I had 30 nodes removed, one was cancerous. The surgery took quite a while, but I also had the tumor removed from my tongue at the same time. I actually had less problems with my surgery than with the radiation and chemo. I was fortunate in that I didn't have to have a trache or a skin graft. I had the surgery on a Wednesday and went home in Saturday. I was pretty out of it the frist day, so don't remember much about that, but if I hadn't had to have the radiation and chemo I probably would have been back to work within ywo months, or less. My treatments came about a month after my surgery. I had trouble raising my arm, but went for physical therapy and it really helped. I am still not really eating normally, but that was due more to the radiation.