Hey Nicki,
Your post brought back very vivid memories! Dan's first surgery he had 1/3 tongue removal, mod. neck dissections both sides and a skin graft from upper leg. It was quite the sad and scary site...my older son (24) just ran back out of the room as he could not deal with what he saw. Dan had been in surgery for 8.5 hours and it was very swollen with drainage tubes both sides and a block in his mouth to prop it open and a trach. The trach was the worse to get used to for him and us. He was in the hospital for 6 days. When he had his radical neck dissection last Christmas eve...he was up and walking 6 hours later and the doc let him come home Christmas day (which doc admitted was a record for the Guiness!). Anyway, Dan had a trach so couldn't talk for the week and voice got better in a week or two after hole started to close up. Needless to say as the days went by, he improved greatly. We were fortunate - I stayed in the room with him and slept on a chair...couldn't bare to leave him in their care especially with a trach not able to talk at all. It will get better! This is a hard time as you see him so swollen and going thru so much. Talk about floodgates...I cried almost the whole time when I could hide it from Dan. It broke my heart and for my boys to see their dad sick...it was the first time as he had never been sick before besides a cold or back pain, etc.
Take care, prayers and thoughts are with you both!
Deb