Renee Gentzel

First things first, enjoy the picture of our beautiful, food-loving, 2-year-old dog, Onchao! He’s a goof, but so pretty. Ha!- actually, the good news is that I was able to successfully have my #5 FOLFOX chemotherapy infusion today! My platelets had doubled during the past week, and I was given the all clear to proceed. One more round of chemo before my next scan at the end of Feb. to see how my cancer is reacting. I suspect it may be putting up a fight; a blood marker of my cancer, Carcinoembryonic Antigen (CEA), raised slightly last week. If it raises any further, it will be out of normal range, and will indicate that the treatments may be losing effectiveness.

For this post, I’d like to dig into the fascinating subject of metabolism and chemotherapy – future posts will likely cover some of the biology, but this one will focus on patient evidence. I’d also like to address the amazing contributions from all of my friends and colleagues to the food train – the love, the time, and most of all, the wonderful food! You may be sharing your family’s traditional homemade recipes (and trust me, Mike wants ALL of them…he raves about the food!). You may be a master at picking out excellent gift cards to restaurants and grocery stores. You may have hosted us during a great party or a friendly dinner. Regardless of what it was, THANK YOU! These efforts have uplifted me and my family, and have also enabled me to more deeply connect with all of you.

For all the fantastic food we receive, how does my fasting play into this? Why am I fasting? I’ve mentioned it before in some of the previous blog posts, but I haven’t fully explained my reasoning. Multiple people question why I would do this, and wait, aren’t chemo patients actually trying to keep their weight up??

Fatigue, nausea, and food aversion are a few of the more serious side effects from chemotherapy. Many of my fellow patients experience days where they can’t get out of bed, can’t keep any food in their system, and furthermore, don’t even want to eat food. They feel miserable, have mouth sores, and can’t function well. My goal with chemo is to remain as functional as possible. I don’t want my daughter to remember me during this time as only being ‘sick’.

From the many clinical publications I read (’cause my jam is science research!), I consistently came across literature describing how fasting during chemotherapy and radiation can be well-tolerated and can limit negative side-effects. There have not been any large clinical studies; a polite person would say it would be a hard business case to make to get funding; a less polite person would say there’s no money to be made from it. I’ve not found evidence that fasting impairs a person’s quality of life or the outcome of their treatments. *PSA (or CYA, depending on interpretation): Chemotherapy pills that are taken orally need to be taken with food to be absorbed. I receive IV infusions. Comorbidities, like diabetes, may prohibit the use of fasting. Also, docs need to know what’s up if a person tries fasting.* So, I reasoned, it likely won’t hurt, and it may help. And help it has. The graph below is a nice illustration of how fasting has lessened severity of chemotherapy side effects in patients, and, I have to say, it matches well with my experiences. Fasting has eliminated any sign of nausea, diarrhea, fatigue, weakness, dry mouth and mouth sores for me. I have had minimal hair loss, no head-aches. I get a little foggy the first day of 5-FU, because it crosses the blood brain barrier. And the icing techniques I’ve used have prevented or reduced the numbness, decreased sensation and tingling from the oxaliplatin.

Finally, this brings me to the feasting! I become a total foodie while fasting. I am intensely interested in the Food Channel. I stop at every pop-up sponsored Facebook ad that shows a video of food being prepared. I shamelessly buy 11 boxes of girl scout cookies (thanks Lee, Tara and Emma!) and order $100 dollars worth of meat and meals from Omaha Steaks. These seem like insanely good ideas when I do them, but when I finish fasting, I think that they were good ideas that were slightly insane. Take-away: If your kid has some food to sell, hit me up on the last day of my four-day fast cycle and I will totally buy something… I’m not hungry (stomach-growling /starving/must eat), just super-interested in thinking about food. I am so happy that I love to eat when I disconnect from chemo and can break my fast. For those that deliver meals while I’m fasting, know that I save a portion of each meal in the fridge/freezer to enjoy when I’ve completed my chemo infusion. My weight went up initially and is now stable. I am able to still work full-time. Yay for fasting in order to feast!