Eating and Drinking

One of the drawbacks of my radiotherapy is the way it affects eating. This is a three pronged attack, saliva, appetite and taste!

I have less saliva than I used to because the saliva gland on my right side has been destroyed. My left saliva gland is still there and I do have some saliva but only half of what I used to (duh!), although apparently the other gland will compensate, I'm still waiting for that to kick in.

My taste is an odd mixture. I can taste chocolate! I can also taste eggs, cheese and certain meats, for example I can still taste sausages, but chicken is too dry. I can, luckily, taste potatoes, so chips (fries to you yanks) mash and "bubble and squeak" all work. I can also taste some vegetables, brocolli is good, but brussel sprouts (which I used to absolutely love) now taste really nasty.

I seem to have lost most of my sweet taste so I can't taste sugar, Coke tastes (more or less) like fizzy water for example. Pepsi tastes more like Pepsi and Coke Zero tastes better that real Coke. But the real down side of this is beer. I love beer! That first beer on an evening out, or after a days work tastes wonderful. I also love Guiness, but now that I can't taste sugar beer tastes really, really bitter. Try and remember the first time that you tried beer as a teenager, that's how it tastes. This breaks my heart!

The other thing with my taste is that it seems to get overwhelmed quickly. So when I eat initially I can taste something, but after a few mouthfuls the taste disappears. I'm guessing this is because I've lost many of my taste receptors so that when I eat food, the food attaches to the receptors that are left and, as there aren't many, after a while my taste disappears.

Then there's my appetite, anybody who knows me knows that I normally have a large appetite. For whatever reason my appetite has all but disappeared. I can't think of any reason for this, unless it's linked to the two other things above, lack of saliva and limited taste!

Let me say up front that none of this is fun, especially for somebody who loves food, cooking an eating out as much as I do.

Things are getting better and I'm not sure why. I don't want to be overly optimistic and say that my taste is improving, I wonder if I'm getting used to things and my brain is starting to adapt to its new world. To be honest I have no idea.

Last night I went out for a meal with my wife and some friends. This is about the first time I've been out for a restaurant meal in 4 months or maybe more, I was starting to go stir crazy at home and fed up with not eating out. We went Mexican, mostly because in the week I'd had an Enchilada and enjoyed it (well mostly enjoyed it), so Mexican seemed the logical choice. I ended up with Beef Chimichanga at Chiquito's in Cheltenham. Now, Mexican here is nothing like the Mexican food I've had in California (another reason I'd like to live there!) but, I really enjoyed the meal I had. It was a shredded beef chimichanga and the beef tasted like beef. It tasted a little dry but that was due to my lack of saliva and not the food. I also had a drink, a Margarita and I could taste it, at least the lime in it.

This is s huge step forward for me, a meal I actually enjoyed and the ability to drink alcohol!

Tonight it's curry! Not especially spicy but another step in the right direction.

Happi(er) days!