Stomach Peg Original Soup ™ SPOS THE CARE GIVER TOP 5 SUGGESTIONS

Stomach Peg Original Soup ™ SPOS THE CARE GIVER TOP 5 SUGGESTIONS

Do you want something to eat?
NO!
How about some soup?
NO!
You need to have something, how about something to drink?
NO!
I can make you a smoothie?
NO!
What can I make you?
NOTHING! I’m cold and Tired!
YOU CAN’T JUST HAVE CANS ALL DAY . . .
Sound familiar?

My son, Alec, put it best: living with a dad with cancer was like living with a pet bear. You feed it. You scratch its fur. Usually, it’s hunched over and hibernating, but you have to be careful because it will lash out and rip your head off. I nearly laughed my head off because of how on point this statement was.

As a Care Giver, I cry for you, because I know I was a bear. You watch your loved one in pain and there is not much you can do – especially if we are tired and grumpy.

On the food side, here are some suggestions:

1) JUST DO IT. We are tired, cold, and generally miserable that there is little that will comfort us by the words that you say. Our body is busy consuming itself making us lose 2-5 pounds a week. If you think we need food – just make the food and set it next to us. If you think we need drink – just make it and set it next to us. If you think we need a blanket – just bring over the blanket. Don’t ask us questions because it is easy to say NO! In fact it is easier to say no multiple times. I know you want to check in and see how we are doing, but once we start the downward spiral of saying “NO!” back off and just do it. Every time my wife, Randi, set down a bowl, or glass, or cup she was saying “I LOVE YOU”.

2) LET THEM EAT WHERE THEY ARE. When you are miserable the last thing you want to do is go to the kitchen table and eat next to nothing, proving you are ill with a cancer that you never asked for in the first place. I had a favorite easy chair in front of the TV which I would curl up on with my comfy blanket and watch my favorite shows – ELLEN and American Chopper (the first couple of seasons). Randi, my wife, finally let me have a stool which I used as a table. It held my water glass, my soy milk glass (easiest thing for me to drink) and a plate for food. A typical meal took me about 2 hours to eat. There was no way I was going to sit at a dining room table for two hours. The idea is to get nutrients in the body, and exercise the throat. If it takes two hours- it take two hours. Que Sera, Sera!! Trust me this is the hardest thing to do.

3) MAKE SMALL PORTIONS. There were times when my Nutritionist, Stephanie Myers, was happy if I had two spoonfuls. So put 4 portions in the bowl/plate. It looks like next to nothing. And then you will add double to that. WHOA! When the patient looks at the bowl they will turn away because they know they will never finish it. Instead, put out the small amount in a small bowl and then in about a half hour come back and replace the bowl with a new bowl of food. NO COMMENT NEEDED. There are certain foods perfect for this - especially scrambled eggs. Find the comfort food that will go down well.

4) DON’T BE TOO CREATIVE/ DON’T TELL US WHAT IS IN IT. My wife made smoothies all the time, because it was one of the few things I could consume orally. If is sounded to exotic and not comfort food – I would be the bear and not want to try it. So she would just make it and set it next to me and tell me the flavor – VANILLA. I’m sure she added turmeric, soy powder, or something else that was good for me. She read all these books about anti-cancer foods – trust me when you can get only two spoonfuls down the throat the last thing you want to hear about is anti-cancer foods. OH and I do add turmeric to my foods now – especially Chili

5) LITTLE WARMER THAN ROOM TEMPERATURE – Remember, we got the Stomach Peg because our throat is sore. SPOS can be drunk at room temp. SMOOTHIES are great at room temp. SOUPS should be a little warmer room temp. Eggs should be a little warmer room temp. Remember we are big babies – BIG FUSSY BABIES – BIG FUSSY CRY BABIES. We like our food at baby milk bottle temperature.

