Brownish – Greenish Stuff (2007)
Brownish – greenish stuff, casserole types, mixed together meats, particularly beef, but also some ground turkey dishes, chop suey dishes with beef and brown sauce, pasta dishes, rice dishes, fish, unless finely chopped, most legume dishes, ham, unless finely chopped….these were not a few of mom’s favorite things!
It was a frustrating first year trying to find meals that she could or would eat. They had to have the right texture for her to chew. She practically liquefied everything she ate! It would take her at least 2 hours to eat a meal. I’d tell her that her first bite would be digested before she got to her second bite!
Her meals had to have some visual appeal, colors were important. Taste and smell did not matter, she hadn’t been able to do either for years. It was all about texture and color. She may have some sensation towards spices, as well as salt and sugar, but you can’t give an elderly person spicy food, it will make them cough or choke.
I had spent hours trying to come up with simple meals for mom that she could chew and that would be nutritious and colorful. I searched books and websites for recipes, created a few of my own as well. Nothing ever fit all the ‘rules’ but I did the best I could to feed her well.
I had tried asking a few ‘famous’ people who I thought could assist with my quest for recipes for mom, never any response. It really came down to this, I had all the knowledge I needed as to what to cook and how to cook it for mom, I was trying to make it harder then it really was!
I got to the place where instead of always trying to find different meals, that I would list the foods she could eat and make menus consisting of these foods, keeping things as simple as I could, yet still giving her good food.
Nourishment 1 (7-8-09)
Nourishment is nourishment, no matter what form it is in, pureed and blended, puddings and creams.
Gone are the cups, gone are the straws.
Taste does not matter as she cannot taste, it is just a matter of nourishment, proteins and vitamins, purees and blends.
Nourishment 2 (2010)
Mom’s, decrease in food intake has taken her to eating somewhere between 500 to 700 calories a day. When this change took place early in December of last year, it was very hard for me to accept. One of the most important things to me in caring for mom is that I made sure she had enough to eat and that it was nourishing.
In 2006, she could eat pretty much everything and drink liquids. As the months have past, it became more difficult for her to chew and swallow. Foods would have to be pureed or blended, and liquids were drunk with a straw. Soon the straw was eliminated, and all liquids were thickened. Thank goodness for the thickening products that are available for those who can’t drink the liquids anymore!
Most of last year, mom’s meals consisted of:
Breakfast - a nutritional drink made into pudding, a bowl of oatmeal or cooked cereal, blended smooth, and some applesauce or pureed peaches added to that, and thickened cranberry juice
Lunch – yogurt, applesauce, and another bowl of the thickened nutritional drink
Supper – a bowl of the pudding, a bowl of pureed homemade soup, to which I would often add two cooked eggs
They were meager meals, but she ate them well and they sustained her well.
But as of the early part of December, what I am able to feed her are two bowls of the pudding (thickened nutritional drinks), thickened cranberry juice, yogurt and applesauce. Not all of it can I always get into her either, the pudding is the priority because that contains the bulk of her calories and nutrition, as well as her meds dissolved into them. Water is also added to the pudding to get them to the consistency for her to eat it.
It has been stressful. I have had to fight the feeling or thoughts that I was starving mom! This has been a concern for sometime, but her blood work always showed she was getting enough nutrition. But now, it is out of my control, key word here, control. This is a condition that there is no control over, so there are areas that we try to have control over to help us feel better! Mom is now at the point where her body no longer needs so much food, and she doesn’t want it either.
The other difficult thing is knowing this is an end of life situation, her time is coming to an end, and this eating change is proof of it. Adapt, adjust, deal with it as best I can, continue to move forward. I have been learning some new coping skills thanks to Denise Brown of caregiving.com, and have been using music therapy more intensely now, it is helping during supper when I feed her, and while she is sitting in her bed.
There may or may not be a Nourishment Part 3 to write about, we will have to see……
