I'm doing pretty well, I suppose. My taste buds are mostly back, mucositis is mostly gone, and those suffocating saliva balls no longer exist. I am still having tough tome eating normal foods.

Part of the reason is that I still have pain on the side where radiation was stronger, and it hurts to eat. I do eat, and I supplement with ensure, but it hurts as if I was pouring salt on an open wound. The doctors say everything looks fine. It doesn't feel fine. My gums near the flap hurt, floor of the mouth under the flap hurts, and the flap itself that should have no sensation whatsoever stings. I'm off the patch and take just a few percosets a day (amusing that FDA panel recommended today banning it, but I don't care), 2-3.

Somehow I thought that by now I'll be all healed. Is this pain normal? I don't when to start worrying. I am on monthly visits to oncologists and the surgeon, so nobody is due
to see me for another couple of weeks.

Also, they are scheduling me for the PET scan for the second half of July. If I'm still in pain, does it mean that something will light up on the scan even if it's not cancer, but a spot that is still healing? I don't quite understand how it would work.