You never thought you would be an animal trainer, and can’t hurry cancer treatment. One of my favorite quotes, “THIS TOO WILL COME TO PASS.” God Bless you

Always,
Jeff Scott Hoyland

COMMENTS

Please add your comments and suggestions to my blog.  Nice to see people from around the globe reading my blog.  Please follow you want the latest recipes.

FACEBOOK
I have created a companion page on Facebook called: 100 Meals Pureed - Recipes for Head and Neck Cancer Survivors.  Sometimes it is easier to share a FB page than send a blog address.

My Caregivers, keeping me company at Dana Farber

Stomach Peg Original Soup(tm) SPOS I’m not a Chef

Stomach Peg Original Soup(tm) SPOS I’m not a Chef

S’ppose you are not a chef. Ok, so you are not a chef. You grew up with a microwave and your microwave loves you. You don’t have the time or energy to make your own soup. Trust me there are days when getting out of the chair and going to the kitchen is an Act of God that needs to be premeditated. You finally convince yourself that you can walk with a blanket wrapped around you all the way to a kitchen (during the next TV commercial). You can use pre-made soups. However, there are a couple of rules of thumb to keep in mind.

Avoid soups with meat in it. I’m not a vegetarian, and right now I’m thinking about a porterhouse steak, but that aside pureed meat don’t screen that well. They tend to block the screen so you spend a lot of time dumping out the screen, which when you are already tired and cranky is bad.

Pick soups with starch already in it. Minestrone was one of my favorites- a little pasta, lots of veggies, and more importantly most of my friends could make it and bring it over to the house. I thought of it as lasagna in a soup. Rice soups are OK just remember, you have to puree a long time. Potato and Leeks Soup was a nice change of pace, especially if tomatoes upset your stomach. I could not get enough split pea soup. I could eat a couple of spoonful orally and the rest went down the peg.

Add Soy Powder. Since we left out the protein in the soup you will still need to add your own protein. I was able to bring soymilk with whey powder through my whole radiation recovery which helped me get all the protein I needed.

Add Spice. I’m not talking hot sauce or black pepper, I’m talking the anti-cancer spices and powders. My liver was running some above normal indicators in my blood screening. My medical team agreed that Milk Thistle supplement was a good thing to add to my diet. I could swallow the pill or break it open and add it to me soup (depending on how I felt that day).

REMEMBER: Comfort of having soup is key. Although I tout trying to make sure there is as much nutrition as possible, there are many days when the smell of a comfort food is the best medicine. Just because the soup is pre-made does not mean that there isn’t any love in the soup.

Enjoy,

Jeff Scott Hoyland

Working before Radiation after major Chemo

Stomach Peg Original Soup™ SPOS STARCH ADD ONS

Stomach Peg Original Soup™ SPOS STARCH ADD ONS

PASTA:
When going through radiation you are going to lose weight. Dana Farber worked with me to minimize the amount of weight I lost per week. Since I wasn’t going to consume 12 cans of “Nutritional supplements from a can” per day, I needed to add starch into my diet. I found that over-cooked pasta worked best. The shape of the pasta didn’t matter because you were going to puree it up anyway. You really need to over cook the pasta, because when you use the immersion wand to puree it, it needs to have very few lumps. Whole wheat pasta needs to be cooked longer, I usually cooked the pasta on high for ten minutes and then simmered for a half hour TV program.(1) Pour the water out until you have about equal parts pasta and water, then puree. Yes it looks terrible. Its just a milky white broth. Trust me it even worse when you let it chill in the refrigerator! This is why I kept it separate from the Basic SPOS.

POTATO:
It works wonderfully. Basically, you are adding mash potatoes to the SPOS. The biggest problem is that your kids will eat it before you get a chance to use it

RICE
I never really found a way to over cook the rice and puree it into a mash that I could strain. I will admit that I am not an expert rice cooker, so in the hands of a master or at least an experienced rice chef it should work very well.

