Wow, I wish I would have heard this earlier. My ENT did give me the choice of radiation first, but my sister who had breast cancer so considers herself a cancer expert, insisted the best thing was to "cut it all out", just because it worked for her to have a mastectomy. So I let them cut on my tongue.

Now I have much more cancer and even possibly oral cancer back, but I must say that so far my worst quality of life problem for two years is the constant tongue pain. My mouth is only ever not burning up when I have strong pain medicine and then I can't drive, so I try to avoid that. It has ruined my desire to eat anything and to even talk too much. They have treated me for thrush a few times, but it is not thrush. It is a permanent pain in my tongue that I'll have to put up with forever and I hate it. My kids try to lure me out to eat by promising me cheese cake and all kinds of things, but I would just as soon drink my Boost. I find myself just sucking on my tongue full time. I think I got a lot of nerve damage in that first "little" surgery to remove that tiny tumor.