Awwww bless him.
The tongue surgery bit is not as bad as you would think. I didn't have my neck thing done but my nurse said that people don't notice the neck bit after surgery because they are distracted by the swollen tongue which feels strange. His tongue will be numb due to cutting the nerves so not that painful really, plus the morphine is kind of nice to have anyway. The emotional stuff later is the hard bit I found. Adrenaline will get you both through this next bit.
He will feel like his tongue is filling his whole mouth when he comes round, tell him not to panic and that it will go down a lot within 24 hours, they will help him breath if needs be.
Mine was a little different as it was tip of tongue but some things will be the same. Hopefully you might get a response from a BOT survivor!
I'm so sorry for you both, I will be thinking of you on Monday, this time next week things will be a little better.
Let me know how it goes.
Kate