OTHER STARCH:
Basically if you can puree it you can use it. The purpose is to pick a starch that the patient finds appealing when it is not pureed. If I could have found a way to puree a rib-eye I would have!

RECIPE INSTRUCTIONS:
Just before you strain the SPOS into the microwave safe mixing bowl, pour/push the starch through the strainer. I typically used about a ½ cup of starch. Then pour the SPOS through the strainer. Before you microwave the bowl, stir the soup to gage the thickness of the soup.

Enjoy

Jeff Scott

(1) It is a known fact that I spent hours huddled in a comforter in the big easy chair watching Ellen and American Chopper. My cooking habits tended to run in half hour increments.

Middle of Radiation with Chemo-lite

Stomach Peg Original Soup(tm) SPOS

Stomach Peg Original Soup™ SPOS Updated June 13th, 2011

8/2016 Update:  I own a Vitamix now which is perfect for blending and pureeing.  I don't use the immersion wand anymore.  However, I will leave the directions as originally written, for those who do not have a blender strong enough

Preface:
When they told me that I had to have a stomach peg, and that I would have to pour 10 cans a day of brown nutrients down the tube, my wife, Randi, was horrified. Randi is an organic general vegetarian and nothing on the side of the Abbott Laboratories Ross Nutrition Jevity 1.5 Cal high-protein nutrition with fiber sounded anything like “ORGANIC” or “NATURAL”. I personally have a fondness for Food Network and Whole Foods produce, so I wasn’t excited either. Suppose you wanted organic? S’ppose you wanted Natural? S'pos? Hence, Randi made the first batch of SPOS. Now SPOS did not replace the Jevity, but it did give me the sense of real food I needed to recover. I am convinced that between the SPOS and the Jevity, I kept my body healthy and could endure the months of Radiation.

DEDICATION: this soup is dedicated to Sue Broderick, another Cancer survivor, who provided me with many homemade soups during my cancer Treatment.

STOMACH PEG ORIGINAL SOUP™ RECIPE (Basic Stock)(1)

7 leaves of Kale Chopped
7 finely chopped carrots
2 turnips finely chopped
1 Onion finely chopped
2 celery stalks finely chopped
1-2 teaspoons of turmeric
1 DASH of Bell’s Seasoning
1 teaspoon of salt (2)
4 tablespoons of Soy Powder
1/4 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 Mystery vegetable (finely chopped) (3)


Set a pot on the stove capable of holding over a gallon of liquid, fill the pot ¾ full and turn the stove onto HIGH. Chop and add all the vegetables. When the pot comes to a boil add the salt, Bell’s, and turmeric. Stir pot to mix spices and then turn the heat down to simmer for one to two hours (4). When the vegetables are all tender to the point of mushy, turn off heat, and use an Immersion Hand Blender to puree everything in the pot (5). The soup should be thick but not as thick as pea soup

Now that you have a big pot of Basic SPOS you can add starch, protein, and other items (see later post on my BLOG)
To use SPOS you will still need to run the stock through a strainer to remove the pieces too large pieces which won’t fit through the tube. As a rule of thumb, I used about two cups of SPOS at any meal. I would ladle 2 cup worth of SPOS into a microwave safe measuring bowl and then use a hand strainer into another measuring bowl. If the soup is thicker than your nutritional supplement, thin with water or boxed chicken/vegetable stock.
After straining SPOS, heat it in the microwave until finger touch warm (6). Give a quick stir to even the temperature out. You find that room temperature or warmer liquids settle in the stomach better.

Enjoy

Jeff Scott Hoyland

(1) In subsequent blogs I will post variations of the soup. My wife, Randi can attest that it is very heartbreaking caring for a loved one like me for two reasons – there is not much you can do, and I was grumpy as a bear. Taking the time to make home soup was as comforting to her as it was to me.
(2) Talk with your doctor/nutritionist about the amount of salt you should use. Its soup! It has to have some salt.
(3) What looks great in the produce aisle, remember you can only taste this soup when you burp. The goal is to pack as much nutrition into the soup, so pick one great looking vegetable
(4) The softer the vegetables are, the smaller they can be pureed and the more nutrition you can pour down the tube. Yea, the chef in me hated the fact that I over-cooked my vegetables.
(5) Don’t puree the soup while its boiling hot, but I found I could get better results while the soup was still warm
(6) It just like warming milk for a baby. Follow the same rules of thumb or nipple as the case might be.

