Hello Rich!

Welcome to OCF, glad you found us, sorry you had to brotha! As Christine has said, there are several of us on these forums who have undergone the mandiblectomy and those I know have had vastly different results due to different circumstances in our care.

As a nurse you know that people are different, circumstances are different, surgeons are different. Even when surgeons are the same it doesn't mean a person should expect similar results. There is a forum member here that has shared the same surgery (rt mandiblectomy w fibula flap/Neck dissection) at the same hospital (UWMC) and the same surgeon as myself and we both had vastly different results.

As you know this is a big surgery and the recovery from it can be tough and there is a very long list of complications, any one of them can vastly affect your recovery. Time frames are a tough thing to call. My jaw was wired for probably 2 months, the swelling was really bad. My surgery had other complications that made total recovery impossible.

Esikon (Elizabeth) also had a mandiblectomy, she's also a nurse, and she looks fantastic. She maybe a better resource for insight then I would be. I've PM'd her and asked her to respond to your post.

Good luck, don't let the "what ifs" freak you out, just take it one step at a time.

Eric