You guys, this is great. Thanks for all the comments and support. It feels really good to hear from people who understand what I'm going through.

Minh, that's a great recipe! I think that will be my dinner tonight! Plus, I can report that the homemade soup (potato/fennel/celery root) I had for lunch was a nice change and really delicious.

Today, I discovered the I'm Too Young For This website (i2y.com) for young adults with cancer. I started listening to the Cancer Sucks podcast, their "Delayed Diagnosis" episode. It was good, but I decided to do a jigsaw puzzle while listening, and afterwords realized I am in a lot of pain in the area near my neck dissection. I think my head was tilted towards the puzzle in a way that strained my muscles, and now I'm in more pain and feeling more fragile. I guess it's a learning process of what I can & can't do. I hate that it's numb on the surface of the skin, but painful underneath - crappy combination of numbness and pain in the same spot.

I wish I knew more about why my throat hurts so much when I swallow. From poking around online, it seems the sore throat is likely from the breathing tube during surgery. But I wasn't expecting this additional level of healing, and I'm really looking forward to my throat NOT hurting someday.

Thanks for listening. Hearing you've all been through similar stuff helps me feel not so alone.

Rahel