Deborah, I just wanted to give the other side of the picture from Joanna's, and I am not doing this to scare you but just because people vary so much and if your husband's recovery seems to take longer you shouldn't feel there's something wrong because of that. I am now 11 months out from the end of radiation and I STILL feel every month, if I look back on the last month, as though significant improvements have taken place.

I had such bad mouth pain from large mucositis sores in my mouth, a very raw throat, as well as a spot on my tongue that has always been a little sensitive since my partial glossectomy, that I was on prescription pain meds for four months after radaition ended before the pain got managable enough to take over the counter meds, and then there were another 4 months or so where I was taking over the counter meds almost nonstop (which isn't really good for you either). It's only been in the last two months that I find I generally can get by without any pain meds, and my mouth is still sore in spots, just not so bad I can't bear it. And I need to add that I've been through several other fairly painful medical situations in the last 8 years or so and have had doctors remark several times on how well I seem to tolerate pain, so I don't think this was because I just have a low pain threshold--I think it's more just about healing taking much longer for me from this specific treatment than it has for some others.

I also had the very thick phlegm hang around for about 3 months after the end of rad and I'm still having swallowing issues (which is because I have strictures in my esophagus from the radiation)and still have some problems with thick phlegm that I have to spit out every so often.

In addition, although I have most of my energy back, this past week (the last week of classes at the college where I teach) has forced me to realize I'm not 100% back in terms of energy. I pushed myself a little for about 3 days, getting 6 hours sleep instead of 8 and found myself just crashing on the fourth day. Used to be I could do that for months and just be a little tired-feeling! I did have another round of radiation to treat my breast cancer last fall, though, so the remaining loss of energy may be more because of that.

Anyway, one thing that is uniformly true for all of us is recovery and improvement does happen. It may happen at the rate of one month for every week of treatment, or faster or slower than that. But it happens. Have faith in it and have patience. And congratulations on the end of treatment!

Nelie