My husband is base of tongue with lymph node involvement-stage 4.

I can see why your sister is depressed. This treatment process sucks and my husband hates being in, near or around the hospital. Staying there daily has got to be really hard.

Even though this is an awful time of life, the prognosis for my husband is great and I'm guessing the same for your sister. Our RT said that they used to treat this with radiation alone...if you can only tolerate one treatment that appears to be the best one.

My husband is 48, how old is your sister?

I don't know if the alprasalem is stronger or weaker than the patch...but, what the patch does is provide a steady control of narcotic pain relief. It is worn like a bandaid. It takes 24 hours to get into a person's system and then it gets changed every 3 days.

My husband still needs additional pain relief (occassional oxycontin), but I noticed a HUGE improvement once the patch kicked in. His doctor's would like him to up the dose to another patch, but he's still getting used to some of the side effects (which are minimal compared to the pain).

I hope yous sister's medical team is proactive on the constipation front. Narcotics are very hard on the system and no one needs that additional discomfort.

Since your sister is in the hospital, I'd like to think she is getting the best pain relief possible. But, the issue I have with my husband is he hates being examined and answering questions, so I advocate for his comfort because he is not proactive in getting what he needs.

He wakes up in an excruciating amount of pain daily, but will say he is "fine" at our daily hospital visits to get out of there sooner. The medical staff can only treat what they know...so, I wonder if that is at all a factor in your sister's situation.

Does your sister have a spouse? Or, is there someone, like you, that she has signed off on for talking directly to her doctors? With HIPPA laws, there is a form that needs to be signed and then you, or someone else, can be much more proactive with talking directly to her healthcare team.

Like I said, I know all of my husband's symptoms and discomforts, but if he were by himself...his medical team wouldn't know, because he wouldn't tell them. And, he'd be suffering far more than he already is.

Tomorrow, I plan to discuss anti-depressants with his team. Another topic he is dealing with but will not articulate to his team aobut.

I think it's nice that you are helping your sister.