COMMENTS
Please add your comments and suggestions to my blog.  Nice to see people from around the globe reading my blog.  Please follow you want the latest recipes.

FACEBOOK
I have created a companion page on Facebook called: 100 Meals Pureed - Recipes for Head and Neck Cancer Survivors.  Sometimes it is easier to share a FB page than send a blog address.

Just before Cancer Treatment

THe Art of a Relationship is Longer than 5 Minutes

With all the doom and gloom in the air. Sales Reps are becoming more and more short sighted. 90% of success is just showing up. Whether it is a conference call, a web conference, or a face to face meeting – just show up.

Over the past three months, I have seen more Sales Reps only want to go on a meeting if there is a contract at the end of the meeting. They don’t want to go on discovery meetings anymore. The Art of Building a Relationship is dying. You can’t have someone else build a relationship for you – you have to do that yourself.

With the cost of airfare going up, it’s harder to do discovery meetings face to face; the teleconference has now become the norm for discovery meetings.  I got several calls in the past month about the fact that the prospect didn’t show up after 5 minutes, so the Sales Rep hung up. When I called one of the prospects back to reschedule, they apologized because they were called into the boss’s office and they were ten minutes late for the meeting. However, they were dumb founded that no one left a voicemail on their machine asking where they were. . . If you have scheduled a 30 minutes conference call, stay on the line 30 minutes! You have already booked the time in your schedule.

While you are a waiting for prospects to get on the bridge number, you can use other telecommunication means to find out where the prospect is. Use your cell phone is call the main desk and ask for the prospect; ask for the assistant to the prospect; or ask for a person who sits next to the prospect.

Typically, when the prospect loose track of time they are either A) deep in a spreadsheet and forgot to check the timer pop ups; B) got called into the boss’s office for an impromptu meeting and will be ten minutes late; or C) had a catastrophe that couldn’t be avoided. More importantly they need to know you showed up. If you still have not heard from the prospect after 30 minutes, call the prospect again and relay the message that the time you had arranged is up and that you can be reached to reschedule the appointment. This let’s the prospect know that you value your time as well as the prospect’s time.  Prospects need to know that you are willing to work at their pace. If you are the type of person who would bale on them after five minutes, what does that say about your company when there are real issues to be addressed?

If the Prospect lost track of time, it is appropriate to leave a message after five minutes asking when they plan to log in. It is not uncommon for company meetings to run late and the Prospect does not have your contact information on hand to tell you that they are running late. If the Prospect had a catastrophe (personal/company reason), it is important to know that when you call back to reschedule. Most receptionist/AAs can tell you up front why the Prospect is unable to make the conference call today.

The five minute rule becomes even worst when there are other members of your team sitting and waiting for the conference call. When they are support staff, they are more likely to press you into hanging up early. This is time to give the speech that “first impressions cannot be duplicated”.  If they need to check their voicemails or read computer documents they can do so, but be ready at a moment’s notice.

Finally, imagine the impression you will make when the prospect shows up 10 minutes late, “through no fault of their own”, and your entire team are still waiting and enthused about starting the discussion.  I have a client who had scheduled a 45 minute introductory conference call with a CIO. The CIO was 10 minutes late, but my Sales Rep and his support staff were ready to go when the CIO showed up. 35 minutes into a deep discussion my Sales Rep boldly told the CIO “I know that we asked for 45 minutes of your time and that time is nearly up, I am prepared to continue this discussion at another time, unless you would like to continue talking now. . .” The CIO stayed on the phone for another 2 hours. A proposal is in the works.

