The air changes in the lead up to Christmas.
That smell, just before Christmas arrives, Christmas morning, something special in Australia it’s dry heat, the dark dawn brings soft strains of black bird call & magpie warble.
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Perhaps for you it’s burning cold, padded snow & food dread.
Christmas lunch a task to be completed like a dental check up, getting through it and a sigh of relief when it’s all done for another year. That’s the reality for many, it’s not about tension within family units, or who did or said what last year, it’s about the focus of the day, the focus of food and drink and the importance placed on this simple activity that is lost to so many of us.
Christmas lunch with its matching napkins and placed bon bons.
Bowls of snacks for visitors and family you can never mindlessly eat.
Inspecting food to establish what, if anything, you might be able to manage discreetly, without having to gag, spit, or conduct major mouth maintenance.
Thick cut meat off roasted bone, alcohol ladened sauce that hides a burn or coughing fit.
Skin on poultry a choking hazard, flutes of celebratory bubbles that lie flat, dormant not to be raised.
Perhaps a soft roast vegetable swimming in sauce or gravy, maybe fruit pudding drowning in custard.
Touches that make it Christmas like brandy, dried or glace fruit, spice, are lost - sometimes forever.
Chatter, eating, breathing, strains of Christmas carols made hard with incessant Cisplatin ringing.
Breathing simultaneous eating, spontaneity, socialising skills brought to the fore.
Silver dragees our personal game of thrones, those dastardly silver balls, cracked teeth, jaw bone, choking hazard - adorned on cookies, biscuits, cakes and gingerbread houses, a game of Russian roulette for head and neck cancer sufferers.
Nuts, candy, lollies, licorice, spice, nutmeg, cinnamon, bread, rolls, cake, alcohol, icing, ham, pork, chicken, beef, potatoes, pudding, chocolate, coconut - shall I go on?
Christmas.
Then there’s Marjorie’s husband Ray and thousands like him, who feed through a PEG.
Not having to worry about Christmas eating, it’s not happening for them.
Spiced mead, eggnog, cold beer, beading French Champagne, it doesn’t matter.
You can’t taste it through a PEG, is it even Christmas? It’s a solitary life and experience and one that’s very hard to explain, and equally hard to endure.
But endure we do, year after year and the “eating Christmas” becomes an annual chapter in the life after - literally.
We just do our best.
Wherever you are in the world, you might be eating curry, coconut, fish, chicken, turkey, salad, prawns on a barbecue, salami, weber food, cold sandwiches - it doesn’t much matter, if you are lucky, you are sharing that time with family, friends and people who understand your situation.
Head and neck cancer treatment whether we eat orally or not affects everyone, the care givers, the PEG users, friends, strangers, the patients themselves.
It is often a time of dread, a time that simply amplifies the lack of the ability to eat, swallow, to participate in something that is a simple life pleasure.
It never gets easier, it never lets up, it simply becomes another thing to manage in the after math of head and neck cancer treatment.
Christmas, in all it’s celebration and meaning, a large part of it is eating with family, friends and loved ones. Take a moment to reflect on your eating ability and what it means, and for people like Marjorie’s husband, perhaps the Christmas spirit is more about love, about the human spirit, about being kind and knowing that everyone is going through something you know absolutely nothing about.
Perhaps it is less about the food and more about the grievances in the world and our hope for world peace.
Wherever you are reading this, I wish for you a Merry, safe, and loving Christmas, oh and Ray a special Merry Christmas to you. 🎄
Eat Well.
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