My brother is not feeling too well at the moment. He was going quite well until about 10 days ago. His weight was increasing and he was eating, though everything tasted not good.

He then started getting what seemed like flu-like aching bones symptoms. Legs, arms everywhere. That seems to have receded but today he tells me he's now aching in the shoulders and the fingers and that the hair on his fingers feels super-sensative like it has nerves (!), and that he is getting sharp pains in what he thinks might be the eustacian tube. Could this be scarring or healing?

He's very very tired, although he is waking up 3 or 4 times a night with a dry mouth which partly explains it. He also feels he is getting drier in the mouth, after a period of time when he thought taste and saliva were slightly improving.

He's on the east coast of Australia at the moment with the family, but his doctors are in Perth (west coast) and he is unwilling to see a local GP who will probably have no clue. I tend to agree. His wife is a nurse and feels he may have some sort of bug as one of the kids was a bit sick a couple of weeks ago, but he is, of course, worried about the cancer. He doesn't have a temperature.

I have told him that it's going to be two steps forward and then one (maybe two)steps backwards for months to come, but I do think he has taken a bit of a dive in the last 10 days. He hasn't eaten anything for a week, although he's chewing gum, drinking lots of water and downing 6-8 cans a days through the PEG.

We're all quietly very anxious about the upcoming PET scan in Feb.