Denversis - I had bout 1/6 of my tongue removed on partial glossectomy with tissue taken for the graft from upper chest, actually an extension of the incision for the neck dissection.

I was eating semi-solid food by the time I left the hospital, stuff like french onion soup, pudding, yoghurt etc. Graft caused problems the day after my release from hospital, blood clot formed between the graft and the tongue, created a heck of a mess for an hour or two as well as panic on my part. Went back in and doc removed it in his office. Immediate better results in my case, was eating soup a few hours later.

Speach ok but slightly slurred sometimes, was able to eath fairly normally about 10 days after release from the hospital, actualy was eating better than before the surgery because the cancer had made a mess of my tongue to begin with.

Thing is to get a good surgeon who has had experience at this. Mine was from a head and neck cancer clinic in Vancouver who happened to be in town to fill in for regular surgeon.

Depending on how radical the tonge reconstructon is it might be worth the trouble, as Howard said above. I know the surgeries get to be wearing on one's psyche, I freak if I even see a needle, even on TV. Sometimes the mental battle is harder then the physical one. I also found that for some reason biopsies were harder to recover from than the original surgery.

Hope your sister does ok, and we're all pulling for her.

Bob