Lenny, From one upstate NYer to another: Get some good thick SOFT scarves and bundle them around your neck as soon as it has healed enough not to ooze on them. I still have some numb patches on my upper neck/under my chin-just numb at the skin level--from my neck dissection which was almost a year ago. I think there will always be some numbness there--even though no major nerves were cut. Also my skin there just seems to be very sensitive to any irrittion so soft, not scratchy, scarves are important.

Everything about one's experience of the after-effects of treatment for this disease (drymouth, neck stiffness and irritation, etc.) are made worse by winter I think.

Nelie