It's no bother at all. The exercises prescribed by the speech therapy department were: Shaker exercise, Mendelsohn Maneuver, Effortful swallow, Laryngeal Elevation exercise(make a high-pitch 'E' sound). I only had a few sessions with the therapist, where she taught me exactly how to do the exercises correctly. On a couple occasions, they hooked up some electrical diodes to my neck connected to a small machine that could measure the amount of force I was exerting during the swallow. That was helpful in quantifying the actual improvement I had been making. Most of the actual leg work was done on my own though. I did all of the exercises religiously, about 5 times a day, over time gradually increasing the reps or the exertion, much like if you were weight training at the gym.

During the same period, I was also prescribed neck and lymph massages which were done in the physical therapy department at the cancer center. Now that I think about it, I do think the massages got rid rid of alot of the excess lymph fluid that was around my throat area, which did make swallowing a bit easier.

I also had and still have problems opening mymouth past a certain point. For that I purchased a device called Orastretch. Its pricey(about $450) and the doctor said it would serve the same purpose as a stack of tongue depressors, but I tried the tongue depressors and it just seemed like kind of a pain to me.

As for your question about thickened liquids, I would check with the therapist on that. There may be a specific reason they did not mention that to you. And one other thing...although I eat everything I want at this point, I don't think my swallowing is back to being perfect by any means. I am fairly certain there is probably some amount of silent aspiration going on. I am otherwise fairly healthy and active, so at this point my body may be able to compensate for any food particles or liquid that does make it into my lungs. If I were bed-ridden, or as I age, that may change.