Hi Brandon, welcome to the family. It looks like you have already been through a lot, but it also looks like you have a pretty good attitude about it. Keep that up, it really will make a difference in your continued recovery.

I am a year plus into recovery. Even so, I still have some of the same problems you mentioned above. Spicy foods (but not so much hot or sour) I am a little more sensitive too. Some foods fall into a category of on some days they taste good, on other days they taste bad. Milk, either from a glass or from a bowl of cereal is one of those foods. Fried chicken is no where near as good tasting as before cancer and some days it tastes bad. In fact, chicken as a whole is disappointing; from the grill with barbecue sauce seems to be the only it tastes good. Where steak used to taste bad, it now tastes much better, hamburgers from the grill are the same way.

I still have the occasional problem with dry throat when eating. I have to keep water immediately available as I never know when I will need a sip to help swallowing. I swallow, but it won't go down. Small bites (well chewed) help, but not always. I've learned that if a bite of food doesn't go down I can just exhale hard a little and it returns that bite of food to my mouth. It sounds gross, but it's way better than possibly choking. Upon return to mouth I almost always determine that it was adequately chewed, so it must be dry throat caused. Add a sip of water and it goes down.

Since this problem isn't frequent, and since it only applies to the drier food types, I have not yet reached the point where I feel the need to add a sip of water to every swallow. Maybe for dry type foods a supplemental water sip needs to become the routine (maybe I just learned something new).

I have had it happen when I didn't have water immediately available. That's when you depend on the exhale method of returning it to your mouth. It would be easy to panic at that point out of fear and think you were possibly going to choke, but instead staying calm, a little forceful exhale and problem solved. Then you remember to go get that glass of water.

I've rambled on enough about swallowing.

Your recovery will be anything but linear. I thought it would just get a little better every day until all the recovery symptoms just disappeared. That just isn't the case. It's normal to have a few good weeks of noticeable improvement, then a week or two of them seemingly going the other way. But, over time, things do get better.

My dry sinuses aren't nearly as bad as they used to be. If you don't already have one, get yourself a sinus irrigator (NeilMed makes them, available at Walmart). Use the salt packets that come with them or make your own (much cheaper, 3 parts canning or pickling salt to 1 part baking soda). Sinus irrigation works great (helps when you have a cold too).

Enough already, welcome to the family.

Tony