Well perhaps I should call up and make a reservation for Alinea next time I'm in chicago and request to see the chef! I think I will go there actually. I have a trip planned to Chicago soon.

There are tastebuds all over the oral cavity- not just the ones on your tongue. There are lots in your cheek buds and upper palette. I have a tiny sliver of my original tongue attached to the skin graft that is now my tongue. Most taste is also really gotten through your sense of smell I think and I have a keen sense of smell. The tongue gives you the texture and sweet salty and sour. There must be those throughout the rest of the mouth as well.

Maybe I am a one in a million case but I don't think I am. I also had a pharagectomy - they took out part of my throat tissue-s o the opening is wider in the back of my throat- so I htink that give me an advantage..I started trying to eat again a few weeks after my total glossectomy and then when the radiation effects kicked in- I didn't really eat again for a few months but I've been eating really well for the past 5 months. My lastest to conquer has been salad- which was inititally impossible- but now I eat it everyday.

It was a long long struggle but I was just determined.
I defnitely do not get to enjoy food quite as much as I used to because my tongue doesn't really absorb the taste too well but I do taste everything pretty strongly actually and it IS very very pleasurable and ejoyable and I still have a lot of sublty in my taste range. Very crunchy things I find to be a struggle but other than that everything is fair game - I just eat slow and with small bites and tons of water to wash things down.

I knwo of another full glossectomy patient who aslo eats very well too. WE met via this site. Her name is Nancy and she inspired me to keep trying.
I love good food and good restaurants and that was never going to be given up without a fight and I'm so thankful that it isn't.
I guess I just never considered not being able to do it.

Anyways- I just get a little sad when people portray someone in my postion as never being able to eat or speeka nd basically have a miserable reclusive life. This is ALL that I read about before my surgery and afterwards and it was very disheartening and upsetting to read about

Yes it is one of the worst things that could ever happen to a person. Yes some people can never eat regular food again... alot of peope.. but it isn't everyone. I am very very lucky and fortunate- but my life is wonderful and happy. I survived this and I'm eating socially with friends out in restaurants all the time. I call friends and they can understand me. I'm still trying to get more brave in calling other people. But I am fully functional in life I communicate well and eat well which is more than I coudl have ever hoped for.

My main problem with this article is that I think it portrays the surgery and treatments that many people that have tongue cancer
NEED to have in order to be cured and live. I hope that his chemo and radiation treatments are a success but its very early to know for sure what the success rate or this treatments is in comparison to surgery radiation and chemo.

The patient needs to know the risks of going this route.
This year already I've met two different women my age who have had tongue cancer. One was stage 3 but she went with chemo and radiation 1st- It didn't get rid of the tumor and it came back very aggerssively she died a few months later. Another woman who has all my same doctors here in SF was stage 1- they did surgury no radiation. It came back 2 times- the 3rd time it was stage 2- but it hadn't spread to her lymph nodes or anything- last week they just found a mass in her chest and its in her lungs. She has a few months to live. She's 32 with a baby boy.
So for me personally I know I made the right decision. I'm not sitting around miserable drinking liquid food and not speaking to anyone. Yes I eat slower and my speech is a little funny but I'm 90 percent intelligable ....my life is very full and fun and happy.