My sister, aged 57, was diagnosed in March this year with inoperable throat cancer. I believe most of the people who correspond on this site are American - but we live in the north of Scotland in the UK. Treatments are bound to be different, but I guess symptoms, feelings, etc. will be the same worldwide. By the time my sister was referred to a hospital consultant, he said it was too late to operate - she would have a massive stroke if he tried because of the position of the tumour. Lesley underwent 20 days of intensive radiotherapy which ended about 7 weeks ago. The tumour shrunk a bit and made it easier for her to swallow. She was also able to reduce her painkillers and gabapentin (prescribed to help pressure on the facial nerves). But she is suffering quite badly from side effects now and I wonder if anyone can help. The head radiotherapy doctor quite bluntly said, "This thing is going to kill you" -but he couldn't put a timescale on it. He just said that they would keep a very close eye on things. Lesley is understandably very depressed and just living in limbo. She is hardly eating now as she has no sense of taste and an extremely dry mouth. Even the tiniest bit of food dries up and makes it impossible to swallow. She visits a palliative doctor every couple of weeks and he has prescribed a spray to use for this - but it doesn't seem to work. Even the slightest exertion causes her to sweat badly around the head and neck - but we're not sure if this is a side effect of the radiotherapy or a symptom of the tumour. Today, she told me that three of her teeth had fallen out - and I think she has hit rock bottom now.
On one of the hospital visits, I asked the doctor to write down what type of tumour was involved, and all he wrote was squamous cell carcinoma. I don't know why I am writing this - I guess I am hoping for someone to write back and make things better again - though we know this will never happen. I just want to try and improve the quality of her remaining time.