Thanks Terry,
Your doctor is saying to you very much what I heard from my ENT last time I saw him--he said I should plan on 7-9 months of healing after radiation (tight now I'm just a little over 2 months out). I swear he never told me that BEFORE rad--he said 2-4 months. Oh well. Maybe he's done more research himself since then.
I also called my surgeon's office and found out that I would only be needing a local anesthetic for getting the port removed so I'm going ahead with that. I would think you'd want to keep your port while you are in the hosptial for the neck dissection--if they can use the port, it will save you innumerable needle-pricks! It's true I think you can live with a port for a long while--but it has to be flushed once a month. Still, I see no reason why I'll need one in the near future (knock on wood), so I'm going ahead with the surgery to remove it.
I already had my neck dissection surgery,as you can see from my "signature" field below, I had that first along with a partial glossetomy because it was thought that might be all I'd need (unfortuantely it was not). It really wasn't too bad, even though I know it sounds horrible--I'll send you good wishes on the second of September!
Nelie