I had just the jaw split but others here have had plates. I assume it was because of cancer in the jaw itself but really don't know. My surgeon never mentioned it as even a possibility.
I'm totally confused about the comment on taking out the voice box as I had almost the entire base of my tongue taken out right down to the hyboid bone, yet my voice box is intact.
As DrBrooks, a new poster here has written, it's a very big and bad deal to lose your voicebox. In fact, I agreed to having a second round of radiation over and above the maximum to try and prevent a third time for the cancer because the surgeons said if it came back it would probably spread to the voicebox and I did not want to lose that too,
How I wish that "food would just go right down" if you kept your voicebox after BOT surgery - it certainly doesn't for me. I've failed 3 modified barium swallow test (MBS) and use a feeding tube because I can no longer swallow.
Again, this just doesn't sound right to me.
Charm