Hey Mate - if you mean foaming like .. you know, a dog with rabies .. not really. Head & Neck radiation messes up your saliva glands, no doubt.  For me, saliva production was dramatically reduced, and yeah I certainly sometimes / often have bubbly saliva … but foaming to me is a bit stronger than just bubbly …  Mucus in the airways is a constant thing, and spitting up gross stuff and bubbles is a routine day-to-day deal, even years later.   One of the best advices to help with abnormal saliva is to drink plenty of water and do it regularly .. it helps stimulate saliva product a little but it also helps the body feel lubricated and the natural gravity work better (things don't get as clogged up with slime in the pipes). It's a mess mate, and parking aside any specific symptom, I think where you are is very normal … for me, the experience looked a bit like this: - first few weeks of treatment:  I don't feel any different, this may be easier than I thought - then the first hit of chemo:  oh shit, my taste .. its going, I *feel* it .. haha so weird (ahh I wish I'd gone on one last all-you-can-eat seafood frenzy) - later weeks of treatment:  holy crap, these side effects really are stacking up, the burns, the mucus, everything .. just gotta hang in there First month after treatment: oh man oh man .. will this stuff ever go away ?  These side effects are intensifying not fading !  This lasts for a few months, the fretful worrying "is this normal ? when will this end??" The next few months that followed, things started to ease of. Six months later you're getting a sense of the new normal. Three years later you're realising that some of the side effects may be companions for life, but you're less stressed about it, you adapt and keep plugging forward. ... View more

Hey Jen - worrying about cancer recurrence after treatment is one of those rabbit holes that pretty much everyone is destined to fall into.  Don't let the fear knock you over, tackle it headlong, it's just another symptom of the disease and treatment.  (A lousy one). If there's a bump, diligently follow the diagnostic process.  If the doc says its nerve damage or inflammation, take heart from that.   When you've had head & neck cancer, it's unlike many of the other types .. they blast the apparatus you use to breathe, eat, drink & speak with radiation and saturate you with toxic chemicals.  It's a mess.  But yeah, the radiation can do some pretty serious damage to important parts of your body like your thyroid. For contrast - I'm 3 years out of treatment, and I have daily pain in one form or another.  I have weird lumps that form in my neck (and go away) as well as a hard little nodule in my left neck lymph node. And it's all OK. Despite the worry that the nodule was cancer related, it's my submandibular salivary gland, and it's shrivelled and scarred (destroyed might be a better word) by the radiation. Lean on your doctors, articulate your worries, and if they say something isn't serious, take heart. That's my advice. Best of luck to you ... View more

Hey Bill - mate I can directly relate to your situation, and can offer some comfort .. I went through the same kind of thing (honestly I think mine was a bit worse) and it got better.  You just need to be patient with yourself.  Honestly, the fact that you can take anything by mouth at this point is great.  My advice would be .. stick to water, but instead of 1x per week, make it 2x per day (or as much frequency as you can tolerate).  If water is no longer a struggle, move on to light soup (not chunky, just liquid, like basically beef stock and water).  repeat .. if you're taking that a few times a day, you're well and truly on the road, it's just going to be a couple of weeks before you can eat real foods (just stick with stuff that's soft and moist at first and experiment from there). I'm 3 years out, and the dry mouth and saliva problems .. well, they haven't really gone away .. but as the other side effects start to erode, everything becomes less daunting and more manageable.   Straight out of treatment, it's a waiting game.  If your mind starts restlessly ranging into the future "when will this end ?"  "what next", I'd urge you to just reel it back into the NOW, distract yourself a bit and get through it .. if you allow another few weeks to pass, you'll feel at least somewhat better .. every week that drifts past is a win.  The big enemy is cancer recurrence, so if you need to look toward the future, keep your eyes on that prize and visualise that scan at 3 years out where the doctor says "there's no evidence of cancer in your body, recurrence from this point forward is very unlikely"   Sorry, sounds like you got some bad info from your doctors, I'd rather get bad expectations and be pleasantly surprised.  So actually, maybe don't shape your expectations too much around what they say.  But yeah, look forward to that 3 year mark .. 3 and 5 years means you can buy one of those "I BEAT CANCER (and all I got was this lousy t-shirt)" t-shirts. ... View more

