Welcome Deb & Co., and congratulations on a successful surgery! I also found surgery the easiest out of all my treatments, and have been through all that is currently being experienced.

As far as thick mucus, thick salvia, aka rope mucus, it's mostly from the parotid gland being radiated, chemo can do it too, which produces mainly thick saliva, the other two is a mixture of thick and thin, and the fact that radiation only effects thin saliva, not thick, which thick saliva usually lasts several weeks until the parotid gland, as well as others start recovering or other major and minor salivary glands compensate for its loss. That also depends on the radiation dosage, areas radiated, volume, fractions.

There are ways to help with this as listed below, but check with your medical team as the odd taste, and inability to tolerate anything can be from a number of things such as an infection, like thrush, mucocitus, vitamin deficiency, altered kidney function, other medications.

As far as feeling better after all my different treatments/procedures, I had about 10 or so, I say 3 months is when I stared feeling somewhat better, I guess from acute toxicities, although I never fully recovered from everything, some taking several years, then long term side effects start kicking in, but you learn to roll with the punches by then.

Impeccable oral care, rinsing, flossing after each meal, before bed
Adequate hydration, Drinking water before bed
Milk enzymes replicate saliva, doesn't chance thick saliva as rumored
Sleeping with a humidifier
Sleeping on an incline
Robitusm, Mucinex
Rinsing with papaya or pineapple juice
Rinsing with meat tenderizer diluted with water
Chewing sugarless gum

I hope this helps, and good luck!