Fred:
Your surgical Team probably has a referal or two for great speech therapists. I started seeing one (With an office located in my Surgeons office) immediately following my treatments and the exercises and techniques she gave me had me talking, eating, and swallowing very well again in a relative short amount of time. In my line of work I am constantly coaching (Speaking) and the first couple of years would be literally exhausting after a solid day of work but nobody (Except me being my own worst critic) could pick up on my speech issues. As mentioned earlier, everyone's different but there's lot's of assistance out there.
Best Regards,
Steve