Hi Don,
Welcome. I'm glad you found this forum now, early in your treatment, You'll have a lot of questions along the way, and the answers are here.

Where are you getting the radiaiton, one side, or both? There are a number of not so much fun side effects that you'll start seeing fairly soon; loss of taste, thickening of your saliva, mucositis, burns, trouble swallowing, etc.

It's rough, and there's no point sugarcoating it, but you can get through it.

I had 17 hours of surgery in June to remove my left mandible and reconstructing it with bone from my leg, and tissue from my arm. 6 weeks later I started a course of 30 IMRT treatments. Now, I'm recovering from the ordeal.

If you want to talk, send me PM off the forum, and We'll hook up with phone numbers
Wayne