Bunched on the kitchen counter, the bananas glowered. “Eat me, drink me, suck my juices,” they taunted, like the tempting fruit in Christina Rossetti’s kinky poem “Goblin Market.” I was flummoxed since I loathe the mushy texture of bananas. (Sorry, Chiquita!) But how else could I ingest more of the magnesium I need in order to not get thrown out of my cancer clinical trial?

Quite a few years ago, I had to undergo a series of lengthy infusions because chemotherapy produced mineral deficiencies. Now, it appeared that the experimental drug I take in the trial was leaching magnesium from my body. Although I have been swallowing a 500-milligram magnesium pill nightly, at my last blood test the level was so low that my research nurse, Alesha, panicked. Insisting on another test in a month, she recommended spinach, almonds, black beans, avocado, brussels sprouts.

“Alesha,” I said, “you are my guardian angel, but remember the ileostomy!” With a compromised digestive system, it is impossible to eat a sufficient portion of the foods she listed without suffering some sort of ghastly bowel blockage.

“Ah, yes,” she nodded. “Maybe peanut butter … or bananas!”

Bananas, neatly packed in their lined coats, are a portable source of nourishment — for those who can stomach them. I’m wondering if they lose their virtue if they are baked into banana bread, when a late-night email pops up from my friend Nancy K. Miller. A cancer patient, she just learned that a nodule in her lung is growing. She must choose surgery, radiation or ablation, all far worse prospects than gagging down a banana.