How long before I will be able to ealk without gagging? I notice that when I talk to someone on the phone the mucous starts building up and then I gag like you would not believe.
Is that normal? I als feel like there is something stuck in the back of my throat all the time. Nothing will get rid of it.

To me it is normal Angelia. It sure makes to tongue hurt and burn too. I know some people don't answer calls from me because theymight not hear so good and when I talk, you need perfect hearing. LOL

Then how am I supposed to go back to teaching next week. I am so frusterated. That is my lively hood and I love my job. I so much want to be able to go back to work. I miss my students so much. Enough of my whining. I think I have bigger things to worry about like another hard lump on my tongue that was not there two weeks ago. It is bigger then the other two were.

Angelia

Your treatment ended less than a month ago. What you are experiencing sounds perfectly "normal" to me. Everyone varies of course, but my guess is that you will see slow improvement over the next several months. I am a year out from the surgery and my mucous issue has improved tremendously although like EzJim
my phone conversational intelligibility could be better.
Hang in there and Keep the Faith. It will get better
Charm

Angelia

As an interim measure so you can go back to school teaching, consider getting a "spit bucket". It can be as inconspicuous as
one of those ubiquitous large coffee travel mugs or as obvious as what I used: a cylindrical igloo cooler. In either event, you just clear your mucous with a rinse ( I used seltzer water with great results) and spit into the container. Amazing how clear you will sound without the mucous.
Charm

Angelia,

Just spent the day with my RO, Dr Trotti at Moffitt where I took my client for his first Moffitt visit. Anyway one thing that Dr T said that may have a bearing on your topic is in his experience the thick mucous stage can last for 6 weeks post Tx and is especially more productive on cancers of the forward part of the OC and especially those involving the forward tongue.

Nine months post treatment I still have that "hairball" in my throat. And you are correct, nothing will get rid of it. The MO gave me a name for it, but I have forgotten what it was and I didn't write it down. Darn. However, as time goes on, it is less annoying. Good luck with teaching, it was my experience that getting back to my normal activities as soon as you can helps put these after affects on the back burner in our mind.

Angelia, you will find that some words are easier to spell than to say but it works, I'm sure your students will help you with the talking. Kids are smart.

Angelia,

I was like you, very eager to return to work after treatment and resume my life as I knew it. I had radiation and chemo first and had a few months in between before I had my surgery. Two weeks after radiation/chemo I showed up at my job to work and was planning on working up to my surgery date.

The first day, I made it 7 hours and it was brutal. I was sweating uncontrollably, very weak and I'm sure I looked pathetic. My staff was continually running to get water for me and by the end of the day was really concerned that I was going to drop from exhaustion. The second day I only made it 4 hours and by the end of the week the owners of the hospitality company asked me to wait to comeback until after I recovered from the surgery.

The point is that the body will tell you when it's ready to go back to work, not your mind or heart. As I shared with you in a previous conversation, there is no "return date" stamped anywhere on you, so you really have to be realistic and listen to your body...rushing back to work can set you back and cause safefy and liability concerns for your employer.

I understand and relate that it's hard to be patient when you want to get back to your life...but you are fortunate in the fact that you get to return to it soon. Others like myself have been forcibly "retired" and have had that part of our lives ripped away. The last is shared only for perspective.

keep your chin up,

Eric

Thanks everyone for all of your kind words. I know I need to heal and all. I was just wishing it would go faster. I know we all do. I have bee informed that I was given enough mroe days that I could stay out until March 9th. I may end up doing that.

Angelia,
I really think you are pushing it to try to go back to work this soon. I had only radiation and no issues inside my mouth and went back to work 3 weeks after rads ended. I am a software engineer so have no need to talk or waste any energy. Desk job on the computer all day. It was the week before Christmas so the first week was a full week, the second a 3 day week and the third was a 4 day week. It was waaaaaay to soon. I was exhausted at the end of every day. If the second and third week had been full weeks, I could not have done it. It was six weeks before I was really up to full time work. Standing up in front of a class all day and talking takes a lot of energy, not to mention the prep time. If I were you, I'd give it a couple of more weeks before I went back to work. Your body needs time to heal.

Take care,
Eileen

I must be an oddball unless my continuing ,mucous is from the aneurysm work one year ago because mine is as bad as it was 2 years ago. this damn esophagus doesn't help either. But as I always say, I am alive and smiling or acting simple.

