Well, there is some misinformation going around here. First there is no case for losing completely your ability to swallow after a year on the tube. I am a perfect example. I was on the tube 100% for a year and when I started back on real food, (blender drinks, canned peaches, scrambled eggs, etc.) my throat was still sore and it was difficult. Plus the xerostomia was in its most acute stage. But the difficult transition back to eating regular food and swallowing easily, while it took some time, had nothing to do with the tube. Second, THE ONLY thing that I poured nutrition-wise into my tube, was Ensure. I am living proof that with no other forms of nutrition, you can maintain your body weight on this stuff. When I was making the transition to solid food again, it was still my nutritional staple orally, since you cannot get enough out of scrambled eggs and canned peaches to do the job. So I still drank 8 cans of it a day.

As to the herpes - When your immune system is really beat up and your cell counts are low, every opportunistic thing gets a hold of you. This is part of the reason that the recovery process is so mentally depressing. As soon as you get rid of one thing, another comes along. If you had herpes before cancer for instance, (you have herpes for life), it will reoccur when your immune system is depressed. When I get stressed out and my immune system is affected by that, I get a fever blister on my lip. This is a herpes simplex lesion, no matter what you call it. Her body is stressed out to the max, her immune system is not 100%, and herpes will come out and become active during this period. So will fungal infections (Candida), and other common viruses like rhino viruses (colds) etc. It just never seems to end until your counts go back up, and your immune system kicks back in. There is no such thing as a viracide. We do not have the technology to kill viruses. The most that we can do is use drugs which suppress their activity.

The doctors should be monitoring her nutritional intake and body weight. There is a point where they should step in. I cannot tell you where this is for her, but they absolutely should be on top of this. If the anti virals work, she may be able to get enough Ensure or other nutritional liquids down each day to not use the tube.