Hi,
I cannot say I have gone through exactly what your uncle is going through but I was a patient at MDA for my oral cancer, and my unrelated cancer, a sarcoma, GIST tumor. You are correct in saying they have tons of services. Have you visited with the social worker assigned to him? That would be a start. She (I imagine it would be the same one I had, although he has other cancers)would be able to point you to some face-to-face help if nothing else. They have lots of chaplains of various faiths if he would like to go that direction.

Much of the experience is frightening, and while the fright lessens as time goes by, we survivors all have our moments as well.

He would have a dietician assigned to his case and if you take the time to talk with them they can be of help as well. In fact I was supposed to have a visit scheduled weekly--this did not always happen, but the resource was there. Their integrative medicine department is becoming more and more active, and they have many classes he could take if he wanted (and you could go with him), from meditation to yoga, all designed at helping him cope. They are great, but lots of patients do not help themselves out on this. As a caretaker (you are taking care of him by helping out) you might enjoy these as well.

I imagine someone else will post here soon that might be able to help out more specifically. It does not help to keep to oneself, but it is difficult to make someone who does not want to do so, reach out.

Radiation scared me too. I did not "enjoy" the chemo routine. I hated what surgery did to me, though I feel like a baby because I did not have it as bad as many! I feel for him and for everybody else having to go through it all. He's lucky he has you in his corner, though! Everyone must have a support system to get through.

Make sure he is getting the proper nutrition. I do not recall on your previous post what you said about how he was getting that--PEG? He still needs to practice swallowing, drink what nutrition he can, eat what he can. There are a lot of experienced folks here who can help you out on a PEG.

Hope this is a little bit of help, and there will be more to come.

Best,
Anne