My name is Madelaine and I am new to this site. I had an 8 hr surgery for squamous cell carcinoma under my tongue on 2/3/15 and 22 neck lymphmodes removed.They took a vein from my rigght forearm and a graft to help the hole after the cancer removal. Then I devloped a blood clot which they contained with another surgery the next day. Thankfully the nodes all came back negative for cancer and my Dr.s/ say no further treatment is necessary. I am now off the feeding tube and eating soft foods and liquids. Very tired. I am also a breast cancer survivor of 15 years.Grateful.

Welcome to OCF! Sounds like you are doing very well with your recovery. You are so fortunate to be able to be eating and drinking so quickly. Congrats on the successful treatment

Welcome Madelaine! You found a great place to learn and share about life after surgery. There are many folks with similar treatment who are doing very well; I'm sure you will get plenty of advice to question you may have. don

Welcome, Madelaine. Sounds as if you are doing well. I too experienced oral cancer as my second cancer with 11 years between advanced ovarian cancer (cured) and my first bout of tongue cancer. The body takes a right old battering!

My tongue cancer has recurred but one of my doctors implied that I am in a small percentage of patients in whom new primaries occur over time. You have a very good chance of being in the 80% who get away without a recurrance.

I was 63 when I had my first BIG tongue surgery and reconstruction. I was amazed how well my aging body coped with that. Early last year I had another big surgery at 67 years old and once again the body bounced back to normal health. I have dental and eating problems now but the rest of the body just ploughs on as normal. I've gained a lot of knowledge on this site about the need to consume a lot of protein to aid healing.

Best wishes!!!

I am 26 days out from surgery at the base of my tongue for scc. Dr. says I am healing well and to go on solid foods. It hurts and burns to chew. I know I am lucky to be off the feeding tube and then liquid diet but I don't want to eat. Every thing looks good but the pain is real.

You could begin with food that is easy to chew and swallow. My husband found noodles with an alfredo sauce easy to manage. It's just going to take a while for the nerves in your tongue to calm down, and for the swelling to fully reduce. Get your nutrition, but give yourself time. You can try toddler veggies to get your healthful food down without having to work too hard at it.
Best wishes - and be creative!
Maria

If you are to swallow food try to grind it up to make it easier on your throat. Go to Walmart and get a 10 dollar baby food grinder. You can put just about any normal cooked food in there and it grinds it into a nice texture. Not like a blender but not like you chopped it up. Worked great for me during that part of getting past the swallow pain,