Yup! some people internalize their stress too which makes it worse. I would get to know my neck well. I had an actual tumor in my tongue it was 2.4 cm and 1.4 cm deep (the depth does matter - if it goes deep enough to touch a nerve that's troublesome) also you want to know the differentiation - this will tell you the aggressiveness of it. Weill differentiated - least aggressive, moderately differentiated - moderately aggressive, poorly differentiated - highly aggressive.

Frankly - you should have a scan - particularly to find out if any nodes highlight. A woman I was going through treatment after was a T1 tumor - like yours - but her ENT was worried it might be aggressive so he removed the part of her tongue and nodes and sure enough found cancer in one node and it had moved out of its capsule - so it's not always about the size of the lesion.

I would want to know how much cancer your ENT sees annually (you should go to a specialist who deals primarily with cancer of the head and neck ) I would want to be checked every few months (minimum) and I would keep an eye on my neck to see if there are any lumps. A feel once a week is fine. Just so you know what usual.

Best of luck.