Hi Mate I don't have any concrete advice, but I do think it'll be a subtle thing to navigate through. Throat cancer after being a long term smoker, I think there's nuance to the way people react to that. With cancer, and mortality in general, most people don't really have the tools at the ready to cope with the situation, so they kinda have to whack things together on the spot.  You get a lot of weird reactions. And I reckon it's a chance for prejudice to come out, and maybe some anger ? (But I also reckon the angrier someone gets, the more they love you, so keep that in mind) It'll be a tricky thing to navigate through, I reckon, but I could be wrong. You're the one with the life-threatening disease, you get to put yourself first and do what is best and healthiest for you --- but me personally, I'd probably take the path of careful disclosure in one-on-one conditions. If someone wants to vent or cry or whatever, you let them, even though you're the one who is sick, you may also need to be the one who is strong. I've seen cancer patients outside the hospital, smoking, directly under NO SMOKING signs. Honestly, I felt a surge of disgust and quasi-anger at that.  I was fighting for my own life, my cancer brought about by bad luck - and these people were given a chance at survival, and still smoking, like a bunch of lemmings heedless about the oncoming cliff, you know ? I reckon the people who care about you will carry some of that anger and bad feeling, and I just wanted to write this stuff down in case it helps you to prepare for unexpected reactions, mate. Cancer is an absolute shit show, no matter the flavour, no matter the context, family situation, everbody gets it tough.  But I think your situation has that extra layer of trickiness to it. People might tell you "you brought this on yourself", and use that anger and fear to justify running away - as human beings we all tend to leap to judgement instead of understanding. Me ?  I've never smoked in my life, but I reckon ten years ago you were immortal.  You probably knew smoking was bad for you .. but .. c'mon.  You're immortal.  If that's totally off the mark, sorry. Sounds from your post like you're taking it on the chin and have strength and maturity in how you're adapting to the situation (good on you).  It's not over yet, you need the strength and resources to fight, and ideally the support of loved ones. Tell them, and hope for the best, is my two cents.  But do it one on one and if they get stuck on the smoking bit, help them to process it and push through that into the love and support space where you need them to be. Cancer is a shit show 😕 ... View more

Hey Mate   Unknown primary cancer must be stressful as hell.  One of the worst side effects of cancer is the fear and stress, the uncertainty of it all.  That continues long after the primary disease has been fought, and the battle won.   It's outside my experience - my cancer was serious, but *known*.  For me it raises all kinds of speculations - like .. if they don't know exactly where the cancer is, how do they target the therapies ?  For my radiation treatment, they had to build a special mask, and precisely target the areas that would get blasted (and even with the careful targeting, I still suffer a lot of damage and loss of regional function.   My only suggestion is to put faith in your doctors and try and mitigate your stress and worry - at the end of the day it's all outside your control.  The doctors suggest an optimal treatment pathway and your decision is to follow it, or not.  Aside from that, when dealing with cancer, I think most of it is about maintaining a positive outlook and retaining hope & quality of life.   I'm 3 years out of treatment now.  My doctor tells me I'm OK and there's a good chance the cancer won't come back. But I have these horrible cramps and mushy lumps in the side of my neck.  It's pretty ghastly sometimes - the doctor kind of dismisses them as damage and underperforming lymph nodes.  Just a side effect of the fight.  OK.  I have little choice but to trust in that.  If I fail to inject my trust into that opinion, it only costs me sleepless nights, fretting, worrying about the kids, all that stuff.  It doesn't change the outcome either way.  So for me, parking my mental health into a very specific posture is important, and I think that probably applies to most patients.   Regrettably we just have pretty much no control over the outcomes, all we can do is help with general scaffolding - make our general health as good as we can, that kind of stuff ...   Sorry, I know it's shit advice, distilled down to "try not to worry about it"    But it's all I've got ?    Mate, I sympathise, it's a shit show no matter what angle you come at it .. for me the worst part were points in the diagnostic process and post-treatment process where I have worries about cancer, but just don't know the details of my situation.  The not knowing and waiting was torturous.   I really sympathise, but I'm sorry I don't think I have any other concrete suggestions. ... View more

I have one friend.  Yep, one.   By choice.   Estranged from broader family, also by choice.     I have three kids and a happy wife, and we share mutual adoration, so I feel supremely, utterly lucky.   And yet cancer has isolated me like nothing else.   It does that to you, it's an insidious disease, it's greedier than most diseases in that it wants to take everything from you.  Your sense of place, permanence, hope.   The thing is, any aspect of the disease can be fought.   Clinically, you appear to have a surgical solution.  Yep, it's scary - but it's a pathway that will (fingers crossed) get rid of the cancer or prolong your life.   Loneliness and Isolation ?  Likewise, that has a pathway.  There are professionals who can help, or there are peers who have gone through or are going through the same thing, and I'm sure some of them would be willing to pick up a phone and maybe form a new friendship.   You're still alive, you're still viable, there's hope.  Don't allow cancer to eat away at your hope, if it's inside you, try and stay solution focussed.  I know it's hard.   Can't sleep ?  Exercise more at night before bed. Can't exercise ?  Do other non-physical work to occupy your brain. No work ?  Try reading or computer games.   You know what I mean … isolate any given problem and navigate to some kind of strategy to solve it.   Even if you fail, in the trying, you'll feel better and more in control.   All the best. ... View more

