Hi Howard

Sorry hear about what you're going through, glad you found this site. Unfortunately welcome to the club no one really wants to join.

Had a partial glossectomy and neck disection Sept of '02. In my case the surgeon took tisue from the incision from the neck dissection to do the tongue rebuild. Didn't have trach or PEG tube. Depending on how radical the glossectomy is, seems some are having problems with swollen tounge and movement of the tonge for a while afterward. In My case, I had 1/6 of the left side of tonge removed. Could talk on the phone and be understood the evening of the surgery, for a few days had an accent very similar to Homer Simpson. Docs pretty much insisted that I start eating stuff like soup, yoghurt day after the surgery, wanted me on semi-solid food before I left the hospital, about 7 days after the surgery.

Pain wise, not much at all, nothing that some Panadol 500s couldn't take care of. Unfortunatly, some nerves tend to get damaged so am numb around the neck area.

Are the docs planning on doing radiation after the surgery? What is the oncologist saying about post surgery rad/chemo? You will find a general consensus here that chance of reccurrance is greatly reduced by rad/chemo following surgery.

Hope this answered some of your questions, if not, let me know.
Bob S.