Table III.

Analysis of categories and themes

Themes	Subcategories	Verbatim
1. Quality of life	1a. Difficulty eating	Food clumps up in my mouth, like children say
	1b. Giving up some food	I eat alone because I know I must
	1c. Loss of pleasure	No smell, no taste, I don’t do it any more “you eat hospital food in your own home”
	1d. Problems preparing food	It felt like I was eating tin instead of food
2. Emotional aspects	2a. Fear	I was afraid of choking
	2b. Nostalgia	The smells of food that took me back to childhood, to granny’s meal
	2c. Shame	I am embarrassed that food spills off the sides
3. Identity	3a. New self	“you have the feeling that you are not the same person”
	3b. Low self-concept	“I think of the things I can´t eat any more and I feel as if I was damaged”.
4. Corporality	4a. Alien corporality	“it is not me who is eating, a machine is” “eat through the rubber tubes” “it’s like having a mouth that is not my own, another … ”
	4b. Undervalue	I looked in the mirror and I was afraid to see myself
	4c. Rejection	I feel people don’t want to be with me
5. Sociability	5a. Eating alone	Eventually after feeling bad many times I don’t go any more
	5b. Self-imposed social isolation	I prefer to eat apart so that they don’t see me
	5c. Giving up eating out	I used to come to celebrate, but now going out means to face nothing but problems