My father-in-law had cancer of the esophagus and had a stent inserted because the cancer had closed it and he couldn’t eat. (A stent is a sort of wire tube that can hold open the food-hole to the stomach) What do you imagine you might feed someone who has a stent in their esophagus? Not breads and other sticky foods. That’s what the doctor told us. So imagine our surprise when the first post surgery meal offered was a white bread, ham sandwich. Never mind that deli meats are known to contain cancer causing sulfites - white bread sticks to stents. Who knew? Oh, right, that Doctor - he knew. Okay, so now you have a post-op sick man who can now eat for the first time in days, who can’t eat because there’s a bread brick stuck in his throat. Hmm, how to fix that? Coke apparently. The bubbles helped clear it all out, but seriously, coke.
It was a difficult process to watch and not being able to provide honest, healthy food doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in their ability to heal.
