Hello Everyone

This week makes two months since my mother has completed her Radiation treatments. She seemed to be gradually feeling better but this past week she started feeling the burning from the Radiation again and she started to feel pain in her ear again. Also her neck area is still swelling up . We are starting to get concerned because each day she was feeling a little better and now she is experiencing this pain . Also her ear is hurting her again which was one of her first symptoms of oral cancer. A scan is scheduled for next week and hopefully it will be clear.

Im sorry to hear your mother has had a setback. Recovery can take a very long time. Its full of ups and downs with a few setbacks too. Hopefully her new issues will not be anything serious.

Best wishes with her scan!

Hi Sweetpe - My radiation treatments went very smoothly with almost no symptoms. Recovery has been anything but smooth, a week of seemingly getting better every day followed by a week of seemingly getting worse every day. I'm 6 months post treatment now and things are finally starting to smooth out some. It may take that long for your mother to begin noticing that things are getting better. In the meantime she just has to ride it out.

Good luck with it

Tony

I hope your mother is in regular touch with a doctor? I see mine every two weeks and that seems about right for me. Leave it too long and the head talk starts questioning if something else is wrong, and often it isn't. It just takes a long time. Still its good to be seeing a professional regularly to monitor the progress and tell you you're on track.

Bring any new side effects to the doctor. Most are just part of the recovery, but most are treatable as well. In particular keep on top of pain. She shouldn't be trying to tough out pain, it interferes with healing.

Need to inform her RO now.

Thanks so much for the advice it helps a lot. Hopefully in time these side affects will slowly go away. I guess We are so afraid of relapse. My mom is being closely monitored from the RO and her Oncologist. We are praying for a clear scan.

Thanks Again and Prayers to everyone.

Sorry to hear about the complications but glad you have a scan and review soon. At this stage try not to add worry over recurrence or the cancer never being totally banished. It is very rare for cancer to return this soon with such visible physical symptoms.

It is most likely treatment related but they will sort this out next week and get some action to resolve it.

As suggested, see the doctor. Any pain or unusual symptoms for more than two weeks, I often waited less, the doctor usually likes to rule out a recurrence, as routine, and move on from there. I had done this many times, and was lymphdemia, and anothet was the shrinking tumor still pressing on the nerve causing ear pain, so it can be other things, but is best to let the doctor say this, and may be no more need than an office visit with an exam, discussion.

Good luck.