Welcome, Bill, sorry you have to go through this.

FWIW, I'm 74.

Dry mouth can be greatly alleviated by chewing any gum sweetened with Xylitol. If you get used to checking the ingredients on the package of everything you put in your mouth, (you should) you'll find others, but I've used Trident tropical mix/blast/whateverinhell they call it. Also, Icebreaker mints makes several products, but like all mints, the benefit stop when the mint is all gone.

I try to ensure that there is always a pack of each (mints and gum) close when I'm driving anywhere.

I've met a couple of guys who've been through this, they both said it took them 5 years to recover taste fully.

In the past 6 years, I had three recurrences and have been successful at beating it back each time, but each time has involved prolonged chemo and that has always cost me a chunk of the gains in recovering taste, so my taste is still only about 60% recovered overall.

Some foods are strange, like Steak. With steak, the taste is fully developed, but only for about the first 4 or 5 bites. After than, it VERY quickly becomes tasteless.