Cheryl and Jennifer,

I saw my ENT today. His opinion was that (1) I'm still healing and he doesn't want to do anything orally with me for the time being -- I had floor of mouth and pharynx involvement as well as Stage 4 tongue SCC so that accounts for his reluctance I'm sure; (2) most (80-90%) of my tongue was removed and replaced with skin, vessels, and tendons from my forearm to form what he called a "neotongue". He said it looks like a tongue but isn't a tongue in the functional sense since the original muscles that control movement of the tongue are gone. Meaning that even if it were freed up from floor of mouth, it would not funtion like a normal tongue where a person has control over its movements. What little wiggle I have at the back of my tongue is due to the small stump that was left after subtotal glossectomy.
He encouraged me to keep trying to swallow as much as possible to build up those muscles plus keep doing the therapy exercises which I will certainly do.
Cheryl, I'd sure be interested to know how your husband gets along after he has his tongue freed up. I assume that he did not have nearly as much tongue removed as I did and no floor of mouth cancer. I certainly hope he didn't. By the way, would you mind sharing the name of your ENT in case I choose to pursue options in the future. Sure would appreciate it. I'm still going to try to contact the author of the swallowing book that discusses this procedure.
Jennifer - Just because I didn't get the response I was hoping for, you might want to check with your ENT as each case is totally different and you could well be a candidate for this "tongue release" procedure if the sutures don't dissolve on their own.
My best to all.

Jim