Welcome to OCF, Wynter! Glad to have you here. We will do our best to help you get thru this.

Im sorry you are starting to struggle with your swallowing. I know its not easy but you must continue to keep trying to swallow every single day. When you know you arent meeting your daily minimums for water and calories, it will soon catch up with you. Make sure you have a discussion with your doctors about everything you wrote here. They will know you are struggling by your weight. Not taking in at least 2500 calories and 48-64 oz of water every single day will start making you feel pretty lousy too. In my opinion, your intake is the most beneficial thing you can do to help get thru this as smoothly as possible. I cant stress enough how vitally important your intake is! When you talk with your doctor, make sure to ask about getting a prescription to get extra hydration a few times a week. This is usually dont in the chemo lab. You will be amazed at how much better you feel after a 2 or 3 bags of fluids.

Many medications come in liquid form. Your doc must write the prescription for it to be in liquid form. Its also usually alot more expensive. If the meds are pills, ask your pharmacist if it can be crushed. Some patients will crush then mix the medicine with applesauce to make it easier to get down.

If you are not able to take in enough to get adequate nutrition you may need a feeding tube. This should be discussed with your doc too. You might be able to get away with a NG tube. Thats a feeding tube that goes thru your nose. Its very thin and requires no surgery like a PEG tube would. A NG tube can also help with your medicine as the meds can be crushed and dissolved in water then thru the tube it goes. Just be very cautious and check every medicine you plan on crushing with the pharmacist as some time release meds cant be crushed or they may cause the patient to overdose.

Hang in there!!! You are half way there and this is usually about where most patients begin to understand OC and its treatments are brutal. Unfortunately, rads will get progressively more difficult as treatments continue. The first 2 or 3 weeks after treatments end are the hardest. This is why its so important to have a long talk with your doc and get yourself back on schedule with your intake. If it goes on for too long, you will start feeling worse and worse. Ive been thru this and its awful which is why I try to help other patients avoid it

Best wishes with everything!!!