thanks girls, great advise from all of you. We ended up having a talk this afternoon (i talked, he wrote) and have come up with an agreement. Today was a bad day because of chemo side effects so we are going to start tomorrow with everything although he did let me rub cream on him tonight and he did do at least one mouth wash. I think (hope) he's starting to realise the reasons behind my stress over this. It's broken my heart to watch him in pain so much so where ever we can minimise and have some control over any future pain, I'm all for doing whatever it takes. These creams and mouthwashes may not seem like much to him but in the end I know how important they are and what a difference they will make. Gabe, he knows I get on this forum and listens to the things I tell him. I don't tell him to much though when it comes to bad stuff as I think he has enough to deal with. Just try to stick to what we need to do and any positive outcomes so he knows it's possible to beat this disease. The things I'm learning from you guys are amazing and I tell Steve. When the doctor's then suggest the same thing Steve looks at me because I knew it already. Lucky for me I have you all.