Been reading this site for several months now and decided to participate. First of all, this is an incredible site and I wish I would have found it 5 months ago. I had surgery on my tongue, T3, moderately differentiated, on 11/28/2006. They also removed 12 lymph nodes in the neck, all were clear. The main reason I finally decided to participate was to give encouragement to many of you facing surgery and/or radiation. I realize I may be the exception to the rule but, the process went incredibly well for me. I have been mostly pain free throughout surgery and radiation. The process for me has been much more annoying than painful. I drove myself all 6 weeks to radiation and although I did lose my taste after 3 weeks and was extremely tired, I never was nauseated and only had 1 mouth sore throughout the process.
I do have a moderate case of drymouth and 2 months after completing radiation, my taste is slowly but surely coming back. I maintained my exact weight throughout, had no problems eating or swallowing. Once again, I hope y'all don't think I am gloating, I really just want people to know that there is hope and radiation is not always as bad as advertised. I know I was extremely lucky and thank God dailey. It's odd but, I am having a much harder time post treatment although, I know that is common. It's kind of like I was actively fighting a battle when I was going through treatment and now all I do is sit around and wait for rechecks. Oh well, that's enough for now. You folks are great and inspirational and although I would rather not be part of this fraternity, at least I know I am in good company.