Food on a Cruise Lines 1640

Dan Abel

I feel your pain. There are times when I have to do clear liquids for a week or so at a time. I really hate it too. Hence my original statement!

Not that I really have to explain myself for stating an opinion, but here goes:

The "traditional" clear liquid diet usually prescribed in US hospitals is something like weak tea, jello, and bullion cube broth. You're right, no one can subsist on that for more than a day or two.

I have Crohn's Disease. For various reasons, there are several treatments for this that just don't seem to work for me. My current gastroenterologist insists on "taking it slow" and does not feel that I'm a good candidate for surgery to repair some strictures. I have trouble healing from too many medically prescribed steriods for this disease when younger. So, I occbuttionally get partial bowel obstructions. When I get one, I switch to an extended "clear" liquid diet until the obstruction pbuttes. Sometimes, I end up in the hospital for IV fluids and observation.

Stress makes Crohn's worse, and a long time deployment on a cruise ship is quite stressful to me. I hate being away from home and my friends and my dog. Plus just the hbuttles of having to deal with Customs and security and all the travel...

I avoid bullion cubes (too much salt), and weak tea (too much caffine), althought I do some herbal teas. With my doctor's permission, we've extended the definition of "clear liquid" to be basically anything that doesn't have any decernable fiber or bulk. So I juice my own veggies and fruits, and then further strain them to get any fiber out. Taste fatique is bad with a liquid diet, so I also add variety with odd-ball things like crab juice or different blends of veggie juices.

I try to avoid refined sugar, but have found several "clear" body-builder suppliments (that taste terrible) for protein and electrolytes and carbohydrates.

When I get bad enough that I have to be on the liquid diet for more than a couple weeks, I use a medical food called Vivonex or Tolerex (brand names for two very similar products). Problem is, it's very expensive and not covered by any insurance. And tastes about as bad as anything I've ever tasted.

The liquid diet is followed in my recovery period by baby food and cooked cereals (Cream of Wheat, etc.), and mashed potatoes, very very well cooked pasta (no al dente for me), etc.

I did a week long cruise last Christmas to fix a problem that took me all of 20 minutes to fix. I work in Customer Support on computer systems and could have actually fixed the problem remotely, but the customer wanted a warm body on the spot. Spent the rest of the cruise in agony because my stomach was bothering me and I couldn't eat much of anything but jello and some days vanilla ice cream. The cruise line doesn't actually cater to infants (so I didn't have baby food available as a fall back), nor do they do much in the way of special meals (outside of a few Kosher dishes, etc.)

Cruising really isn't designed for anyone with any kind of disabilities, dietary or otherwise. And that's why most of the major cruise lines are actually licensed in foreign countries: So they don't have to abide by some of the US equal opporunity laws.

PS: I'm currently looking for a less conservative gastroenterologist, as well as looking for a different position that will not require this amount of travel.