Our stories are similar as I also had tongue cancer. I am 40 years old and had my partial glossectomy to remove part of the left side of my oral tongue due to squamous cell carcinoma and left side neck dissection to remove lymph nodes to check if cancer had spread. My surgery was October 1st of last year. I've never smoked and very rarely ever drank.

I stayed overnight in the hospital. After surgery I used syringes to shoot soups and hot cereal into the back of my throat to help me swallow because my tongue had a 'bolster' sewn to it to allow it to heal. The bolster is a big chunk of gauze that basically makes eating and speaking a bit challenging. The bolster comes out after about a week then you get to learn how to speak and eat with your new tongue. Since I also had a neck dissection, they used skin from my neck to close the wound on my tongue.

I speak rather well I'm told, although I do have a lisp and there was just no way around that. I lost a fourth of my tongue.

I hope that's given you a little glimpse of what's ahead. Good luck to you!