The funny thing is given the effects of radiation on your throat I thought it would force me to quit smoking. Nope. Smoked through the entire treatment and still do. 45 year old habits die hard.
This is not an attack on you, please don't take it in that way.
This flabbergasts me. I have no doubt that you are an intelligent person. There is so much information available about the harmful effects of smoking and the increased risk of cancer from smoking, and you have personal experience with the evil of cancer and cancer treatments yet you continue to smoke. There is much support and help to quit smoking. I too was a smoker for about 15 years, I quit in '87. I just decided one day I was done, smoked the last two in my last pack and haven't smoked since then. You can quit. Why do people continue to smoke?
For you guys that don't know, the treatment for cancer is almost as bad as the cancer itself.
I had a tumor in my right tonsil. I received 33 radiation treatments - once a day, 5 days a week for 6 1/2 weeks. I also had two chemo treatments 21 days apart that started on the same day as the first rad treatment. The chemo is a poison injected into your vein. I had nausea, my kidneys had decreased function, my red and white blood cells were dramatically reduced (enough that I was admitted to the hospital for 3 days) which increases risk of infection/illness, I had some hearing loss and still have tinitus. The radiation burns the tissues inside the mouth and throat. The tongue and mouth were very painful. I was unable to eat or drink and had a tube put into my stomach. I lost 34 pounds. For about a month I didn't use my mouth...now I have reduced range of motion and pain in the jaw. Before the radiation treatment started all of my molars were extracted. This is done to prevent future issues. The radiation damages the bone and reduces blood flow to the area, if a tooth should become impacted there is great risk of infection in the jaw bone with resultant loss of the jaw bone. I lost all sense of taste and in fact everything, including water, tasted bad. Even now 8 months post treatment things still do not taste the same. Some things are "ok" but nothing is like before, now eating is simply nourishment, it isn't something enjoyable. The radiation damage to the salivary glands means I will forever have a dry mouth so now I carry a water bottle and mouth moisturizer everywhere I go. Cancer is forever.
I wish you luck bald eagle.
