Hi there... I had non HPV oral tongue cancer/tumor. It does hurt when healing. It will take a bit. I was blessed in that I had a graft of my tongue but it was permanent as they removed a sizable chunk. So I didn't really have the bleeding.

Since you're a bit unusual you really fit into both groups - ;o)
I would be careful with regards to your nodes because there can be a skip effect. Just keep a close eye on your neck and get to know how it feels. I say this because the standard as you know is removal of more than one node... usually 28 and up. I had forty with one node positive, and it didn't show up on a scan. I had had both an MRI and CT prior to surgery. And a former member of our group had 18 removed all negative only to have a node pop up months later and when they went in and removed another 22 nodes every single one tested positive. This cancer can be quite aggressive and hide in the nodes. And from my experience - though the sentinel node is usually the place it goes to first, it isn't always the case. A friend of mine is a surgical oncologist who does a lot of breast biopsies. Its standard practice to remove the sentinel node when dealing with a breast cancer. But he has found recently that it's not always 100 % correct since sentinels have tested negative only to have cancer in place in other nodes.

Try not to worry. It's just a heads up to be on the lookout for the unexpected.

I still remember my friend Liza (the one who had the negative 18 nodes followed by the positive 20 + ) she said to me... "I felt a node pop up a few months after my surgery (they had told her she was fine and they sent her home with no thought of radiation and chemo). Maybe I left it too long."

Hugs and an unfortunate welcome.