The nurse smiled when she saw me walk into the chemo center. Not a polite smile. A genuine one. The kind that made her eyes crinkle at the corners.
“Look at you, Fatty,” she said.
I laughed. Then I cried.
She knew what gaining weight on cisplatin meant. Most people lose weight during chemotherapy. Their bodies waste away as the drugs destroy everything, good cells and bad cells alike. They show up to their appointments looking more skeletal each time.
But I was gaining weight. In my ninth month of chemo. At the highest dosage.
And that meant I was beating it.
The Rope
Six months earlier, I needed a rope to hold up my pajama pants.
Not a belt. A rope. Yellow construction rope from Home Depot, frayed at the ends. Quite stylish actually.
The elastic waistband wouldn’t work anymore. My pajamas would slide right off if I didn’t tie them on. I’d lost so much weight that regular clothing solutions didn’t apply to me anymore.
I was 165 pounds. At six foot four. You could see every rib. My hip bones jutted out like coat hangers under my skin.
Before the Whipple surgery, I was 210 pounds. Solid. Healthy looking. The kind of build where people assumed I played basketball in college.
After surgery, I lost 35 pounds immediately. Just gone. Half my stomach, half my pancreas, half my liver, my spleen, 14 inches of intestines hacked into three pieces and reconnected. My body didn’t know what hit it.
Then chemo started, and the weight kept falling off.
By month six, when they increased my cisplatin dosage, I hit 165 pounds. Rock bottom. The point where I needed hardware store rope to keep my pants on.
What 165 Pounds Looks Like at Six Four
People stared. Not the quick glance you give someone who looks different. The long stare. The one where they’re trying to figure out what’s wrong with you.
I looked sick. Not “fighting cancer” sick. “Might not make it” sick.
My face was gaunt. Hollow cheeks. Eyes that looked too big for my skull. My arms were so thin I could wrap my fingers around my bicep and touch my thumb to my middle finger.
Strangers would ask if I was okay. On the street. At the grocery store. Everywhere I went.
“You need to eat something, man.”
Yeah, thanks. Never thought of that.
The thing is, I was eating. I was taking my Creon enzymes religiously. I was following the meal plan. I was doing everything right.
But my body was in survival mode. It was using every calorie to fight the cancer and survive the chemotherapy. There was nothing left over for maintaining weight, let alone gaining it.
The BRAT Diet Wasn’t Working Anymore
After the Whipple, I lived on the BRAT diet. Bananas, rice, applesauce, toast. It’s what they recommend when your digestive system is completely disrupted.
It worked for the first few months. My body could handle those foods. They were bland enough that they didn’t trigger dumping syndrome. Soft enough that my reconstructed digestive tract could process them.
But during chemo, even the BRAT diet wasn’t enough.
I’d eat a meal. Take my enzymes. Wait. And then within an hour, I’d be in the bathroom with diarrhea. My body was rejecting everything.
The chemo was destroying the lining of my digestive tract faster than it could heal. The enzymes were helping, but they couldn’t overcome the damage the drugs were doing.
I was in a losing battle. Food went in. Nothing stuck.
Month Six: The Dosage Increase
My oncologist sat me down before month six.
“We’re increasing your cisplatin dosage,” he said. “Your body is tolerating it well, and we want to make sure we get all of it.”
I asked what that meant for side effects.
“You might feel more tired. Nausea could get worse. But we’ll monitor you closely.”
What he didn’t say: you’re going to lose even more weight.
The next three months were the hardest. The increased dosage hit me like a truck. I was nauseous all the time. The smell of hand sanitizer at the chemo center made me start shivering and vomiting before I even sat down.
There were days I couldn’t get out of bed. Not because I was lazy. Because my body just shut down from exhaustion. High stress, bad days, and my body would pass out whether I wanted to or not.
I stopped looking in mirrors. I didn’t want to see what I looked like.
The Turning Point
Month nine. Final stretch of chemo. I was so sick of being sick that it made me sick. Try and figure that one out.
I walked into the chemo center for what I hoped would be one of my last sessions.
The nurse checked my vitals. Took my blood. Weighed me.
She looked at the scale. Looked at my chart. Looked at the scale again.
“You gained three pounds since last week.”
I thought she made a mistake. I’d been losing weight consistently for nine months. Gaining weight wasn’t something that happened to me anymore.
“Are you sure?”
She smiled. “Step on again.”
Same result. Three pounds up.
Two weeks later: five pounds up.
Four weeks later: eight pounds up.
My body had finally turned a corner. The chemo was working. The cancer was losing. And my body knew it before the scans did.
“Look at You, Fatty”
That’s when the nurse said it. Month nine, week three. I walked in having gained almost ten pounds in a month.
