Dave,
My mom ended up having surgery twice and it was awful for us to see our usually very healthy 54 year old mother with a trach and a feeding tube in her nose (which she despised). She had a lot of trouble speaking at first but only had one speech therapy session and she speaks pretty well now considering she lost about 75% of her tongue. Her surgeon took what was the front of her tongue and made it the side of her tongue so she had to completley learn how to eat and everything all over. She had no flap and she can practically eat and drink anything now quite normally but she cannot stick her tongue out so I can imagine that a passionate kiss is not very possible anymore. That might sound funny but for somebody your age probably pretty important. I think if given the option now she probably would have avoided the surgery because it really made things difficult once they added the chemo and radiation in the mix.

My prayers are with you. Please feel free to ask anything you like.

Dani