I am caregiver to my husband, Doug, 54 years old. He completed his chemo (5FU 4x; Carboplatin 2x; Docetaxel 2x)on 3/29/06 and radiation (36x) on 5/1/06. Between 2/28/06 when he started treatment and 4/1/06, he only drank an occasional Ensure or milkshake with no other nutrition. On 3/7, he began getting fluids periodically at the cancer center. From 4/1/06 to 4/21/06, he could not drink anything but water, so he had no nutrition. After spending a week in the hospital with no radiation or chemo treatments, they started him on 24 hour TPN administered through his Mediport. By this time he had lost about 35 pounds. It has now been 7 weeks since he ended treatment and he is still at a constant Level 9 pain despite 150 mcg Fentanyl patches, 1.5 ML Morphine sulphate as needed every 2-4 hours, and Viscous Lidocaine swish every 2 hours. He can barely open his mouth and can only speak for a few minutes without increasing his pain intensity. He can drink a little cold water, but only if he slides it down one side between his teeth and cheek. If it hits his tongue it is excruciating. He sleeps about 22 hours per day, only getting up to use the restroom, change the TPN, and check his work emails. When he sleeps, he often talks in his sleep and picks at unseen things with his hands. He also jerks alot in his sleep. When we tried reducing the pain medicine, he couldn't tolerate the pain (not that I consider Level 9 tolerable, but it's better than a 10). He had fevers off and on during treatment and was treated with antibiotics. Any activity at all causes vomiting which is only dry heaves with bile given his empty stomach. This in turn makes his tongue pain even worse. We have had difficulty controlling the nausea given that the anti-anxiety components of the nausea drugs send him over the top with hallucinations. Since 5/27, he has had a total of 17 days Levaquin drip due to high fevers (sometimes above 103). They cultured around his Mediport site to check for infection, but cultures were negative. Dr. decided to take the Mediport out anyway on 6/9 as a precaution. They put in a PICC line so we can continue to administer TPN. We were hopeful that the fevers would stop, but they didn't. He has had fevers over 103 in the past 72 hours. Tylenol suppositories do break the fever and usually bring it down for at least 24 hours. A chest X-ray about 3 weeks ago was negative. He spits up yellow-colored mucous constantly, which causes further tongue pain. The at-home suction machine did not work well for him because he needs it every few minutes and it was so noisy and needed constant changing of the bucket due to heavy use. His pre-treatment counseling was limited, consisting of some brochures, etc. He cannot brush his teeth and does not have fluoride trays. He does swish his mouth every couple hours with a solution of sterile water with baking soda and salt. During treatment he tried GelClair, but now it burns too much to use. He uses BMX solution sparingly but only directly on his tongue. If he swishes with it, he gags. He also tried the Biotene Oral Balance liquid to increase his saliva, but that didn't seem to help. A CT scan on 6/12 showed the lymph node had shrunk to normal size, there was scarring and thickening of throat tissue, but no apparent abscess. He cannot get his mouth open wide enough for a visual exam of his throat, but his tongue and cheeks do not appear to have thrush. Needless to say, he is very discouraged that there has not been incremental improvement after 7 weeks. The doctors had told him to expect improvement after a week or two. I can see from the other postings on the site that this was probably wishful thinking on our part. The oncologist told us that Doug has had worse side effects than any other patient with the exception of one older gentleman. Not exactly comforting. Doug is still employed, but is concerned as to how long his employer can hold on when there seems to be no re-start date. This concerns us as well due to all the medical bills. A year ago, Doug had planned a once-in-a-lifetime golf trip to play all the old courses in Scotland, including St. Andrews, with three golf buddies. During the intensity of his treatment, he still expected to make the trip and this gave him courage to keep plugging along. Last week he finally realized that he had to cancel the trip which was to start next week. Now he is extra discouraged. Thankfully we both have a strong faith and that is what keeps us both going. I am sorry for such a long post, but I wanted to put all the information out there. I am hopeful that someone can give us some tips to get him started on the road to recovery. Thank you already for all the tips that I have gleaned from 4-5 hours of reading old posts.