Hey Mica,
Dan had tongue surgery for SCC on his tongue. No rad. needed, however, 3 months later he ended up with an extremely aggressive tumor in his neck. He then had a radical neck dissection on Christmas eve. Doc let him come home on Christmas day. Walk in the park compared to the tongue surgery, chemo and rad. treatments. He has some trouble with range of motion and he goes to a physical therapist for that and it is helping a great deal. I really think P.T. is very important. He had to wait a few months after treatment to get it and it made him more stiff with more problems. I would think that an advantage of having the dissection and rad therapy is that you wouldn't have to wait very long at all before some physical therapy to get the range of motion back. Do all you can do to get the cancer the first time as stated earlier. We didn't know as much as we do now and would have asked for rad treatment immediately after the tongue surgery.
Take care, God bless,
Debbie