My husband had squamous cell at the base of the tongue. He was diagnosed in December 2001 and was treated with both chemo and radiation from Jan. through early March 2002. He had one really bad week in the middle of treatment and almost died (infection, radiation burns, no white cell count). His neck dissection was April 22, 2002. Right now he is cancer free they say (he's had two check ups)but he still feels pretty bad a lot of the time. Tongue gets thick at night and hurts. Also he has what the docs referred to as a turkey gobbler neck from the radiation. Has anyone got any suggestions about that. Sometimes it seems swollen and kinda hard. He had a cold right now. Do you treat it just like you would if he had not had all that awful treatment? It's so hard to know what to do most of the time. I love to read all the posts on this site and have really gained a lot of insight into what this disease is all about. The permanent damage from radiation is probabaly the worst.

If you have been through many of the older posts here (you can set the number of them at the top of each page up to

I agree with Brian. He needs to give himself some
time to feel better. I'm 11 years out of radiation and still having problems from it. But I'm alive and can talk about it and enjoy life. I think radiation was the worst for me, landed in the hosiptal a couple of times because of it. Now my teeth are falling apart but that's a whole 'nother story. Hope your husband feels better real soon. Cath