To Gastric Cancer Patients, Diet Calls - On Living Demands by Gastric Cancer Patients

Background: My father died with gastric cancer about a decade ago. I missed him a lot in my daily life. It seems like a surprising opportunity for me to join the research on postcancer living for gastric cancer patients, through which I could share what I experienced as a caregiver to my father and delve more into issues pertaining to the details of the disease to make it more understandable and to make more demands satisfied. Gastric cancer ranked 7th (1.74%) among individual cases in HOPE Foundation for Cancer Care last year. Not as common as breast, colorectal or lung cancers, gastric cancer triggers more apparent side effects from surgeries, radiation treatment, and chemotherapy, which exhaust less stamina and compromise less life quality. And the condition is even worse when there is frugal number of resources in medical units and community health care systems. Thus the importance of demands for stomach cancer patients is critical. Aim: This research depicts the dietary influences and changes in regard to gastric cancer and treatment. Methods: By means of observing focus groups by 26 gastric cancer patients attending three times respectively. Results: These 26 gastric cancer patients experience extreme sensations such as “every gram counts” or “reaching to the tipping point of either too full or not enough “. The patients shared some precious novel dietary ideas like chopping or mashing, stewed rice, fluid-and-non-fluid separation for better digestion, or finding suitable dietary preferences through trial-error strategies and so on, most of which can not be derived merely by pure theoretical research rather than personal sharing and interactions with detailed “bloody cruel” living experiences. The information is right to the bulls-eye, comprehensible and advisable for coming dietary strategies. Conclusion: There´s only one word to describe the living conditions of a gastric cancer patient: diet. When the access and awareness to dietary information for gastric cancer patients are very limited, the aim for field practice lies in knowing how to have those patients to eat, and eat richly, and happily. Firstly, we can provide patients with places for group talking, in which they design creative and tailor-made cuisine for their own by trial-errors. Secondly, to those who suffer gastric cancer, it is fairly inconvenient to eat out, finding nowhere to get the right food for their specific dietary needs. Therefore, a “community gourmet spots”, a gathered sharing for food information, is suggested among patients to offer more choices to each other and to make healthier dieting environments. Lastly, more dietary consulting stations ought to be set in hospitals and community service centers for gastric cancer patients to acquire the right food information lest the disease adaptation inclines due to malnutrition.