My thanks to everyone who responded.
He doesn't have any symptoms of a sore throat yet, as he's only had
7 rads and 1 chemo. The RO said it would take 2 weeks for the rad.
to start to have an effect on his throat. One of the radiation therapists
said the chemo might bring on symptoms a bit early.
So far he's physically able to eat, just with a mental block against
it, which I hope he's managed to get past after the scary visit to the
RO yesterday. Also, he doesn't have to have a feeding tube at this point,
but it's likely that there will have to be one installed at some point.
We are in a Cancer Clinic in Canada, and they have all the various
health professionals on staff, including nutritionists, counsellors
and psychiatrists. We'll be seeing a nutritionist every week, also the
RO and counsellor. We are incredibly lucky and grateful to have this resource.
I'm not sure why the ENT surgeon took out all the lymph nodes on the
left side. The one enlarged node was biopsied, also the base of his tongue
(during the rnd). Perhaps the surgeon thought it might have spread because
the one node was quite large (small ping pong ball size). He knew the large node had cancer cells, from a previous biopsy.
As for help? We have no family members at all (only my 91 yr. old mother,
who doesn't like my husband and is very undermining). Friends have offered
to help, but realistically, they're all working and can't really take
time off to do anything for us. I'm pretty much on my own.
I'll be checking other threads for ideas on food and nutrition and dealing
with the feeding tube (sorry, can't remember the acronym). Thank you
for all your comments and suggestions. At least here, I don't feel so alone.
Anne