OP Contributing Member (25+ posts) Joined: May 2018 Posts: 32 Likes: 5 | I saw the speech pathologist last week for speech finally, since my swallowing is fine. I can eat almost everything (really crunchy or chewy food would be too challenging). I am not happy with my speech at this point. It's not awful but I have a definite lisp, and difficulty with certain letters. Friends say I sound like me, but to me I sound funny. I only had about 25% of my tongue removed so Speech Path was thinking that the speech impact as well as the extent of my ability to manoeuvre my tongue to clear food was a bit disproportionate to the tongue loss / flap. However, she noticed on her own that I have some facial nerve impact; the left side of my mouth doesn't go down when I open my mouth. It has improved some since Apr 10th surgery. Speech Path is thinking that some of the impact is therefore due to this facial nerve, and not just to the tongue flap. I have a bunch of exercises to do, but I wanted to see if anyone else had this kind of nerve damage after surgery and if it got better. Thank you.
Last edited by ChristineB; 06-16-2018 12:34 PM. Reason: removed picture
Mouth/tongue cancer dx Feb 2018. Surgery Apr 2018, partial glossectomy, tongue reconstruction (radial forearm flap donor site), neck dissection. Tumour 2.5 cm, 0.8 cm deep. Histologic grade G3 Poorly differentiated. 3 of 25 lymph nodes involved max size 0.6 cm. pT2pN2b (stage 4a) Chemo Radiation June / July 2018. Completed 35 rads, 2 of the 3 chemos.
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