Hi Bowser,
Welcome to OCF forum. I am so sorry for what you and your husband are going through. I saw a question about handling mucous and this one about general support following treatment. The answers will depend on the diagnosis and treatment. Please advise where the cancer was found? what stage? surgery? If so, scope of surgery? radiation treatment? Chemo?
For me, I had stage 4 cancer on my tongue, they removed half of my tongue, all nodes same side of neck, rebuilt my tongue with flesh from my forearm, got a trach tube for breathing, nasal feeding tube until I healed enough to eat through my mouth, then about 6 weeks after surgery, I got radiation treatment.
I will offer my experience with mucous management. Mucous was an issue mostly during my stay at hospital as I recovered from surgery. Nurses would come suction out the blockage, through the trach hole in my neck, to clear my throat as needed. Sometimes multiple times an hour. By the time I went home, in my second week of recovery, they gave me an at home suction machine that worked fairly well but I was no longer choking on it. AT home, I would suction the back of my throat carefully fairly often. They provided me the small tubes etc to deal with this at home but, again, at home it was not nearly as bad. I taught one of my sons and wife what the nurses did in case I had major blockage like in the hospital.
Hope this helps. Please keep reaching out with questions.
Best,
Nels