“Look at you, Fatty.”
She was grinning. The other nurses were smiling. They’d all been watching my weight drop for months, trying to stay positive, telling me it was normal, but I could see the concern in their eyes every time I stepped on the scale.
Now they were celebrating.
I laughed. It was absurd. I was still 175 pounds, still 35 pounds below my pre-cancer weight, still looked like I’d been through hell.
But I was gaining. And that meant everything.
Then I cried. Right there in the chemo center. Not sad crying. Relief. The kind of crying that happens when you realize you’re going to live.
The nurse walked over and hugged me. “You’re almost done.”
Ringing the Bell
Three weeks later, my oncologist gave me the news.
The scans were clean. The bloodwork was good. My weight was up to 180 pounds and climbing.
“We can stop chemo,” he said.
I don’t remember what I said back. I think I just nodded.
They walked me to the bell at UCSF. It’s a tradition. When you finish chemo, you ring a bell that hangs in the hallway. It lets everyone know you made it.
No one else was there except the nurses. My family couldn’t make it that day. It was just me and the women who’d been sticking needles in my arm for nine months.
I rang the bell. Everyone cheered.
I cried again.
Then I left the hospital and went shopping for new clothes. Real clothes that fit my new body. Because since I was going to live, I could go get new clothes.
What Gaining Weight on Chemo Means
Here’s what most people don’t understand about chemotherapy and pancreatic cancer.
When you’re on cisplatin, your body is being poisoned intentionally. The drugs kill fast-growing cells. Cancer cells grow fast. But so do the cells lining your digestive tract, your hair follicles, your bone marrow.
Most people lose weight because they can’t eat. Or they can eat but nothing stays down. Or it stays down but their body can’t absorb nutrients because their digestive tract is shredded.
Gaining weight on chemo means your body has enough resources to not only survive the poison but also rebuild. It means the cancer isn’t stealing your calories anymore. It means you’re winning.
The nurses knew this. That’s why they smiled.
My oncologist knew this. That’s why he stopped treatment.
My body knew this before anyone ran a scan.
Two Years to Get My Energy Back
After chemo ended, I thought I’d bounce back in a few weeks. Maybe a month.
It took two years.
The first year, I was still exhausted all the time. I could walk around the block, but I’d be winded. Climbing a flight of stairs felt like running a marathon.
I got sick constantly. They’d removed 29 lymph nodes during the Whipple, which meant I was missing about 10 percent of my immune system. Every cold turned into a hospital visit. Every flu knocked me out for weeks.
Year two, things started improving. I got a job on a farm. Physical labor. Lifting, digging, carrying equipment, soil, plants. It was hard, but it was exactly what my body needed.
Being outside. Using my muscles. Drinking clean water. Eating food I helped grow.
My immune system strengthened. My muscles came back. I started gaining real weight, not just recovering from chemo weight.
By the end of year two, I felt strong again. Not pre-cancer strong. But strong enough to know I was going to make it.
Fourteen Years Later
I weigh 185 pounds now. I’ve been stable at this weight for over a decade.
I’m still 25 pounds below my pre-cancer weight. I’ll never be 210 again. My body doesn’t work that way anymore.
But I’m healthy. I have energy. I don’t get sick anymore, not since I started using ChatGPT to optimize my vitamin protocol based on my blood markers.
I’ll never be fat. That’s just not in the cards for someone without half their digestive system.
But I’ll never need rope from Home Depot to hold up my pants again either.
What I Wish Someone Had Told Me
If you’re going through chemo right now and losing weight, here’s what I wish someone had told me.
Your body is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do. It’s prioritizing survival over everything else. The weight loss isn’t a failure. It’s a feature.
The rope phase doesn’t last forever. I promise.
When you start gaining weight, even just a pound or two, pay attention. That’s your body telling you it’s winning.
Don’t compare yourself to how you looked before surgery. That person doesn’t exist anymore. You’re building a new version of yourself. It takes time.
The farm job was a turning point for me. Physical work. Being outside. It helped more than any medication. If you can do something physical, even just walking, do it.
And when someone calls you Fatty after nine months of looking like a skeleton, take it as the compliment it is.
What This Story Can’t Give You
This article tells you what happened. It tells you how I went from 210 pounds to 165 pounds to 185 pounds over two years.
But it can’t give you the meal plan I used when I finally started gaining weight back. It can’t give you the supplement protocol that supports muscle building after Whipple surgery. It can’t give you the daily checklist for tracking your weight, meals, and energy levels.
That’s what I put in the Complete Whipple Survival Guide. Everything I learned about recovery, weight management, energy restoration, and building strength after losing everything.
If you’re in the rope phase right now, the guide is here when you need it.
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