David, thanks for the advice. Mom is in her 5th week of radiation/Erbitux. She's down to 101 lbs. Last week she had enough of the pain and asked her rad. dr. about it - he said "what do you expect me to do?" Can't believe he said that. She told him she didn't know what she expected/she didn't know what was available. He gave her something that starts with Calph??? to swish around in her mouth for the pain and she said it works good. Don't know why he didn't give it to her weeks ago!!!! Also, she doesn't have a port so when they went to put in the IV last week for chemo they had a ROUGH time. Got the best two ladies in the place and they had to try 4-5 times before they got in. She only has one more chemo for now so they won't put one in for that, of course. However, she said the dr. may want her to continue with the Erbitux for "awhile" after radiation is done - we'll find out July 1st if that will happen and for how long. I'm going w/them and we're talking about a port! I learned a big lesson if I ever get cancer - I'm getting one of those. The lady also said she was surprised that Mom didn't have a feeding tube. Mom asked the rad. dr. about that too and all he said was "you do know that is a surgical procedure?" Needless to say, I'm so impressed with this guy. And... he never smiles. I have a question for you. The lady told my mom that feeding tubes were usually permanent because they make a hole in your stomach and they can't really go in and stitch it up. Isn't there a temporary feeding tube available???