Encouraging meals

[Andy H]

Good morning, this is my first post so I hope some kind folk can offer some suggestions for me. My darling wife who is 54 years of age has recently been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer with secondaries in the liver and lymph nodes. The shock was immense and contributed to ruining her appetite. 
I am trying to encourage her to eat and obviously these need to be high calorific meals so that she will be able to cope with the imminent chemo which she starts in two weeks. I have managed to maintain her weight thus far but would really appreciate some ideas for exciting, smaller meals. She cannot eat much so I’m trying the little and often approach.

Any ideas please ? 
Thanks  

[Gaffer]

Hi Andy

I’m really sorry to hear of your situation and can relate very well. My husband was diagnosed with stage 4 PC with liver mets in Aug 19, aged 54. The one essential thing which would benefit your wife would be to take Creon. These are pancreatic enzymes which help digestion and help maintain weight. Before my hubby was prescribed them he lost a lot of weight. You may need to be persistent in getting them prescribed but they would certainly help. The other thing you probably need is a referral to a dietician. In order to get calories in you need to ‘fortify’ foods. Use full fat milk, cream, evaporated milk to give extra calories. Then add to the milk marvel

powder which gives even more calories. Add butter, cream, cheese etc to mash potato. Make milkshakes and add ice cream, anything to add calories. You can get fortisips on prescription (these are little milkshakes with lots of calories). My hubby said they tasted awful but I added more milk to make them more drinkable. Eating little and often better than a big mea and it doesn’t matter if you having breakfast at dinner time so

long as calories are consumed. It’s a bit of trial and error and you may find chemo will affect taste buds too, though a few days after chemo she’ll probably have steroids which hopefully will increase appetite. She’ll also be prescribed anti sick medication, again she may need to try different ones. Please give the nurses at pcuk a ring, they have a wealth of knowledge and certainly were a lifeline to us. Have a look at their booklets too and the webinars, which are very informative.  I hope you are getting some support too. I wish you all the very best x