Yay, almost done!

I wish I had a crystal ball, but I don't, so I won't guess when you'll feel better. From reading what everyone here has to say, I'd say it varies considerably. In my case, it only took another week or so until I could start eating again. I never fully lost my sense of taste, but the ability to detect sweetness left me for a few months. It returned after awhile.

When I was off of work, recovering from surgery & dealing with radiation, all I wanted was to just get better & return to normal. Thankfully, where I work, we have a short term disability program that allowed me to continue being paid while I sat around the house on my butt, watching Star Trek reruns and pigging out on 2500 calorie milkshakes. But that drive to get back to work, eat all of the things I enjoyed before this dark chapter began, get back on the water with my dragonboat and outrigger canoe teams & basically return to life as I previously knew it, motivated me to shorten my time off as much as I possibly could.

It's more than two years post surgery and about 21 months post radiation for me, and I wish I could say it's as if nothing ever happened. Every time I look down at my wrist, I see the flap. Every time I speak I'll have some difficulty pronouncing a word & may have to repeat myself to be understood. Once in awhile I'll have some difficulty swallowing a chunk of food I wasn't careful enough to cut into a smaller piece, or I bit off more than I can chew & it'll remind my that not all of my tongue is actually a tongue any longer. But then I'm also back on the water several times per week with my competitive teams, working in the office again with more appreciation of what I am capable of, have a new appreciation for all of the friends & family that care about me & my wellbeing, and just generally realizing that I could have had it much worse.

Chin up, the hard part is over.