Hi there... Welcome - and sorry you have to be here... I do hope he's being treated at a ccc - if not once the surgery is over it might be a good idea to get a second opinion there - often drs will just remove he tumor if it seems to be an early stage with no other involvement (ie lymph nodes etc) and then they just send him home thinking he's cured only to have a node pop up later. Often this particular kind of cancer (cancer of the oral tongue) is treated with a neck dissection, and removal of the tumor, and a possible rebuild of the tongue if the amount being removed is large enough. So if he's only having the tumor removed then tell him to keep a very close eye on his neck - And get to know what is normal for him.

Recovery time for the hemi - is likely 6 weeks though I was eating and speaking okay after 2 - he may have a trache and nasal tube post op - they kept me in for 10 days - but I had a graft and neck dissection.

If he is having a neck dissection he will be numb and stiff with a possible weakness in his shoulder on the affected side (physio will fix this) his tingue will be swollen and healing though, i can't say I was in much pain but I have a pretty high pain tolerance.

Follow up treatment depending on the pathology results can be radiation and chemo... (not fun but doable)

The one thing I would like to say is diligence. Sometimes this disease can be very aggressive. Depending on what they've done for him surgically it's possible to get a quick recurrence, generally in the nodes, because a scan does not pick up microscopic cancer, only formed tumors or larger cell clusters. This is why for this type of cancer they usually remove a certain number of nodes. They can tell the aggressiveness of the cancer by the pathology. I would ask.

Hugs and good luck!