Thank you so much for responding! I am confident in my surgeon, I'm being seen at the Univ. Of Penn and they have been very good to us. It's just something I don't have a lot of knowledge about and really never thought I'd be tackling since I have no risk factors, no family history. It seems to be more common than I expected.

I am scheduled for an MRI in 6 weeks, and then another PET scan 6 weeks after that. Really praying and hoping they both come back clean. I thought exactly what you wrote about the exam. But the surgeon has done thousands of these surgeries,so I guess I need to trust his judgement again. I had no misgivings when we initially met with him and he was my second opinion. Locally, the gen. surgeon wanted to remove half the tongue down the middle and radiate.

And I'm am very glad to hear your confirmations about the tingling. This is what I've suspected all along and the surgeon and speech therapist have confirmed a few times. The feeling is sometimes reminiscent of the tumor so I wonder.

I haven't needed the pain meds for about 7 weeks, but I may start them as needed if it keeps up. I guess as time passes and the swelling and numbing decrease slowly, I will have more discomfort for a while where the flap was connected and I am consistent with the speech therapy exercises.

The visit today really has scared me as I was feeling so fortunate and forward thinking, positive. But this kind of knocked me down a notch. I just needed some reassurance from someone who has been there before me. There are no support groups in my area for this type of cancer so I truly appreciate you responding to my message.

I know I am extremely fortunate to not need RT or Chemo. I hope not to ever. I even feel a little guilty about it, but so thankful.

Tomorrow is a new day and I am determined to get right back to living for the day, my family, and accepting that it is what it is, I can only change those things that I have control over, and those are few things in life.