DMT74,

So sorry to hear you joined the recurrence club. I also had a recurrence a few months before my 5 year mark.Details of my OC journey are in my signature. One thing to verify with your surgical team is to confirm that they are doing “frozen sections” during the surgery - this is a biopsy done during the surgery to help ensure they get clean margins. Most larger hospitals do it, but many of the smaller ones do not. I learned they hard way how important this is.

I did not have a feeding tube during RT nor did my doctors even mention it. My cancer was on the lateral side of my tongue and the radiation was concentrated mainly on the right side (tongue, jaw, neck) sparing most of my throat. After the first few weeks of treatment I was mainly on a soft food and liquid diet (smoothies) - invest in a good blender (Vitamix). I could not chew and could not tolerate hot or spicy food, but once the food got past my mouth, I was able to swallow it. If met many OC patients over the years, and those that had their whole or most of their throat radiated had the most trouble swallowing and needed a feeding tube.

Good luck! If you have any questions, let me know.