It has been 7 years since my first doze of radiation - 32 treatments to the left side of my neck/tongue, and 3 3/4 years since the end of my 2nd bout of radiation - 30 treatments to the right side this time.

Over time, my neck has gotten thinner and thinner as the fibrosis hardens the tissue. Soon, due to the fibrosis, I will look like one of those bobble head dolls!

I am - as time goes on - having more and more trouble with swallowing. Now, having said this I have not lost a pound so I am not yet becoming a shrinking violet, but I do now live with a constant hard LUMP in my neck - feeling of constriction and I worry about where that all of this is going. What about about blood flow and air through my neck? If this continues to get worse will the blood be able to continue to flow or will that become constricted too??

I have heard people talk about throat dilations, and I know nothing about these, except that they sound SCARY and painful. Is this something they can only do once or twice? Does it really help?? I also do not want to ask them to do something when - if they can do it a limited number of times - I should wait until I am in more desperate circumstances??

You may all roll your eyes at this, but it was the RO who I think gave me these last years by thinking outside the box and doing a second course of radiation. Remember at the time our recent news article about re-radiation was not out and it was still pretty rare.

I don't want o "over fuss" with him because - should I have a 3rd recurrance, I want my RO to know I have handled the double radiation well, and that I would be a candidate for whatever NEW tools are available. They all say my constitution has done fabulously well given the treatments I've had. I don't want to do anything that would give them cause or make them leery about any potential future treatments.

So, given all of the above........

Do I talk about deck dilation and blood floor monitoring now? Or do I wait until I am having a severe problem and am actually loosing weight?

I saw from one of Charm's posts that there are tests to test the artery blood flows but lets say they aren't optimal - what can they do about it?

Thanks for listening - hope you understand where I am at.

(by the way I am very lucky, I have little or no neck cramping and pain with my fibrosis but is is quite pronounced from both side)

Thanks.

Donna