Hi Vin,

I was diagnosed with tongue cancer in early 2005 also. I am almost 5 months out of treatment (same treatment). It does get better and I suspect for your family member it will get better sooner rather than later. For me it took about 3 and 1/2 months for the mucous to mostly go away but I still gag on little balls of mucous that end up on my throat once in a while. I still have to spit out gobs of mucous once or twice a day and at night.

A couple of things I found somewhat helpful are sleeping with my head raised at night--the mucous tends to not catch as much in my throat and is easier to just swallow it, and taking Tussin syrup with Guafenisen (I may have spelled that slightly wrong). I also have a PEG tube and the syrup can just be poured through the tube. There are also Mucinex tablets which have the same ingredient and last longer but they are large and need to be swallowed whole which I found next to impossible and your family member may too. The Tussin syrup lasts about 4 hours though, and makes the mucous less thick. I took it at night for a couple of months to help me get some sleep.

Good luck to your fmaily member, perhaps they'd like to look at this site and talk to other people here who have been through it so they don't feel so alone--it's a long gradual recovery!

Nelie