Pepper

If you read the first page of this thread, you saw my post about the damage a neck dissection causes. although your other posts have mentioned that you are asking for a PT referal, I just want to emphasize how important a competent physical therapist is to aid your recovery as well as reduce the pain. It' been almost a month since your surgery, you should hve been in PT by now. Lifting that 2 lb weight is all very good, but hardly enough nor does it work the other muscles. I had about 20 different exercises to do over the course of a month that really helped.
I winced when I read that you had 29 lymph nodes taken out and not one of them had cancer. I'm a bit of a curmudgeon here at OCF about neck dissections since all too many doctors consider it a routine precaution instead of surgery with major quality of life complications. It's just like the old days of breast cancer when they did more surgery than needed for "safety".
After my doctor explained all the "normal" complications of a neck dissection, I refused a proposed neck dissection my first time around even though one lymph node did have cancer. when the cancer came back, my surgery required all the same neck slits and muscle trauma that a neck dissection would cause anyway, so I agreed to it plus the risk that the cancer was left over was too great to take for a third time. The pathology report showed that my neck dissection had been unnecessary overkill even in my textbook situation of needing a ND. The one lymph node that had had cancer was totally necrotic or dead and no cancer cells showed up in it or any of the other nodes taken out on levels II, III & IV.
Since you have mentioned your immune system in other posts, you already know how important and vital those 29 lymph nodes were to your immune system.
Keep squeaking: plus I found that starting back in Yoga and Pilates classes really helped my range of motion and the pain.
It does get better but now is the most important time to break up those muscle adhesions and strengthen the muscles that will otherwise atrophy after a ND.
Oh, last and not least, I still do those PT exercises three years later as maintenance in addition to my regular workouts.
You are young and you can overcome this but you do need PT asap.
Keep the Faith
Charm