Hello everyone,
I wanted to update you on my husbands surgery which took place this past Thursday. The surgery took 7 3/4 hours, a very long day to say the least.

They removed approx. 15% of his tongue and all the lymph nodes on the left side of his neck. The doctor says it was confined to the tongue and had not spread. I guess we were very fortunate. The doctor still believes he will not have to have radiation although he did say he needs to review the pathology report in detail. I would say he has approx. 30-40 staples in his neck and two drain tubes. He did not need a breathing tube during the operation and so far has not had to have a feeding tube although he has not really eaten since the surgery. He had maybe three spoons of pudding on Friday evening and maybe 2 spoons of jello. He tried some apple juice today but said it hurt like a son of a gun, he said it was from the juice not so much from swollowing.

He was put in ICU the first night but then moved into "ICU Overflow Unit" since the hospital is pretty full and a more critical patient needed the ICU bed. I'm hoping he gets his own room tomorrow since that ICU Overflow is very noisey. I can't believe the chatter that goes on considering all the patients in there that weren't feeling very well. If it wasn't for the Morphine I don't think my husband would be getting much sleep.

He did develop pneumonia which I hear is very common with a neck dissection, that is making him pretty uncomfortable. They are giving him antibiotics for that and will be taking another x-ray tomorrow morning.

As far as his speech, he seems to be doing quite well considering. Saying a few words but sounds like he has a mouth full of cotton. I'm sure that is to be expected. He says it hurts quite a bit when he swollows.

I'm not sure when he will be release from the hospital, he thinks tomorrow but I doubt that very much. I think he just wants to come home really bad.

I will do my best to keep you posted on his progress. I am so glad I found this site. You have all been wonderful and it's so nice to have a place to go to write where people understand where you are coming from and can relate to the disease and feelings of others going through the same thing.

Thank you everyone!