It's been two weeks since I had my last zapping or radiation for my throat cancer.  When I went to the doctor, he looked down my mouth and said, "It's still red in there."

Dr. Dean Davis also explained that radiation continues to work its magic (or destruction) for four days after each treatment. So it's really been just over a week that the healing began.

Funny, after eight weeks of radiation, I'm not healing with the speed of light.

In fact, for the first week my throat was as raw as, literally, an open wound, and every time I swallowed (which as it turns out you do quite a bit during the day), it hurt.

I am still eating through my stomach tube (6 cans of vanilla milkshake Ensure a day).

I mentioned to the doctor that when I burp, I can taste the vanilla.

He was a little surprised at that. Not that I can burp. But that I can taste the vanilla.

Radiation generally wipes out your taste buds. You have five kinds — sweet, sour, bitter, salty and glutamic acid.  The latter one is what makes steaks taste good.

You start out with 10,000 taste buds. By the time you're an older adult, you're left with about 5,000.

After eight weeks of radiation around your tongue, you pretty much don't have any. They have to grow back.

Sweet is one of the last to grow back so that's why the good doctor was surprised when I said I could taste the vanilla.

I don't know if that's a good sign or not. It may be a couple weeks before my throat is well enough to let food pass by without igniting a firestorm in my mouth.

But I will let you know as soon as I do whether some of my favorite foods have any taste at all.

Of course, one of those foods is pizza. But it turns out the dough expands as it goes over the throat and that just might not be a good idea for awhile.

The doctor suggested I start with milk and work my way up to ice cream. I know I won't be having Doritos during the Super Bowl.

My tongue, by the way, still hurts. And this has prevented me from talking a lot. Many see that as a good thing.

I also can't cackle. Before, I could cackle with the best of them. But the newsroom has been eerily silent of my cackling for about four months now. Some have missed that.

The rest of my body is doing reasonably well. My head is relatively clear — not fatigued fuzzy as it has been. This has allowed me to return to work for five to seven hours a day.

I have just begun to wake up as early as 8 a.m. That's an hour or two improvement over recent weeks. My work day used to begin at 6 a.m. but that's still down the road.

I have enough energy to play 18 holes of golf with an electric cart. My game has gone to pot. I haven't broken 80 since September and I've been shooting in the 80s or 90 or 91.

Last Saturday, I had a $3 bet with my alleged buddy, Stuart Sultze. In the previous week, I shot an 86 and he had an 85. Well I shot another 86 but he shot a 72. I felt violated.

I'm going to lay off betting for awhile. I want my throat and my irons to be up to par.