Where my left tonsil (poor cancerous little thing) had been, there is now a large hole. It is larger than the tonsil, as we wanted to take a generous amount of flesh - or margin - to make sure we had all of the cancer. And actually, it is more of a pocket than a hole.

Post-surgery, this pocket was making eating a bit tricky, particularly when combined with a lot of numbness and pain on my left side as well as a general lack of mobility in my face and neck.

If you take one thing from reading this blog, let it be an appreciation for how complicated the eating and swallowing process is. It involves muscles, nerves and tissue from throughout your neck and face and they all have to play their part.

Many of the things I would attempt to swallow would just settle into this pocket, refusing to go anywhere. No muscle response pushing it out and down. Malt-o-Meal I could work with, but anything with more weight or density was just going nowhere. And trust me, Big Matty cannot live on mushy food alone.

Fortunately, this was anticipated and a therapy session already scheduled. I met with a speech pathologist. One who specializes in swallow therapy.

She told me to bring a few foods I felt might be a problem so we could try them out. I brought peanut butter - one of my favorite foods and one of the most intimidating. It can be difficult when one's body is completely normal.

She is originally from Texas and spoke with a soft twang. She instructed me to load up a piece of bread with peanut butter and have at it. As I chewed and got close to swallowing, she quietly told me to turn my head to the left and down slightly. I did so, swallowed and voila! Down it went.

The other problem I had mentioned was water. The therapist was not too worried about that as she was confident with time that problem would take care of itself. If not, I could use the same technique. We practiced and sure enough, it worked like a charm.

In all of about 20 minutes we had overcome what I had been afraid would be a major obstacle. And while we don't know if this will be a permanent issue, even if it is, I can handle it. Its a subtle move. One I am willing to stick with if it means I can continue to eat whatever I want.

As our appointment wrapped up Marissa and I knew there was only one appropriate next step - go out to lunch. So we headed off to a Burmese restaurant and shared a tea leaf salad and a curried pork and pumpkin stew. I was the slowest eater in the place, but I am willing to bet I was also the happiest.