Hi all - Steve had his surgery last Thursday. We checked into Moffitt at 5:15 am and they took him back for surgery around 7;15. The surgery lasted 10 hrs. They expected it to be more like 8 but it took 3 cuts to get clear margins.

Unfortunatly, that also meant they had to take more of the tongue then expected. They could not save the whole front tongue. So basically molars forward. I did not ask exectly what % that is, but I atleased 50% maybe more.

They also took nodes from both sides of the neck - wrist flap was performed and tissue from his inside thigh was removed to repairs the write area.

His Dr's were very happy with how everything went. The nodes to them "look" healthy but we will need to see what the pathology report says.

I have been taking turns with his mom on staying with him. Exhaustion does not even describe how I feel at times. You really cannot get any good sleep in the hospital no matter how great the nurses are and private the room is. I even got pulled on driving to the hospital on Saturday to releive his mom because the officer thought I was drunk - nope - just that tired. She was nice when I explained and just warned me to wake up some and try to get some rest.

Unfortunatlly, all of my scares of his attitude and feelings around the surgery came true. He is very depressed. He is mad and feels he will never talk again. His Dr's say he will but with time and therapy. He will be able to be understandable and go back to work - we just do not know the degree of clarity. I look at this as positive - I think I could have lost him - we could have been told a much bleaker outcome,and I am thanking god I still have him but he does not have this view.

Therapists have been to see him - he does not talk to them a lot. They have him on anti-depressents and anti-anxiety meds. He gets very anxious when walking and starts shaking violently - they said it is from being scared he cannot breath due to the trach. Today they wanted to remove his trache for a smaller step down one and do a procedure to move his feeding tub from his nose to his stomach - they beleive he will have this for 2 months or so. He refused both procedures the minute he found out they involve needles or another surgery. Dr's tried to talk him into it, but from what I understand nothing they said helped. I am at a lose on what to do and so is his mom. We both just keep hopeing something will motivate him to be pulled out of this funk.

I do not know if any of you had these feelings or if you have any advice. I/him mom and Dr's all were prepared for this to be his reaction. But I know it will take him to really want to get better and move forward with treatment for this to be a sucsess. Thank you again - Danielle