59 Food

15 December 2016

Today was feedback in Ottawa from the speech and language pathologist (S&LP) and the radiation oncologist (RO). The waiting room was crowded and I was hungry so I asked for a wheelchair with an IV post so I could hang my food bag and drip feed while hiding in a side corridor away from the crowd.


We met first with the S&LP and she said that in the swallowing test one week ago, she had observed some sensory and motor difficulty. A small amount of aspiration was also present in all of the tests. She believed that the origin of the problem was damage to the vagus nerve either in surgery or from the radiation. Since the problem seemed to start after 3 weeks of radiation I suspect that the radiation was the cause. She believed more time with the feeding tube was needed and she scheduled another swallowing test for the 10th January.

We then met with the RO and he used a scope to have a look down my throat. Inserting the probe through my nose was quite painful so I had my eyes closed and failed to notice the view on the monitor. Cheryl watched the whole journey and could see that the area in my throat that had been irradiated was  still very inflamed and swollen and there was lots of mucous. Just a little farther on everything looked very healthy and there was no sign of infection. The RO agreed that more recovery time from the radiation was needed before removal of the feeding tube. The rapid healing of the skin on my neck had given me the false impression that the healing was progressing well in all areas. So, no turkey for me at Christmas.

Our daughter Katherine arrives tomorrow for 2 weeks and our son Michael will be home next Thursday for a week so the best part of Christmas will be having all 4 of us together - sorry 5 (Blaze).