Leonard,

Sounds like you could use a good dose of hope.

3 years and 3 months ago, I was in the same place you are. I got a peg tube with 1 week of rads left. I reached the point I could no longer get anything down orally. Every day was a struggle, every hour was a struggle. 1 week after rads, whenever I had the energy, I hobbled into the kitchen to push liquid food into my peg tube. Knowing that it was probably that I would throw it up. Let me tell you if felt like razor blades coming up. Then, knowing I had to try it all over again.

My weight was down 30 lbs off my 150 lbs frame. I stopped talking completely. It got so bad the doctors forced me onto a feed pump system. I started using it week two. By the third week I noticed is stopped getting worse. It did not get better, but finally stopped getting worse. That was huge.

By week 4 I got off the feed pump and I was able to go back to manual feeling the peg tube. Week 5 I made an appointment to see a speech therapist. She did the swallow test. Hurt like hell. That was really the first swallow I had in 4 weeks. However, the Tech said "you have some leakage but it time to start relearning to eat. Over the next 3 weeks, she made me eat with electrical pads on my next that showed the muscle strain. My goal was to swallow hard enough to reach 50 units. I started around 20 but by week 3 I got up to 50. Still hurt but I was eating food. By week 7 I wanted the peg tube out. Once I started eating things were getting better.

Fast forward 2 months and I was able to eliminate the liquid supplements.

You are now entering the toughest faze. But things will get better. Focus only on getting through the next feeding. It suck, I know, been there. Feeding turn into days, days turn into weeks. I promise you by week 4 things will start to turn, And that is "HUGE".

I am now 3 years out, and I am sure you would not know what I went through.

Don't worry about tomorrow, just get through the next feeding.
Good luck