I think for right now we have settled into a semi- early healing pattern. He is on the patch, 50 mg which was upped from 25. They also put in on Fentora ( a dissolve in the cheek pain pill) which he takes before eating. It has to be ordered by most pharmacies and is very expensive, but thank goodness for good insurance! Liquid morphine did not work. Anyway, with that he is able to eat his oatmeal and we have now added egg salad and about 4 glasses of water before things start tightening up and hurting again. When the clock reaches 6 or 7 he is done, in pain and on the recliner for the night. So we are going to hit all the eating we can during the daytime and not try in the evenings. When he did go to the ER to get bloodwork last week his readings were all good other than his blood counts, but no signs of malnutrition and just a minimal sign of dehydration. He was able to drink up through week 6 so I am sure that helped. The chemo he is on is Cisplatin and will be rescheduled within the next week or two. His skin is amazing and almost healed up, just red, no more scaling. We used Aloe Vera throughout and he just has sores on the back of his neck that we had neglected. Also, thank you so much for the meat tenderizer tip!!! With a few gargles and rinses it really does thin the mucous!!!! Now that he is eating more and we know the pattern, I am not holding him to the 2500 calories since his bloodwork has been so good, he is 5'7" so I think requires less, we have a daily goal of at least 1500 but man once he can eat again, ribs it is! Thanks as always for your caring and sharing!