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Visit www.forensics.edu.au
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Grade 4 mucositis is a debiltating side-effect from chemo-radiotherapy. You are in moderate-severe pain every hour of the day and cough up red-yellow mucus every 15-20 minutes. Your mouth becomes ulcerated to a point where you cannot eat, then drink, then even talk. The picture to the right shows Michael's mouth at the onset of the mucositis. Radiotherapy reduced the way the muscles of his jaw worked and after three weeks he could only open his mouth to about 1 cm and photos inside his mouth could not be taken.
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This was typical of the volume of mucus Michael would constantly be coughing up. The mucus would be on average a blob the size of an Australian 20 cent piece. Michael would be coughing it up at least every 15 - 20 minutes - so at night he was getting at most 15 - 20 minutes continuous sleep.
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