Thanks for your input & advice. Yes my case has been discussed by the team at Akld Hospital (a CCC). I was advised of the two options, one being no surgery with chemo & radiation only and the other being surgery with radiation only. The tumor in my tongue is only small - a T1 or small T2 - but my node is about 4-5cm with other nodal involvement. They're confident that they can get all the tumor out of my tongue with no loss of function once healed or reconstruction necessary and this is why I've opted for the surgery. I feel much better knowing that all the cancer can be removed and then having radiation treatment for any micro metastasis (on both sides of my neck).
It also seems that if I went with the chemo & rad route first with no surgery that having surgery after that is a more difficult thing to do. Rads will be 30x 60Gy.

I guess I'll be monitoring the other forum steams of treatment, symptoms, etc more closely now. I'm confident I can kick it's butt...