Hi Brett,

Survival is measured from the moment you wake up in the morning, and starts again the next morning. :p

The doctors opinion of survival starts at the end of your treatments. That is a bit confusing though, because it is possible the surgeon got all of it during surgery. Therefore the survival starts as soon as he sews you up. On the other hand it may have been half way through your radiation when the last crummy cancer cell was fried. So your radiation Oncologist will take credit and the timing starts from the end of radiation. Of course nobody knows for sure.

The scar tissue and the radiated areas will have pain that comes and goes. My tongue has pain much like muscle stiffness (I found that stretching my tongue out helps but it looks pretty funny) neck pains come and go with the wind....and the snow....and sun....and stress....and well you get the idea. Sometimes I'll get a burning sensation in my neck muscles that I want to do stretching, but the stretching makes it worse. When that gets bad for more than a day I take Diazepam (prescription). It helps within the hour. Generally I do neck limbering excercises all the time. I now have most of my neck mobility back.

Thrush/yeast infections are common their symptoms vary and many doctors will claim you don't have it because it is not always visable like it would be in a person with normal salivia. A burning or itching sensation, worse with some foods and sometimes a coating or visable film on your tongue or other tissues. I knew when I was having an attack (literal since they are living creatures) when the burning started and I would loose some sense of taste (hard to describe but kind of a dulling of taste sensation). I used NYSTATIN in a mixture called a "swish". Make sure your prescription calls for non-sugar base. If you think you have thrush, get the swish. Nystatin is nearly harmless unless you are a yeast cell, and it worked quickly for me. I still keep a bottle just in case (although I have less problems as time goes on). The Diflucan is a powerful systemic drug and can cause nasty side effects. Reserve that for a really stubborn case. We have had many good discussions about thrush here which you can search out and read (use the "search" click word and type yeast or thrush)

As always, check with your doctor about anything that bothers you.