chemotherapy

Hello,

My grandmother will be starting chemotherapy on Tuesday or Wednesday, the first of three sessions (not sure that's the right word!). I'm going to go and stay with her from the Thursday, not sure yet how long I'll be staying. We're both pretty practical, so I'm sure we'll be able to talk about what she needs, but I was hoping to get some idea before I get there of what would be useful. Can anyone suggest some good recipes? I'm a half-decent cook, and have a list of what I think of as nice, comforting food, but don't know if there's anything that would be particularly great/rubbish. Any advice on what to expect generally would be great as well! Just want to be as helpful as I can

  • Hello and I'd just like to say that, despite going through what she's going through, your grandmother is very lucky to have such a caring granddaughter as you.  I can only go by my own experience but with the Domperidone (no, not champagne unfortunately, but the anti-sickness tablets the hospital gives you) I found that I was able to eat normally.  Nothing special, just the same food that I always had.  After a couple of days, I did start to go off my food and didn't force myself to eat if I didn't want to/couldn't, but as long as I kept my fluid intake up, I was all right. Then after a couple of days, I was back to eating normally again.  Perhaps have a word with your grandmother to find out what she likes/doesn't like, what she would like as a treat and take it from there.  Let us know how you get on.  Good luck.

    Battling Babe 

  • I can only say what worked for me. I had no taste (this happened gradually through chemotherapy) strong flavours. My best memory of tasting again was a great piece of belly pork, lemon juice on crispy salad ingredients and smoked fish.