Hi there, I just thought it may be helpful to somebody if I was to give a brief description of my experience after being diagnosed last April 2019 with stage 2 cancer in my tonsils. I was diagnosed on February 28th and started my treatment on 1 April(some April Fool) After seeing all the specialists it was decided that surgery was not the best option but 7 weeks of radiation, 5 times a week and 3 doses of chemotherapy, one each in week 1, week 4 and week 7 was the best way forward.

i remember thinking why would you choose chemotherapy or radiation when you could just have surgery and have it removed? Of course at this stage I didn't really have any understanding of the treatment and process. When I looked on blogs from people who had been through what I was told I would be going through then it was quite confronting and scary. 
12 months on from my treatment and recovery I am now very happy to say that life is very good and I maybe now have a better perspective and appreciation of what is important and what I worry about.

The treatment itself was not as scary as I had anticipated, the Chemo affected my taste and palette so put me off my food, and if I'm perfectly honest, what I struggled with the most was the constipation.After around 2 weeks, the compound effect of the radiation started to kick in,and my throat became tender and it started becoming uncomfortable to swallow. I was very resistant to having a feeding tube put in as much mentally as physically, but by week 6 I had lost approximately 20kgs(I started at 95,I'm approximately 6ft 3 tall) and the hospital said that if my body couldn't get the nutrition then it couldn't fight the cancer/treatment and it would be a slower recovery so in week 6 I had the feeding tube put in through my nose. It wasn't a great day, but it at least removed the worry about me trying to eat and maintain my weight. By this stage my neck was tender and starting to get quite "raw" from the radiation but we used plenty of the moisturiser supplied by the hospital and this gave some relief. Because of the discomfort of my throat by this stage I wasn't swallowing so would go through approximately 2 -3 toilet rolls a day spitting out saliva, which by this stage had become quite thick and almost glutinous. In my mind once the treatment had finished I would be back to work a week or so after, but for me, i actually felt worse after the treatment had stopped and my body was recovering. It took me approximately another 8 weeks until the feeding tube was removed and I could very slowly start eating and drinking normal foods again. I am now back to normal pretty much, I still need to have some fluid when I eat as my mouth doesn't seem to produce as much saliva as it did pre treatment but that's a small price to pay I believe to be healthy. I suppose I'm hoping this may give some people some reassurance and hope that even though it may be quite scary and confronting at the time of diagnoses, there can be some light on the other side. Please feel free to ask any questions if you would like and I will do my best to answer from my perspective.