How do you manage , after treatment i only seem to be on this site whingeing and moaning about something , i don't think i am any help to any one else out there unless they search like i do for various problems , anyway i am now 7 weeks out of treatment and have forced myself to eat as normal as possible for the past 3 weeks so i have not used the peg i lost three and a half stone during treatment and have put about 10 lbs back on do you ever get back to your normal weight and how long does it take ?. i still get a bit of mucus now and then usually late at night but i can cope with it, stopped taking the pain killers (i was worried that i would become addicted to morphine as i liked the effects even though it did not ease the pain ) my voice has altered i always had a very deep voice now its even deeper which i find worrying, (is the cancer spreading ) and where they gave me some extra heavy doses of radiation to destroy the cancer in a lymph node my tongue is still sore and bleeds now and then i worry about this as well , i find now that it is now harder to cope with cancer than when i was going through the treatment and i am making my wife life a misery with the what if questions , she is sick of hearing me say do you think because my voice is deeper its a bad sign ? and look at my tongue, i know i should not do this but i cannot stop myself i also have no saliva at all does this ever come back ? sorry to appear very negative but this sight has been very helpful in the past so i lean on it again , just to end i would like to thank Cookey for all her help i was so sorry to here of her loss, it brought it all home to me as i believe i am very much like Robin,as my wife says you must be getting better as you can now drink again (only Guinness in moderation ) and long for a cigarette ( i gave up when i found i had cancer ) well god bye for now i see my consultant in 2 days time and will ask him these questions and let you know the answers he gives (i also hope he will give me a date for peg removal .

Hey Allan

Sounds to me like you're doing just fine for only being 7 weeks out.

For myself, I am out @ 7

Al,

Your doing fine. What you are feeling is totally normal. Everyone feels that way as things start getting back to normal.

Dont be afraid to ask questions, your scared and you want to know if the treatment tok hold.

Personally, I cried a lot. I am a big hairy man and around the 7 week period I started to cry like a girl for the smallest reasons. I goes away as well. Good job on the eating thing. Keep on eating as much as you can.

Saliva, I am almost 4 years out, and have a little but not much. Drink a lot of water, thats all you can do.

It took a while to gain the weight back but I did in about 6 months.

I lost 60lbs myself.

Good things my friend.

Al, be patient. Rome may have burned in a day but it was'nt built in one. I am 3 months post tx and have not put on any weight yet. I lost 40 pounds and could not afford to. I am 6 feet 7 inches and was quite confortable at 220 pounds. I now weigh 183 and feel like I am as skinny as a rail. My throat is still tender and I still watch what I eat. I miss my saliva being what it was but as Kevin said keep the water bottle handy. I teach and so my mouth goes dry quick from all the talking I do. So the water bottle is no big deal. The sores on the tounge are about all gone but some foods will remind me of where they were. So see, it just takes time to recover so give yourself plenty of it. After all, you have a chance for the reest of your life now so make the best of it. God Bless. Bill

Hi Al, You're doing fine and good for you for giving up the cigarettes and reducing your Guinness intake to moderation. That's the best thing to do to help the treatment work. My husband didn't drink beer before his cancer but he married into an Irish family that was a little snobby about the Guinness - needs to be poured properly, just the right temperature, and the like. Ironically, it was one of the only things that he could taste right after treatment - maybe my sainted grandmother was right that it does have medicinal properties - in moderation.

His saliva got better but it took many months. Be patient with yourself, they say you should give it one month of recovery for every week of treatment. Jack is now 1 year post treatment and doing well. They removed the peg tube about 10 weeks after treatment ended. I think they look to see that you can swallow good enough to keep your weight constant and then it can come out. Things get better as time goes on and you adjust to a new normal. Not the same as your life before but not necessarily bad.

Yes it is harder after treatment ends and I think that's because it's the first chance you've had to think about it. Over time you learn to pace yourself and at some point you stop thinking that every little thing is a recurrence of the cancer...but that's a process. It was all a big raw nerve at the point you are at now, all we could think about was the what ifs. Both Jack and I were pretty annoying back then and making ourselves crazy.

Have you had the experience yet of going out somewhere and when the waiter asks how are you this evening you give a long, rambling answer about the cancer? It's embarassing when you realize you should have just stopped at "fine".

So how do we manage? One day and one scare at a time. Some days go better than others. When you find yourself having a good one, appreciate it. When you find yourself having a bad one, go to bed early and forget about it. You don't choose to get cancer, but you can choose how you react to it and how much time and energy you really want to give it. Don't miss out on the good times that are right in front of you because you're worried about things that haven't happened yet.

It is what it is Al, the beauty of this site is that you can interact with people who are further along. In the meantime, ask away, talk to the doctors and give yourself time to heal. Don't think that you have nothing to contribute to others here, you've stopped smoking and drinking - that might inspire someone else who is struggling. Most importantly, stay on your wife's good side. We all need the people we love.

Regards JoAnne

Thanks for the boost your responce has made me feel a lot better i saw my consultant today and i am going in for a MRI scan tommorow he says it looks like the treatment has been succesfull and the MRI scan will confirm it. so fingers crossed for the right result as soon as i know i will post it ,bye for now Allan

Thanks for the boost your response has made me feel a lot better i saw my consultant today and i am going in for a MRI scan tomorrow he says it looks like the treatment has been successful and the MRI scan will confirm it. so fingers crossed for the right result as soon as i know i will post it ,bye for now Allan

Hi Allan,
i'm a brit to!
For me, i got so frustrated after treatment. & for a moment i didn't see any signs of things improving until 12 weeks after R/T. I thought - great! this is me!
You kind of notice things retrospectively. Every week i notice little changes. Even now, 8 months since i finnished treatment.
Patience, easier said than done! But you WILL turn a corner.
I think we need to be a little less harsh on ourselves!
Take care,
Michelle

Cheers everybody , and thanks for your support i saw my consultant on Wednesday and had a scan on thurs ,he said every thing is all OK and i am healing very quick ,and should be very pleased , and told me i was expecting to much he said i must remember i am getting over cancer and not a cold , now where have i heard that one before ,i wonder if he reads this site , so i feel a bit better he has told me not to expect to much and it will take another 6 months to feel a lot better , ie hair growing back, beard growing back and saliva ( i dream of saliva ) so my next target is to eat a sandwich , what a great site and what fantastic people on it ,without this site this unbelievable disease would have been a lot worse , thanks Allan

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