I'm sorry, but you need to plant your feet, grit your teeth, and find the fighter inside you.  You need to wake her up and shake her up.   I know it's ghastly.  We've all been through it or something like it.  I have daily pain, and a laundry list of pretty gross, uncomfortable problems as a result of my treatment (3 years ago, mind you, but the problems persist to this day).   The thing is, life holds future moments for you.  Joys, anticipated or suprising.  Little moments.     Pain and suffering are finite.    So is life.   If the doctors are right and the treatment is necessary, then it's a simple transaction - the more suffering now, the longer you live.   Cutting your treatment short is risking that you may lose out on some of those future sweet moments.   The fighter in me can't stand hearing that.  He's poking the fighter in you, trying to taunt her to stand up and go just one more round.  And then, when you feel like giving up, standing up again and going one round more.   Please.  Don't give up.  It's hard.  Of course it is.  But you can find strength inside you, it's there.   Chemo is an absolute fucking mess.  It's poison, toxin.  And if we trust the doctors (and I guess we must) it also is saving / prolonging your life.   It's your life, it's your choice - just don't give up hope, and if there's a fight that you have a chance of winning, I urge you to do your best, even if it's hard. ... View more

Hi Mate   I don't think it is supposed to intensify, but it will never go away.   The more you think about it, the worse it gets, distraction is your best friend.   Listening to music, watching TV - it's gone .. it's drowned out along with other ambient sounds.     Alone in a dark room, thinking about it .. it can become like a ghastly constant buzz in the back of your brain.  Maddening.   I think the key to managing it is to try and push it out of your mind, and when you notice it, distract yourself with other things.   Practical tip - sleeping with a fan on is helpful.  (Or other white noise maker) ... View more

Hey There - I think weight loss is a common early sign for cancer of the stomach, lung & pancreas.   If I can share my perspective on your post - diagnosing yourself with cancer is a mug's game.  It's a lose-lose scenario.  The best thing to do is suspend any emotional stake in the matter until you complete the diagnostic process, and approach that diagnostic process with all diligence.   Weight loss can also be due to an internal parasite, a thyroid problem, all kinds of medical stuff.  Don't diagnose yourself with them either.   If you have cancer, find out, and do what you can about it.   Fretting now, when you really have no idea one way or t'other, doesn't help you in any way.  If your future self could travel back through time, they'd give you one of two messages:   "Stupid, you were wetting your pants over NOTHING.   Don't forget to enjoy your life, anxiety is a slippery slope and you can't get those wasted hours of fretting and suffering back"   OR   "It was cancer, and it was a horrible fight, but I won.  What helped me through it was keeping a forceful, positive outlook - focussing on succeeding with treatment.  The thing I regret most is sometimes forgetting to squeeze as much joy out of life as I could"   No matter what the situation, the anxiety only hurts you - if you have the tools, try and fight it.  If you don't have the tools, ask for help with managing it.   Just my two cents, sorry if it's off-track or offensive in any way, I wish you only the best of luck.   Hopefully you're in the clear.   ... View more

I think the not knowing, and the waiting to know - those are the hardest parts.   I was quite sure the cancer had metastasized throughout my body and that I was a goner - but it turns out it hadn't.  It was in the local lymph nodes but luckily had not progressed further.   Just now I've been convinced the cancer has come back, because I have these neck & face cramps and spasms, and these odd lumps, as well as a little pea sized nodule under my jaw.  I was certain it's cancer.  The nodule is apparently scar tissue from my submandibular salivary gland which suffered damage from the radiation, and all the lumps and swelling are underperforming lymph nodes (also due to radiation damage).   Self diagnosis doesn't help, because I think that people tend to take the grimmest outlook - best to not think about it until you know.  I think it's a handy skill to compartmentalise - put cancer in a little box in your mind, and only pull it out and look at it when it's productive to do so (like when you are armed with the proper clinical info from your doctors).  In any case, sorry things are so hard - I hope that the cancer is treatable and that 2020 is a good year, a year of treatment and recovery, with many more to follow after it.  Best of luck. ... View more