Did your dr. suggest a neck dissection as well? This cancer can seed to the nodes and not be picked up on a scan until it has reached a certain size. I say this because most experienced ENTs will remove as certain amount of nodes when they are in there. (mine took 40) one was cancerous and had leaked into the surrounding tissue but had NOT shown up on either my CT (6 weeks prior to surgery) or my MRI (4 weeks prior to surgery)

Some Dr.s make the mistake of removing the tumor and telling you you are cured based on the pathology, only to have a node or two pop up a few months later. This means another surgery, and follow up radiation most of the time.

The surgery itself isn't too bad, though it does sound daunting. I had the tumor removed, a portion of my tongue rebuilt and a neck dissection. I was in for 10 days. There wasn't much pain as the neck dissection numbs you.

I had a trache, NG tube for feeds, IV, Catheter, two dressings (at my donor sites) and two drains (from the neck dissection) By day 8 I was eating. I looked like crap but was ok. Recovering from the surgery was far less daunting than recovering from radiation.

This particular type of cancer - oral tongue cancer - is usually treated with surgery first, then radiation and chemo if necessary. This is because it's usually non HPV related and doesn't respond as readily to rads and chemo - where HPV + cancer does. So the idea is get it all or most of it out. Then smack it with rads and chemo too.

Hopefully you will only need the surgery. Bring a pad and pen or a mobile device you can write on or use to talk, this way if they do put a trache in, you will have a method of communication (trache usually comes out at day 2/3)

If you tumor is at the midline of your tongue I would ask if it will be a bilateral neck dissection as it has the ability to go to either side. Assuming you don't already have nodes showing. Best of luck tomorrow.