Sean, welcome to OCF.

Thank you for your years of service to this country!!!! My son is soon to become a Marine. Military people are like family just like you will see here in OCF members. We all rally in support of each other and give guidance along the way.

One thing you would want to do now is EAT!!!! Thru the tratment process your sense of taste will change dramatically and it will become difficult to taste and swallow. Just make sure you swallow and do swallowing exercises. Dont be concerned about calories just eat all your favorites and then some.

One big thing is if your have spent time reading here, never forget that everyone is different. We all react differently to treatments, even the location of our oral cancers can be different. Be careful with cisplatin and hearing loss. Thats a very common side effect, I was also very ill. So sick from it that my thrid round was cancelled.

You are fortunate to have your wife by your side thru this. She will need support too at times. Please let her know we have a special tab titled caregivers.

I wish you the very best of luck with your procedure on Monday. The PEG tube can be tricky. I had a difficult time with the bolus and gravity methods of feedings. Even a few formulas made me sick. I am having a major surgery on Monday so will not be around to help you for a while. Just look for my posts about PEG feedings if you run into any difficulty. Ask for a feeding pump.

Getting enough calories and water daily will make a huge difference. Shoot for 3000 calories per day and 48 oz water. Also check out posts from wfc, he got thru this pretty easily. Best of luck with everything