Hi Deb,

Welcome to OCF. As you will have already found there are many people on this site who have been through, or are going through the same procedures as you.

I had a left selective neck dissection on the 12th May and had 39 nodes removed. Although I have had no shoulder problems, or pain around the collar bone area I did have a rock hard, bumpy neck afterwards. I had (and still have) areas of numbness and other spots that were hypersensitive (the hypersensitivity has now gone). I still have oedema under my chin.

I finished a six week course of radiation and chemotherapy on Friday (25th July) and, although I could never tell anyone it was easy, it is doable. I think that you need to go into it with a positive frame of mind and a 'take each day as it comes' kind of attitude. I was fastidious about my nutrition and hydration and I think that staying on top of these things helped me deal with it and hopefully will give me a speedy recovery.

My radiotherapy sessions lasted, at most, 15 minutes and of that time I was only being zapped for about 5 minutes. I found that the time spent in the mask went quickly especially if they had good music playing. I would sort of go into a bit of a meditative trance while it was happening. As for side effects -I have had some but not all! I have a severely ulcerated mouth (this started from week 2) and my skin was fine for the first 5 weeks but started peeling and splitting in the final week. Hopefully these things will resolve themselves in the next two weeks.

My mouth is somewhat dry but I do have some saliva and will have to keep my fingers crossed as to the long term effects. My taste buds have been affected - everything I eat has a chemical taste - but I'm not sure if this is because of the chemo or the radiotherapy. I hope that this goes SOON! Also watch out for constipation - believe it, or not, this caused me the single most amount of grief of any other side effect.

There are probably lots of other things that I could tell you and if you have any specific questions I am happy to answer them. I did not have to have a PEG or naso-gastric tube, but I did have to numb my mouth frequently so that I could eat and drink.

My teeth were checked by a dental oncologist before I started my treatment and he didn't make any recommendation to have my amalgam fillings changed. I think that I had two or three in the radiated area.

You can do this!

Sue