Hot Dog Therapy: Operation Garbage Plate Update

Last week I met with the radiation oncologist. Once again the scope came out and once again up the nose it went. (No matter how many of those I have done I will never get used to them.) He confirmed that at this point the cancer is still gone. Big time yippee! on that. We also discussed the swallowing disorder a bit.

He got a copy of the speech therapist report on the swallowing evaluation and a new term was introduced. Pharyngeal Dilation. Along with the esophagus there is also an area above it that is constricted. Thus pharyngeal dilation. I haven't done much research on this but it is next up on my question to the ENT doc.

Hot Dog Therapy

When I first started on operation garbage plate I was focused primarily on the esophagus opening. Initially just drinking water in any amount was a challenge if not impossible. One thing I would try to do is drink a bit more than I can handle (water that is not adult beverages!) and see if I could force it down with a hard swallow. I could feel some discomfort / slight pain when I did this but in the end it really didn't help make swallowing any easier. Every now and then I would give it another try without any results.

After the swallowing evaluation I started to wonder what I could do to move the epiglottis. Then it hit me, maybe that was what I was feeling when I tried the hard swallowing with the water. When I have the next swallowing evaluation done I am going to try doing a hard swallow to see if the epiglottis moving is what is causing the pain / discomfort. It could be that is the strictures formed during treatment being stretched out. In some ways it reminds be of the jaw stretching exercises I did at the beginning to increase the amount my mouth could open.

This is where hot dog therapy comes in. Hot dogs are essentially pureed meat. (I use the term "meat" lightly. :-)) I have been able to eat hot dogs without buns in small bites but never in a way that resembled normal. One of the problem is that I prefer the white hot ones with natural casings. those casings cause some serious debris problems. So decided to switch to the skinless dogs. The idea is to chew them up a bunch and then take a large sip of water and try to force it down. This gives enough volume to that I can feel it but being pureed meat it lessened the chance of getting stuck. Achieving the effect of feeling the pressure is hit or miss but generally I can do it a few times per hot dog. Of course not being content with just that result I decided to add in another twist of two. The first was using a bun. What I have found is that if I use a New England style hot dog bun lightly toasted on both sides it reduces the problem I normally have with bread in getting stuck and increases the likelihood that I will feel the pressure from swallowing. The second addition was hot dog chili. This delicacy comes in a can and is mostly pureed beans with some onion. Yes... I know canned chili but for a hot dog this is about right and it is the same as you would get from a street vendor. The addition of the chili also helped mitigate the potential for the bread from the bun getting stuck.

The plan is to try to have at least one hot dog a day in this manner for the next month or so. The goal is to see if this is helping to stretch the epiglottis and / or the area above the esophagus. So far after 1 week I seem to be able to eat a hot dog easier than I could before starting this. Many thanks to the 12 brave hot dogs that made the ultimate sacrifice this past week for operation garbage plate. :-)

I know... it may seem like a horrible chore having to eat a chili dog a day. It's a burden that I am willing to take on, anything for science. :-)

Next week I am back in for dilation procedure X.