"Where was your tumor? When were you treated?"

Cancer of left tonsil. I was treated with one does of chemo and 5 hits of radiation last October. Then all the other stuff happened. And I subsequently had 21 additional zaps of radiation in April.

"For some patients the therabyte works and for others not so much."

My trismus hit me about 2 -3 months post radiation. On Friday things seemed okay, but by Monday I couldn't put one finger in my mouth. Truth is it was probably slowly getting worse, I just didn't realize it because I wasn't eating or speaking much.

It's helped, but not a lot. I didn't use it much at first because it aggravated general throat pain. That's subsided a bit, although there's still some tooth pain and a lot of tongue pain. After using it I can easily fit a finger in, but in an hour or so it's smaller already. But I'm going to keep at it, I think overtime it will help, and I'm afraid that if I stop I'll regress.

"Sorry to see you are dealing with being on the feeding tube. "
To be honest, it doesn't bother me that much, which I find odd. I think that currently eating is such a pain that the g-tube is a welcome, and necessary, relief. But I do miss eating and hope I can get back to it.

"Are you are to tolerate the ensure or other vitamin type nutritional drinks?"

Presently I'm on Nutren 2.0, 3x a day - 1,500 calories. Our insurance covers it, but I don't know for how long. I was drinking Carnation Instant Breakfast, but for the past few weeks it's intolerable because of the associated tongue pain while drinking it.