Just found this board and wanted to introduce myself. I am a 50 something woman who is now caring for/helping my 76 year old mother who was diagnosed with throat/tonsillar cancer this past July. She finished her radiation and chemo therapy treatments a few weeks ago and now we are headed to the surgical oncologist/plastic surgeon as her jaw has been damaged/broken/destroyed (not sure which) from either the cancer or the treatment.

I am still searching the boards, am looking for info on elderly patients. I get the point that she can have many more years of life but I am fairly sure that she will be very upset if the docs suggest radical/painful reconstructive surgery. She is also depressed now because we both thought that everything would be mostly fixed once the radiation was over which it obviously isn't.

I am very glad I found this forum and appreciate all the information everyone is sharing.