Dad Has No Appetite And Is Losing Weight....But He Needs To Get Stronger For Chemo. Can You Help?

On 2/17/2008 kristenL83 wrote:

My dad was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer almost 3 years ago. Thank God he has been given the chance to stay with us longer than we thought. He has already gone through many rounds of chemo, radiation on his spine, and bouts of Tarceva. He has been in remission now for a few months, but stayed on the Tarceva. he recently had to stop taking it because it stopped working for him. He was on uncharted territory though since he had been on it longer than anyone with his condition. So he will have to start up chemo again.

He started having severe pain in his back. To make a long story short he ended up in the hospital getting a stent put into his kidney to drain the "mass" that was found. He also had an oversized lymph (yes the cancer has been in the lymph system already) that was pushing into his urethra. He's home now and doing much better, but he is very weak. He has lost almost 25 pounds with in a few weeks. He has no appetite and is on Zofran again for the nausea. He'll eat some jello and crackers. Every now and then he'll have a little chicken or something, but he just doesn't want to eat. He was supposed to have chemo on Tuesday but he was just too frail so he has to get stronger before they can go through with it.

 My question is what can I or my mother do to help him eat. She is getting him to drink water, gatorade, and boost. Is there anything that you have tried that has helped with the appetite??? I know he can't stomach heave foods. I just wanted to see if anyone else has seen these problems or has them.

Thanks so much ;)

Kristen