Hi Lauri

Sounds like your father might be going through slight depression with this, he's probably not feeling all that good, he's scared for sure about the future but probably won't admit it, and his body's doing things and he's feeling things he's not used to.

My case I'm currently on my second round of rad/chemo, had neck dissectiion, rad/chemo on the left side in oct/nov of last year, they found another lymph node on the other side last month, so another surgery/rad/chemo round again for the right side. Yep the depression is a part of it, as much a part of treatment and recovery as the physical part. One needs to get over that part to get the physical part better.

Thing is, you do recover from this stuff, but you have to fight for it. Had the burns, wound up in the hospital the last week of radiation the first time because the pain was so bad I had stopped eating and drinking completely, but that too heals over. Interesting thing about the skin burns, made the scarring look better. I had the happy chance to have dinner with KarenNG who posted above just before my second surgery, and we both have commented how we really don't look like we've been through the ordeals we have.

The old saying "It's always darkest before the dawn" hold true, even in these cases, it's not really "curing" cancer, it's "killing" cancer. Unfortunately, we forget it harms the good tissues also sometimes, and we have to recover from that.

It does and will get better, your dad will have to fight for it though.
Bob