My husband had about 80% of his tongue removed and a radical neck dissection then had 30 radiation treatments and five doses of cisplatin. The recovery from the surgery itself is tough but I will say that once Bob had the surgery, the pain was gone. I was amazed that two days post surgery, he was only taking Tylenol for pain. I think for him the hardest parts were the drains in his neck and the tracheostomy. He had four drains in his neck and two in his thigh (where they harvested muscle for his flap). His speech came back fairly quickly (two weeks or so) and he was pretty easy to understand. Certain sounds are gone forever but he can usually find another word that works just as well. Bob had speech therapy, lymphedema therapy and physical therapy. He did lose some range of motion in his right arm due to nerves being damaged or cut during the neck dissection but as he says, he’s not pitching for the major leagues so it’s not a problem. Swallowing took a lot longer than we expected but he made small improvements every week and was eating some soft food yogurt, soup, ice cream within 12 weeks or so. Unfortunately, his cancer has returned and has spread to his left lung so much of his progress has been lost. Bob said he’s glad he had the surgery as hard as it was because if he had opted for just radiation and chemo, he might always wonder what if.