Yes, I did lose some of my taste temporarily during and after the radiation. I had lost all ability to detect sweetness, and anything spicy was very tough for me to handle. Even bottled peanut sauce was something I just couldn't take. Thankfully I've recovered almost everything to how it was before. Perhaps I'm a little bit more sensitive to carbonation levels.

It took awhile to be able to eat normally again. Actually I'm still not quite there - it takes me longer to eat than it used to and sometimes my spanky new tongue gets tired out and starts to have difficulty moving food around, but it's pretty good. When I first got out of the hospital, I was on an almost entirely liquid diet. I'd live on juices (thankfully I bought a juicer before I found out about the cancer, in an effort to get more vegetables into my diet), smoothies, milkshakes, and soups. Gradually I was able to add soft foods like pancakes, cream of wheat, etc. It gets better! Now I can eat almost anything again - even sharp and pointy things like nacho chips.

Luckily I didn't have much in terms of nausea during the radiation. In the first few sessions I felt a little bit disoriented and woozy after first getting off the table & standing up.

As far as the hiking goes, there were a few older folks on the West Coast Trail too. A handful of them in their late 60's and 70's. They were keeping up just fine, as we'd see them pull into the campsite every evening. The largest age group was probably in their early 20's, by quite a large margin.

Nothing wrong with just walking. It's a great way to keep fit, work on your cardiovascular health, and stretch out those calves, hamstrings & quads. Very effective fat burner. Instead of driving or taking transit, I actually really love to walk to my practices. It is about 3.5 km (2-ish miles depending on which route I take), and takes me about a half an hour each way.