Hi,
I am the wife of someone who was recently diagnosed with oral cancer. I don't know the specifics of the cancer, all I know is that they found a tumor along the right side of my husband's tongue and 3 days later we were in for surgery. The first surgery, (July 1st) they removed the tumor/some lymph nodes, took some of the neck muscle, pulled it up and attached to his tongue in order to form a reconstruction. Five days later the flap failed and we ended up in an emergency surgery to remove the flap and cauterize his tongue so that they could control the bleeding. Disheartened, they sent us home to recoup for 5 days and then had him back in for a third surgery (July 14th) to try another reconstruction, this time taking tissue from his forearm to create a flap. All seems well and we were sent home today. Poor guy has had a tracheotomy and feeding tube (the kind through the nose) in the whole time. Trach came out just a day ago. We have an appointment on Monday July 25th for some swallowing tests to see if the feeding tube can come out. We also have future chemo and radiation treatments, since some of the lymph nodes they took out tested positive for cancer. So here are my questions for those of you who have some experience with all of this.
1.Are these two surgeries commonplace and did they perform them in the right order, given the fact that the second surgery was more successful?
2.When the feeding tube is removed, what can we expect in terms of what type of foods he will be able to first consume? And has anyone had complications from being reintroduced to foods after this type of reconstruction? (Half of his tongue was reconstructed)
3.I am also curious to see if anyone is suffering from hairy tongue due to the nature of the flap and where they took the skin from. (My husband is a hairy guy.) How do you combat/take care of this?
Thanks in advance to any and all advice/suggestions/ words of wisdom.
Many happy thoughts to all.
Jingle Bell