So this myeloma warrior spent 15 days in the hospital recently battling pneumonia. One of the most horrible parts of being in the hospital was the food. No joke, it was making my physically ill.
First, I was put on a neutoropenic diet, which means no fresh fruits and veggies unless they come in a heavy peal (like bananas and melons) or are cooked up. That alone drives me a little crazy because I absolutely love fresh produce. Like I probably eat an average of eight servings per day. The thought behind this rule is that if I get any kind of food-born illness, I have no immune system (like ZERO) to fight it.
Second, Huntsman gives you a room service menu that we patients can order off of any time we want from 6AM to 9PM. So when I first got into the hospital, no problem. I was ordering salmon, onion rings, steamed broccoli, green apples, soup... I was making as healthy choices as possible but the food was really disgusting. It was cold, under cooked or over cooked, inconsistent... Like once I ordered a tuna sandwich on sourdough. They brought me half a sandwich with almost no tuna. It was like two slices of bread with a small amount of spread. No pickles... nothing. The next day, I order the same thing. This time it's a full sandwich loaded with tuna and two pickles. The pizza dough was nearly raw. The steak un-chewable...
And then by day four I would eat breakfast and throw up. Lunch... throw it all up. For two days, I had zero calories because I could keep nothing down. Honestly, the food was horrid and just looking at the menu made me queasy. The nutritionist came to speak with me.
"I cannot eat this food," I told her. "It is too salty, raw, over cooked, overly processed. Even the soup comes straight out of a can. It is making me sick."
"Well," she said, "Here are our most popular items: milkshakes (we can add a banana), sole, enchiladas..." Instead of trying to find better and healthier ways for me to eat, it was what was most popular.
My doctor told me that to get discharged I must eat, not continue losing weight. So I started ordering milkshakes. The sole was horrid. The medical team ordered me meds to help me keep this disgusting, awful, unhealthy food down. It worked. Despite feeling awful just looking at the menu, I ate. And I stopped dropping weight. And I got discharged. Unsurprisingly, the minute I got home and started eating "real" food, I didn't need meds to keep poisonous food down. I just ate and started healing.
I have NO idea how cancer hospitals (or any hospital) can feel its patients like this. Foods that stress out our immune systems and help keep us sick. And then when our bodies revolt (like mine did), the response is to give us meds to hep us keep that disturbing food in our guts, making us weaker and sicker. This food does NOT aid us in healing.
One day when I was still in the hospital, I made this case to my doctor. "You must release me. I cannot heal anymore here. The food is making me sicker. It is stressing my immune system and is preventing me from healing. I don't eat like this at home. I need proper nutrition. I need proper rest. This is critical to my health."
I came home and reveled in cooked spinach and garlic with fresh lemon juice, salmon with minimal sodium. Cantaloupe. Quinoa. Grilled apples and oranges with cinnamon. Imagine this-- in the hospital I was continually low in potassium and needing massive potassium supplements. Of course I was! My diet in that hospital was vitamin and mineral deficient. I got home and after eating fresh grilled tomatoes, lots of avocados, bananas and potatoes, my potassium levels became normal.
Shame on hospitals! We sick people NEED and DESERVE far better than highly processed, sodium heavy, and highly unhealthy food. We deserve foods that support healing and health, not help poison us. I call for a complete overhaul. Shameful!
As I head into my stem cell transplant, we originally were going to do it in-patient in the hospital. But after 15 days of eating that food, I just can't. We are attempting this out-patient. One of the main reasons? I can't fathom eating that horrid, awful, unhealthy, poisonous food for two more weeks. I need food that will help me weather this procedure as well as possible. And staying away from hospital food is one way I hope to do this.
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