And there's

a window of time in recovery that they're looking for you to get back a certain percentage of your ability. And then after

that

window, it decreases.

Right. The

further you go, the less recovery. So they couldn't tell me, you'll be fine. You know, and I was doing all kinds of therapy. All kinds of therapy around it. So my condition kept expanding past the window. Past a year, past 18 months, then it went into two years. And then you're kind of going

outside the window. So let me bring in Professor Bronwyn Hamsley, head of speech pathology at the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia, who helps people with this kind of condition. Bronwyn, I believe it's called dysphagia.

Yes, dysphagia or difficulty swallowing is quite common in the community because there's so many different health conditions that can cause it. So Sonia mentioned the brain tumor and also a stroke and also surgery. So there's quite a few people, some people are born with difficulty swallowing. They might have cerebral palsy or intellectual disability or other conditions from birth. Or they might be an adult when they develop difficulty swallowing with a traumatic brain injury or a stroke or head and neck cancer, other conditions that cause this problem with swallowing, which is it's a very complex physical movement, but it is something we need to survive. So as Sonia said, with having difficulty swallowing, there's all sorts of treatments that might treat the underlying impairment or the difficulty with the movement. Or there might be a lot of adaptations that people can make. And she mentioned the tube feed is one that can be made if people are simply not getting enough nutrition.