My hubby had surgery for base of tongue. Found out cancer was really in lingual tonsil, tongue was clean. Recovery from surgery was rough for first week. Day 4-7 were the worst because he let himself get behind pain meds and then stopped eating and drinking sufficiently. My advise, stay ahead of the pain so you don’t stop drinking. The night it got really bad took 2 dilaudid (on advise from oncall doctor) and got rest. The next am h restarted vaping cannabis and that really got control of pain, did great after that. He said the liquid Tylenol helped so much more than the dilaudid but he never took a single Med prior to this surgery.