You should seek another opinion. Ask your ENT to provide some names. My surgeon expected that I would want to seek a second opinion. I ended up at MD Anderson.

I thought a radical neck dissection took all organs from the neck, maybe it's just the jugular vein they can take and not the carotid. My dad has total blockage on one side of his neck so it seems you can get by on one artery.

Good for you telling the surgeon to spend more time with you.

I had a pain management team to help with pain from my free flap from my thigh. That was the worst pain I had ever had. They gave me a pain patch that I could also use Hydrocodone with. Durgesic patch is what it's called. It really did normalize the pain for me.

Have they positively said that the radiation and chemo have decreased the tumor size? When is your next scan. How were the lymph nodes? In my experience I would also ask for a chest CT.

Lynn