Hi, this is my first post on this forum. My husband (age 55) was diagnosed with cancer at the base of the tongue and the uvula in January, 2005. He also had a swollen lymph node on his right neck. He had surgery on Feb 11th. The cancer on the tongue and uvula were both small and the surgery hasn't caused him any real problems there, but they went from a selective neck dissection to a modified radical neck dissection and took out 15 lymph nodes, along 2 paths on the neck. 4 had cancer. He had been seeing a physical therapist and has good neck movement, but his biggest problem is that he feels like he has a "tight noose" around his neck all the time (unless he takes Roxicet, a pain medicine). He is on Day 5 of 31 radiation treatments, and they tell him it will get worse during radiation. Yesterday, his nurse said over time, that will improve and/or go away (the noose feeling). She indicated he probably still had inflammation from the surgery and that would improve over the next 3-6 months. However, his doctor came in (while the nurse was out of the room) and made it sound like it could be permanent. He is very disturbed by this, almost to the point of wanting to quit radiation treatments so it won't get worse. Anyone else had this problem or have any words of encouragement about this or what to look forward to? I did find an article on the internet suggesting that time does improve the feeling of tightness quite a bit.