Stephanie,

I posted a perfect response yesterday and somehow it got lost. Darn.... Yes my mom did get IMRT and she has a female oncologist who was excellent. Anyways it was really hard to watch my mom go through the radiation and chemo because she always recovered quickly from her surgeries and the recovery from radiation is really slow. The first five weeks were not that bad. It was the 6th week and the first week after treatment was over that was tough. Her neck and face got burnt and and kind of blistery (which has already cleared up). Her saliva got really thick which caused her to cough and often throw up (this has also subsided a lot just 4 weeks post radiation). Just follow the advice of all the people who have been through it and make sure she uses her pain meds. My mom was up to 4 pain patches at one time. Her mouth got full of sores within the first two weeks. I think she started the pain meds 3 weeks into it. My mom did not get a feeding tube or a PEG tube she lost a total of 30 pounds and now she is 5'8 135 pounds which is about perfect for her height. She is able to eat most soft foods and she is trying to drink and keep hydrated. Her appetite is really not that big anymore often she has to tell herself to eat and her taste is slowly coming back.

Take it one day at a time and cross off the days on a calendar and when she gets to the halfway point its a countdown from there and at least no that the treatments will end and then she will be on the road to recovery. I am so glad that my moms radiation is over because it is definately difficult to watch somebody you love go through this. She just had her 3 week check up on Tuesday and so far everything looks good. Let me know if there are any questions that I can answer or anything that I can help you with?

Danielle