THe Art of Cold Calling for the Holidays.

Every Holiday, I hear about Inside Sales People saying that they shouldn’t be working the day before the Holiday – it’s a waste of time. The day before the holiday is not business as usual, so you shouldn’t treat it as business as usual.

The day before the holiday is the best time to set up conference calls for a outside sales reps. The phone call goes something like this. “Hi, Bob I know that you are really busy, my partner Steve is interested if you are in the office the day before the holiday. . . “

Many executives are in the office the morning before the holiday. They don’t have any “team meetings” that day and they are usually calling people who are from other countries who don’t have the same holiday schedule – Fourth of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving. The Executives can usually fit a half hour conference call in their schedule. Some Executives are the person who drew the short straw and have to work that day while other Executives take the day off. Remember you don’t need a ton of meetings that day, you just need one or two conference calls in the morning to make the day worth while.

If you are working with an outside Sales Reps, ask them if they will take a conference with a half -hour notice. Ask your Sales Reps if the are working the day before the Holiday, confirm the game plan. The conversation with the prospect goes like this. “Hi Bob, I see you are working today too. My partner, Steve, is working today too, he is on a call right now, but he asked me if you could talk in about 30minutes about . . .”

Alternatively, calling the day before a holiday is a great time to do research to find the right person. I make a list of all the companies where I either don’t have the name of the right person, or need to confirm the title of the right person. The receptionists still have to work. Many are very bored sitting at the switchboard which isn’t ringing. They have time to help direct you to the right person. Take the time to have a nice conversation and find out all the right people to call the week after the holiday.

Speed dial!!! Many Executive Assistants have taken the day off; however, their boss still has to work the morning. Arrange your list of contacts to speed through the prospects that have EAs who have stonewalled you every time you try to call. Gatekeepers take the day off too.

Finally, move from time zone to time zone, so that you are only calling in the morning. The Executives usually come in very early on pre-holiday mornings so that they can get out by noon. CALL EARLY and shift from time zones until 3:00PM Eastern time, which is noon Pacific Time.

At the end of the day, finish with research on the internet. Look up information on all the people/companies that you have been working on all day. You never have time during the day to do research because you are too business dialing the phone. If you are convinced you have exhausted all the prospects you know – look up prospects you don’t know.

This will give you a full and productive pre-holiday work day. If you have to work – make money.

THe Art of Beer and Cigarettes

A friend of mine was having a hard time closing inside sales calls the other day. He had been doing well for months and all of a sudden the magic was gone. His manager said “Stop pitching!” “You sound like you’re pitching!” After he sat there for a while trying to figure out what he was doing differently, I walked over and told him he needs to smoke a cigarette at his desk. Yes, this created a little shock and awe. I followed up with the comment that he is a different person on the phone than when he is on break smoking a cigarette. I asked him to try sitting on his desk and talk to the prospect like he was smoking a cigarette. Two minutes later he secured a meeting on the phone.
Now I’m not saying that you should go out and start smoking and drinking, but we all have habits about how we talk with our friends. We need to bring those habits to the phone skills. Prospects are buying your voice and manners as much has they are buying your product.
The best salespeople have the same habits whether they are talking with a friend or talking with a prospect. Most of it starts with listening. When you are at a cookout with your friends you spend a lot of time listening to your friends’ stories. We listen to a story and then either make a comment or tell a related story. For some reason we don’t transfer that ability to listening on the phone. We get the 30/300/3000 rule stuck in our head and feel like we have to close to a meeting in 300 seconds. Sometimes it goes longer. We keep cutting the prospect to the quick instead of letting them talk out what they need talk about. We would never be so rude as to cut our friend off.
So when you gather with friends over the up coming weekend holidays find your style. Are you better at standing or sitting? Are you better with a cup in your hand? Do you play with your glasses?