Hi all,

So I made it through the 30 treatments. It felt like it was never, ever going to end. But end it did.

Now onto the healing part. My doctor is the type who likes to tell you how bad you will feel - he said, well the first two weeks post treatment you will feel worse than you do now, and then by 6 weeks, you will start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Then, you look a bit down. Gee, with that kind of pep talk, yep, am a bit! Thanks for noticing.

First thing I did was make an appointment with an acupuncturist (this fellow is associated with an integrative cancer clinic in Ottawa where I live and he helped me regain the full range of motion in my right arm after my neck dissection.

I felt immediately and markedly better during his treatment, and just slightly better now, a day later, with all my accupressure points still on. We are focusing on the swelling, nausea and pain swallowing for now.

But that's an aside - I am, as I have been for several weeks, coughing up GREEN mucous. Everyone else notes that they cough up brown or yellow mucous. To me green = infection, but I've raised it to my RO several times, and since it is not coming from my lungs, he is not concerned. But I kinda am?? Did anyone else cough up green mucous? Maybe everyone does?

And, I almost made it to the end with intact skin - but the skin around my scar finally broke down on my second last treatment. I had lymphedema (aka big mother of a double chin, half mine and half courtesy of the lack of lymph nodes) before (and it is worse now) so I have a fold of swelling on the scar, which is making a gooey/infected mess. They have given me a topical antibiotic creme to use and I have been only using it since yesterday, but they want me to gently scrub off the scabs. Hmmm, my mother always told me to not pick my scabs, so I'm struggling with that one as well! Anyone else have issues with their scar/neck? Obviously the goo has to go, but the scabbing elsewhere?

I couldn't have gotten through without your words of encouragement and without knowing that there are others out there who have faced this and much worse, and didn't go completely insane!

Oh and for my Canadian Forum friends - Happy Canada Day!!

Congratulations! This is a HUGE milestone in a long journey.

Happy Canada Day to you!

Congrats, that's what this site is here for and we keep it going by playing it forward.

I would wonder if maybe you have an infection??? I would push a little more. Unless you are eating massive amounts of kale... Or something green. Can't hurt might help. Usually with infection though here is main and swelling which could easily be disguised as post rads pain. Congrats on getting through it. the acupuncture is terrific for stimulating blood flow back I to the area, but I would Do physio too that will give you longer lasting results. Hugs

My husband has been spitting up green mucus for the last week we're all but two days away from the last treatment .. I've also saw it green color in the peg it's don't have a foul smell or anything so I did rule out infection so I did some research and found that it's from the stomach of course and found that drinking or flushing plenty water in will make this better.. Also Gatorade is really highly suggested .. It's worked for my husband so far over the last few days we haven't seen any more green in the peg or in the mucus ...

I didn't mention that if you're concerned you should let you're Dr know about it cause it very well may be something totally different from what my husband had going on. ,,,

Some days it was yellow, some days yellow green, some days more green; wash, rinse repeat. I'm six months post treatment and still hack up crud. It's way better than it was, but it's still there.

If you have no fever or other symptoms, maybe you're just on the treatment curve, though that curve is different for everyone.

Like said before, if you're really worried, ask the doc.

take care, keep fighting, it gets better ... but it comes really slow.

Tony

10 days post my last RAD and I still feel like I've been run over by a truck...

I have had a really rough time with the mucus and related gagging, retching and vomiting which has made everything a real joy. I'm still getting daily hydration, but that will be over by Monday, which is just as well. I'm able to drink water well enough, the colder the better! Eating is a still a real challenge with so few things that don't make my mouth burn or stir up the mucus. My favourite protein shake still makes my throat burn, so that really sucks! As does ice cream : (

Am doing twice weekly acupuncture, which has helped with the pain and nausea. What is really cool with it, is that he can immediately remove the pain in my throat by pressing on a pressure point near my big toe! It is the oddest thing. Just taking a few Tylenol every day to keep the sore throat at bay. So for all intensive purposes, am medication free, which is progress. I was debating taking something to deal with the mucus, but my body seems to hate it so, I don't want to reduce it's capacity to get rid of it.

I spent last weekend thinking that I wasn't going to be able to stand one more day of this but it did ease off...

Am just starting to notice a really dry mouth in the morning, which then starts off the hack a rama of trying to cough up the crud that has accumulated in my throat. Thankfully, after about 45 minutes, I'm usually clear for a few hours. The good thing is that at least I am able to sleep for more than just a few hours without having to get up to cough up the crap in my throat.

I'm assuming that I am hacking up the shedding of my throat - poor throat.

The mouth sores seem to come and go a bit and aren't too bad. The fatigue is overwhelming for me though and very frustrating. I feel like there is a life out there to be lived, but I'm on hold.

I know, very whiny, even though things are improving. Just far too slow for my liking. Did I ever say how my Mom always used to say about me that when God was handing out patience, I wasn't patient enough to stand in the line?

Well the good news about that thick crap is that it usually only lasts a few weeks but the bad news is that when it goes away you will enter the next phase of Tx/recovery and that is the Dry Mouth phase which to some extent will last forever. One day soon you will wake up and just feel slightly better and something inside you will tell you that "hey I'm finally walking out of that tunnel". Even then don't get discouraged if bad days follow. For most of us after we walk out of that tunnel we still experience bad days mixed with good ones but eventually the bad days go away and are replaced by just good ones. Of course this is all relative to the new you.

To combat the dry mouth at night, have you thought about using a humidifier? It really helped John keeping the air in the room moist.

Dry mouth is worsened at night due to the salivary glands basically shutting down while sleeping, and moisture loss from sleeping with the mouth open. Some used the lycra snoring head caps, and significant others may be happy with just taping the mouth closed