I was a stage II also--had 30% of my tongue removed as well as twenty-something neck nodes. I didn't have a graft and I will ad my voice to Cathy's that I looked way more scary than I felt afterwards (kind of like the bride of frankenstein). I had good pain medication and was fairly healthy otherwise going into the surgery and recovered pretty quickly. It took me a hwile to get back to eating totally normally but I did eventually (before radiation).

Radiation (and chemo if they recommend that) are much much harder to go through than the surgery, even though the surgery scared me a lot beforehand.

Nelie