Thanks for all the response. John's food does not get stuck, his epiglottis does not close over his air passage and bits of food go down there. If he does not cough it out, it continues to his lungs. The therapist was not encouraging saying that his epiglottis has been greatly reduced by the radiation (his tumor was at the base of the tongue and just above the epiglottis) and he will never regain his ablility to swallow without a possibility of aspiration. We are not ready to give up and would go anywhere for swallowing therapy or whatever it takes.
John had stage III-IV with 7 weeks of radiation and chemo followed by a radical neck. The biopsy of the radical neck came back negative.
John has fairly good saliva, little taste and this persistant swallowing problem. His radiation and chemo ended Sept. 2002-surgery Oct 2002.