Hi - sorry I'm late jumping In - Shelby you're very young... Sorry you're going through this. The surgery is not too bad. I had the same surgery two years ago this coming February - I too looked i'd gone a few rounds with a truck but by day 10 I was much better. The scarring has healed nicely, my tongue is almost nomal, and speech after this time 22 months post op - 19 mos post treatment - is good. Taste has come back almost completely. (sweet is still illusive) but that's radiation fall out not because of surgery. Hope everything goes well for you on the 27th. You will be surprised how little pain you'll have. You'll likely be numb particularly where they dissected you. I was off pain meds at day two but I have a high pain tolerance. How did your scan go?

The drains are usually from the neck dissection and there may be two. You'll also likely have a trache as well. - bring a notepad and pen the trache is generally not a fenestrated trache so you can't communicate for a few days. Re scars - that depends on your physican. I do have a noticeable but fairly small trache scar, and my wrist healed nicely and my neck scar is almost invisible. My dr. Did invisible stitching and I asked him to split my jaw only if absolutely necessary - he didn't have to but swore he lost a few pounds because of it!

Hugs and take care.