I am feeling overwhelmed today. Tomorrow will be 3 weeks from surgery and I'm wondering when I will start to feel like myself again. My ear/face/neck feels frozen/numb still. My hand, in particular my thumb, does not have full range of motion due to the skin graft operation and impact on nerve. Physio says it will get better. The skin graft looks much better but there sure seems to be a long way to go for healing. My mouth is dry. I do have all sorts of mouth care products. My mouth doesn't open all the way and droops on the left side too. I'm tired most of the time. I'm just feeling a bit down all day today. Radiation sounds pretty scary. Going to have radiation mask made next Friday. My radiation oncologist said I might need chemo too but now I haven't heard back for an appt with a medical oncologist to discuss that possibility. I'm wondering though how they know the cancer hasn't spread anywhere else. It jumped from my mouth to 3 lymph nodes, maybe it also jumped somewhere else. I said to my radiation oncologist that I was off work 6 weeks for surgery and presumably I'd be off another 6 weeks for radiation. She said no I'd be off 6 months, and it would be life altering. I'm also a breast cancer survivor, 1997 when I was 33 (lumpectomy, chemo and rads), and a recurrence last year (bilateral mastectomy, as I have brca2 gene). There's a ton of cancer in my family, including breast cancer and oral cancer. Any input on recovery time, radiation side effects, time off work, chemo or no chemo, or threads that address these issues would be appreciated.

Thank you

Mary