Hi Vickie,

I'm sorry your dad, and you, have been through the ringer. Hopefully things will start to look up. You mentioned in your note about putting tubes in his ears. My experience (I had total glossectomy, right and left neck dissection) was that right after rad treatments ended (Nov. 2003) I had severe pain in my ears. The pain was constant and was intensified by a piercing, shooting pain from my jaw right up to my right ear. Went to see my ENT and turned out I had an infection in both ears. Tried a dose of antibiotics but that didn't help. Ended up having tubes placed in both ears the day before Thanksgiving. Although not a comfortable experience having them placed inside of already infected ears, they sure did the trick! I still experienced (and sometimes still do) the shooting pain in my jaw to my ear but that has pretty much gone away. I also still have constant ringing / humming in my ears but that I can live with - I just wish it would play a different tune! Well I just wanted to chime in that I did have the tubes placed in my ears and they're still in place. Doc says they should fall out naturally and then we'll take it from there.

Tell your dad to hang in there and take care of yourself too.

Nancy