Surprising foods you should stay away from while on chemotherapy

In my last blog post, it's a no-brainer as to why you should stay away from raw meat while on chemo due to the high risk of bacteria.  Unfortunately, there are even more foods to stay away from that put your health and immune system at risk.  Some of these may shock you since they are "healthy" but do have high risk of containing bacteria that can make you sick.

Anything raw
We've already touched upon meat, but this also includes raw egg!  So stay away from that batter and try to avoid licking the spoon or bowl covered in that gooey goodness.

Uncooked and unpeeled foods
This includes all the fruit and vegetables you can not peel such as
-lettuce
-apples
-peaches
-grapes
-strawberries
-blueberries
-cherries
-raspberries
-etc.

If you can figure out a way to peel the fruit or vegetable, such as apples or peaches, that would be a safe bet.  But do stay away from lettuce and any kind of salad since it's hard to completely wash it to the point where all the bacteria would be removed.

Foods to stay away from while on chemo: raw fish

The day I found out I had cancer was not only a day my life changed forever, but also the day I found out about many things I now can not do, eat or participate in during my time on chemotherapy.  Of course I devastated that day for many reasons, but one of those reasons was the new boundaries I needed to have when it comes to the kinds of food I ate.

I'm the type of person where I will try any type of food before I decide if I like it or not, rather than automatically judging the weird-looking food before I've at least given it a chance.  As a result, I've acquired a very wide and odd set of favorite foods.  My top favorite foods include raw fish.  I absolutely love raw fish.  Sushi, sashimi and even raw oysters are considered a fancy treat to me.  So it was pretty heartbreaking to say the least that I must stay away from these foods for the whole duration of my chemo treatment, which lasted about eight months.

Going though chemotherapy, your blood counts drop drastically.  This includes your red blood cells, your white blood cells, and some other stuff in your blood but I forget what they are all called.  One of the most alarming drops would have to be your white blood cells since they fight germs and keep you healthy.  After every chemo round, my white blood cell count would drop to zero.  That meant I had no immune system.  That meant my body had no chance of fighting any type of infection.  That meant I would have to rushed into the emergency room if I had any hint of a fever.  So I had to be very careful about what I put into my body.

Raw foods were a big no no while on chemo.  Since fish, oysters, and even some types of meat could all be consumed raw, I had to stay away from eating them to prevent any type of bad bacteria getting into my body.  It was a tough eight months, but at that point, you are willing to do anything to hold on to what health you do have left.  A raw sushi roll was no worth going back into the hospital for another week after just getting out.

Being more wary and careful of what I put into my body during this time in my life not only made me appreciate the things I had to stay away from, but also made me more aware of every type of food I decide to eat for the rest of my life.  It's amazing how much a simple snack can actually affect your life whether you have cancer or not.

Lately

I've become so terribly bad at keeping up with this blog!  I like to blame it on chemo brain(return back to this blog for a future post on what chemo brain is), but I'm actually just too lazy and forgetful.

Now I'm in my junior year of college and just celebrated my two years in remission on Oct. 17th!! Now I'm up and at 'em with more thirst for life and new experiences than ever.

I'm currently taking an agriculture communications class(basically the main reason for updating my blog today) which is an excellent opportunity to step out of my comfort zone and learn new things I normally wouldn't step foot near.  Who knew agriculture is actually a pretty big part of our lives?  Because I sure didn't!

We shall see what this class' future has in hold for me when it comes to more lectures, tests and projects, but I will try my best to keep up with it all on here since it will be just oh so exciting!  In the mean time, I'll also try my best to update with post-cancer related posts!!