Hi Raymond - Sometimes you have to try different things for the nausea until you find the one that works for you. Keep checking with the doctor. My son wasn't able to drink very much in the beginning and I had to keep reminding him. It is very important to keep drinking water and other liquids, too. It will help you to keep your energy up so that you can take in more nutrition. It's good you are able to drink Boost and the Smoothies. Small sips, as often as you can can help keep the nausea down. My son started with Chicken broth and Chicken noodle soup. At first he would hardly touch the noodles and I would add extra broth to the noodles. Eventually he got to eating all the noodles and the broth. My son ate softly scrambled eggs, too and tapioca. I know the draining tubes must really suck! What my son did was put a purple tie around his neck and attach the tubes to each end of the tie with small safety pins so that the tubes would not flop around. The drainage tubes are there to help keep the swelling down. And if there is enough drainage, then they can be removed. My son had only one removed at first and the other one came later. Hang in there, Raymond. Everything will get better.

Hi Raymond, Jack hated the drainage tubes too but they are helping your swelling too. You should see improvement within 4-6 weeks but it can take months to completely resolve. As long as it is getting better and not worse you are going in the right direction.

You're probably not restricted on trying any foods at this point - it's the consistency that will give you trouble. Ann Marie is right about soups and there are lots of choices there. You can put just about anything in the blender as long as you add water to get it to a consistency that you can tolerate. I remember blending up Dinty Moore beef stew for Jack just to give him variety. You will only be able to tolerate small amounts of whatever you're trying and that's normal too. The goal is to get nutrition. Right now you want to stick with liquid, blended, and soft foods but there are a lot of them. You can also make protein shakes, they sell protein powder that can be added to all kinds of things.

Early on we got the Easy to Chew Easy to Swallow cookbook from this website and it was very helpful in giving us ideas. Don't forget that you also need to drink 2 quarts of water every day, believe it or not it helps with the nausea. Dehydration causes all kinds of nasty symptoms.

You've had major surgery so being sore etc in the first 6 weeks is normal. Your body is recovering from a trauma and you can't get around that. It just takes time but one day Jack woke up and he wasn't as sore and he wasn't having any nausea - and that's what will happen with you. It's miserable but doable. Are you having radiation or chemo?

Glad to see your post,
JoAnne

Raymond, I have sent you a long email, but I wanted to be sure you got it. You have weathered your first week. Hooray! That will be the hardest. Tell us what you found out about the neck nodes and whether or not you will need to undergo radiation.

You know that we are all pulling for you and are ready to answer any questions that you have. Stay close by!