And buying new (not teflon) pans. So thanks much for that tip.

Daniella:

No one can help my friend. Not at this stage of the game. She has Stage 4 lung cancer now, spreak to everyplace. All they can do is give her drugs and more drugs. She now has an attendant 24 hours (which she hates) but she refused to go into a hospital because she knew they would put a feeding tube in her. I asked her mother "isn't she bad enough, that they can do this for her own good??" and the mother said "you won't believe this but no, they can't, she is able to say no to everything, and she has refused all therapy, all EVERYTHING.

I was there the day the nutritionist came to her house. She paid this person $70.00. I have no why she did this because I knew she wouldn't do a single thing the nutritionist said that she should do and this was 18 months ago. Because she did not do what she was supposed to do (follow the menu prescribed), she did not feed her body and you can't do chemo, and fight cancer, if you don't get nutrition, right?

No one can speak to her. Like I said, since she's 19. In and out of eating disorder clinics. It's a mental illness. I know this. She became bulimic and had to have a stomach operation. She then took laxatives. Her goal is never to go above 100 lbs. I remember the day she told all of us her diagnosis. She has been just diagnosed with Stage 3, and we all went to her house and we did the motivational thing and we (gently) explained that she had to start eating a bit more. Not that she had to balloon up or anything, but just that she had to start drinking ensure and eating greens, and protein, you know common sense stuff.

She would go "oh, absolutely, I completely agree, I do eat". Then we all found out she never ate a thing. People would bring her cooked foods, chicken soup, broth, simple things. She would take two sips and that was it.
Her mental illness and depression (forgive me for calling this a mental illness, but I did watch a special on the discovery channel and that's how they referred to it). Well, in her mind, nothing clicked. She didn't relate to fighting the cancer but eating properly. She would not allow herself to pick up a morsel of food.

So her mother visits her but won't let her move into her apartment, her children completely gave up on her. Her daughter caused a scene in the hospital room when she went in for the removal of the tumor on her aorta. Her daughter started to scream at her in front of everybody. "do you know you're gonna die??? and you refuse to eat???" Well, the brother had to carry the sister out bodily.

The grandmother (my friend's mother), won't talk to her own grandaughter. There is depression that runs down the line in this family. Everyone is on anti-depressants. There's a relationship between anorexia and depression, right?? The same way with compulsive overeating (like I used to be). I self-medicated with food. That's how I used to cope with stress.

I had to learn (or shall I say un-learn bad eating habits). and replace these bad habits with good eating habits. Have you seen the new abc series "Fat March???" They have a bunch of people way over 400 lbs and they are just walking off the fat , walking 500 miles. And by the end of the show, they just might succeed. But their food choices were absolutely fascinating.

They had already marched 150 miles and most lost up to 40 lbs. So they were at the end of the day and there were two tables of food. One table had grilled chicken, grilled salmon and salad. The other table had fried chicken, pizza, etc. Well, you would not believe it but some of the obese people (who had lost 40 lbs or better), actually went up and got the pizza and fried chicken. They said "I want to eat". They walked 8 hours that day, and could have eaten a very nice grilled salmon or chicken but they made a different choice. One 430 lb guy took one look at the salad and said "that's nasty, it has oranges and almonds in it". The nutritionist said "so take out the almonds and oranges and just eat the salad". The guy was determined to eat his pizza.

I find this thinking absolutely fascinating because I once thought like that. I could put away 4 slices of pizza in 5 minutes. It's all a habit and I had to learn the hard way to change my thinking process.

And, you generously offered to email my friend. I thank you so much for that.

She has two computers in her house and never learned to use either one of them. I tried to put her on my computer and do a video for her grandchildren so they could always have a video of her. We made the video but she would not send it. I once printed out a list of support groups for people with her condition. I told her "maybe if you hang around with others who fight the same problem (like I go to gam-anon groups), then maybe you might find an answer??" She would not go.

Anorexia has disturbed her mind as well. It's not going to change in her case because she is so sick. I plan on visiting her this week but I'm sure she will sleep through the whole visit because of all the medication she is on. I do speak to her nurses and to her mother. This is very hard for her because she has to deal with the obnoxious grandaughter.

I don't want to even think what is going to take place when she passes on because her daughter will go absolutely nuts in the funeral parlor. Oh brother.

But we do each day as best we can.

Daniella, you have accomplished great things. I am very proud of you.