hi josk, lilyann here. my goodness, thank you for telling us about your journey. i am so glad that you took the time to tell us as its hard because of all you went through. thing is; no one tells you this when you start your journey. you find out things down the road. you are going through a lot more than me and the time span is something else (really lack of words) you have put everything in perspective so well. i agree with the panic, when i was told i have to do this and that and then we will start this and that and next thing you know my brain couldn't handle it and i am not too sure i was close to a breakdown. so it sounds again like you are a lot stronger than me. i sure hate it for you and that comes from the heart. i do have the hearing loss, trouble swallowing and liquids are the worst. neck and ear pain, goes up the back of my head. have to lay down. yes, we come to a point of "acceptance" it is our new normal. so now i got something "new" that happened to me today.........i have a 4 unit bridge .......front teeth........thank god for masks. they fell out..........oh boy, omg! so of course we lucked out and a dentist seen me and put it back in.......however......i have to be very careful as 2 of the 3 teeth holding the bridge are broke. do you know my husband told him about my cancer and do you know he wanted to know more and he even felt how my lymph nodes were getting larger because he wanted to know why i had to have radiation. he also said too.....about the 3 teeth pulled on the bottom of my mouth. said i need more time in healing because of some Cartledge growing out of one of the pulled teeth. when i told him they wanted to radiate one week after dental surgery. he said that would have been too early and that was sept. 11, 2024. they wanted to radiate me on the 18th. pet scan was on the 17th. so mentally, it was just too much for me. i do some of the dysphagia exercises, i never did get to go to speech therapy. at the time i thought "why" i have no voice. silly me. anyway. i thank you for the best wishes and so glad to hear from you. it helps me a lot to be able to correspond with someone. its always good to tell your story and hear others as we are not a lone that is for sure. so you will be in my prayers and i hope you have met some compassionate people along the way as i have. no one really understands how hard it is not to be able to talk. its hard to explain things. sorry to be this long but, what a day. take care.