John the reality is this... This will always be with you - diligence is your new best friend. you have to be on your guard with regards to oral care, what's normal etc for the rest of your life. It sucks, but that's the way it is, eventually things will heal, you may have some residual damage from the rads etc... The extent of which is up to you - I went for physio, go for acupuncture, and learned lymphatic massage. To try and get back to where I was before all this. I'm at about 85 % but you adapt. All this may not solve any future problems I have but I'm certain it's helped get me to this point. You may feel ripped off by rads and the fall out etc... But the other reality is... Despite all you've been through and all you may go through... You're here to experience it. There are a lot of people who aren't. The radiation may very well have saved your life by preventing a possible recurrence... Ive been told by a radiation dr that it cuts the odds of a recurrence in half. Since this cancer can be very aggressive - Radiation was a good choice... And the drs suggested it for a reason... There had to have been a reason... Possibly the aggressiveness of the cancer, involvement I don't know, but they don't take decisions like that lightly. Chances are you've lost a few more months of your life to this... But you will eventually crawl out of the hole your in and thngs will get better. I was insanely grateful that it only ate up 6 mos of my life, I know people who have to do chemo for the rest of their lives (I have a friend wit incurable peritoneal cancer who spends two days of her life at the local ccc - every week. And once a month she has to go have 3 liters of fluid drained from her abdomen), and there are others who as one of the other posters here said, are getting treatment just to live another day. I am super busy and super active and am final back functioning at s normal level and it's been 13 mos since radiation. So it takes time. Patience. give yourself a break.