Hi everybody,

I have some good news to share....regarding my mom (Barbara). We were thinking she was going to have to have additional surgery and another biopsy and then she saw her dentist who shaved down the bone that was exposed due to radiation back at the end of July. I'm happy to say she has finally started to heal properly! She is hardly in need of the pain meds and she actually seems somewhat like her old self again.

I kept telling her like Gary said that for every week of radiation it takes a month to start feeling better. She had 6 weeks of radiation and now she is just about 6 months post radiation and finally starting to feel human again. She has most of her energy back and can eat much better and says the only pain she really gets now is after she eats because food still gets stuck in the open bone area and she has to flush it out. She says some things like citrus and spicy stuff is still unmanageable. She also attributes the not feeling great thing to being one of the healthiest people prior to radiation and chemo and never having any medical problems to going through radiation and feeling like she was going to die. The recovery from radiation is so slow and she was not used to being a sickly person so it really set her back. But now I am happy to report that I have my mom back. She wants to shop and hang out and it is so nice to actually see her smile and laugh again.

Thank you all for everything you have done to help her through this. (I always relay everything I learn from you to her). You are the BEST!

Dani