I was also a stage IV cancer. I had 17 hours of surgery ( mandiblectomy, free flap elevation(fibula) free flap from forearm for tissue and blood supply, skin grafts from thigh, radical neck dissection, 56 nodes removed, Trach)
and was out of the hospital in 12 days.

It would have likely been a shorter stay but I had a heart attack about 20 hours after I came out of surgery, and that set things back a good bit.

I had a 6 week course of IMRT 10 weeks after surgery, and that was the part I could have done without. It was brutal...way tougher than the surgery.