I am oddball to. When I went to my Dr. yesterday he told me that cancer doesn't normally return only three weeks after treatment. Then he said, oh yeah your not normal. He told me I had not followed any of the conventions or the rules. Well, I did not follow rules when I was a kid so why should I now? I am scheduled for a biopsy Wednesday at 2.

LOL I like this post Angelia. I needed a smile this morning. Thank you much.

Your welcome Jim. trying to be humourus about the whole thing.

u cant rush ur recovery any more than u could your treatment. wish i had a dollar for everytime i said that to andy. he brought in firewood three days ago and is still suffering the concequences. he is sore all over and can barely move now. ur body will let u know what u can handle at this point...if it doesnt tell u today, it will hollar at u tomorrow.

Hi Angelia,

At almost 6 months out my voice still has issues. I am a presenter and after a couple of hours I get super hoarse. Docs say that is the way it is for now. It go up and down but iis very frustrating. It might wffect my carear. On the good side, I kind of don't care. This experience has changed my life for the better. I am happy to see the sun every morning and have appreciation for each day. If I can't present I will find a new job that is less dependent on my voice!

Hey, you can teach the kids how to spit...very important!

Steve

Hi, my name is Barb and I teach literacy to special education students. I am concerned that I will ever be able to teach again after my "partial tongue glossectomy with wrist flap addition" surgery that is scheduled for March 8th. Angelia, I know that you have been out for a month and I can appreciate your desire to get back to the students. I think that being gone from work has been one of the most worrisome issues that I face. I am afraid to leave them for a long time, but I know that they will be fine. I am scared to death that I will be unintelligible and that my 20 year teaching career will be over. I'm scared. Can yo tell me whether you are able to speak well even though you have mucous madness?

Barb

Everyone responds to this differently. There are posters here that have had very radical surgeries that I have talked to on the phone, and they are very understandable. Some of them did have to go through speech therapy for awhile, but like many things, for some people it will require new learning.

There are only certain things you can actually control. Your first job and challenge is to get through whatever they decide is the best for you, and come out the other side cancer free. Worrying about what your future will after that is certainly normal, but this is not useful use of your time right now. One challenge at a time. successful treatment, dealing with the immediate side effects and afterward there will be a period of healing.

For everyone that period seems to go on forever, and the associated swelling and more will make your speech poor, but don't think that is your final result. As that swelling begins to subside over a couple of months, you will start to get a sense of where you are in all this as far as how easy it is to speak and be understood. If it needs work.... you have a new challenge, new therapy, and new obstacles to work around and past. Just try for now to focus on the main thing which is getting through the disease process. After all, you have to be around to have speech (and other) problems as my radiation doctor told me..... and he was very good at keeping me focused on one challenge at a time. The mental aspect is more than enough challenge even for the most robust people - let alone the physical aspects of it all.

You eat an elephant one bite at a time, not the whole thing at one sitting.......

Hi, Barb. I'm a teacher too but partly retired at 63. Four months after the same surgery I could well go back to work. I have no regular job but I'm thinking of taking on relieving (substitute work) in the next couple of months.

Barb

For what it is worth, I had the same surgery a year ago PLUS additional Cyberknife radiation and second round of chemo, yet after speech therapy, I can talk as long as I do so SLOWLY AND ENUNCIATE EACH WORD. I put that in caps, because while I chafe at these restrictions, perhaps speaking slowly and extremely very distinctly would work in your line of work.
Actually, a lot of former colleagues have indicated that my former machine gun pace and verbal pyrotechnics made it hard for them to fully understand me. They actually prefer the "new normal".
The key is exactly as Brian posted: Treat this as a new challenge and get good speech therapy. First you have to beat this cancer. keep the faith
charm

Barb,

Probably asked this before but why are you opting for this surgery? Why won't radiation do the job for you?

Thanks Brian for the elephant story. Makes me hungry...:)Has ben one week since my partial glossectomy and I am healing well. The swelling is intense as they had to cut my neck open to get out the lymph nodes....all clear. I have had lotsa time to sit and think about the future and am giving to what happens will work out. I don't know much about the radiation therapy, but will talk to those folks in the next few weeks. I will beat this, I know. With the tumor gone, I am looking forward to irradicating any pesky wanna be's. And thank you for this website. There was so much information and support in the words of these people, that it made the surgery less scary. I hope to help others as they journey the course to recovery.
Barb in Colorado Hospital

Barb,
Great that your surgery is over and you're recovering well. I had about 1/3 of my tongue removed and the free flap reconstruction 3.5 years ago, and am doing great. I am happy to answer any questions.

Blessings to you and your family.