thanks for all the responses!

He has NO idea how fortunate he is on many aspects so I often remind him of what others deal with and go through. He did say he can't eat spicy foods yet as they hurt his mouth. He tasted some pulled pork I bought tonight and complained about not having any of the bbq sauce on his bite. He had just told me he was afraid of bbq burning his mouth! I can't win!

He started therapy with a speech pathologist yesterday as he can barely open his mouth which has been an issue the whole time. I had never noticed a 6'3" man was not able to open his mouth much I guess. I don't even think it's worse than before treatment but they are working on getting him to open up more. He also did some stuff to keep from getting a stiff neck permanently as one of his co-workers did after a similar cancer. While he struggled for months on end with that feeding tube, compliance and all the rest, he is getting back to pre-cancer pretty quickly these days and hopefully, he will not have too many residual side effects. We will have to wait and see I suppose.

Thanks again for all the insight and experiences. I can continue to remind him how fortunate he is as he cannot appreciate it enough!


Spouse of 58 yr old with BOT cancer
Stage 4a HPV16 positive
3 chemo treatments cisplantin
35 radiation treatments 7000 cGy
former smoker/chewed tobacco for 38 yrs.
1/2020 diagnosed with cancer near TMJ
4/2020 chemo 5 days every 2 weeks
6/2020 proton therapy
9/21/2020 cancer free