Hi, Fred, just want to reinforce the above- my husband had a radical neck dissection- looked awful for a few weeks afterward [with the staples, swelling, etc.] but his neck healed quickly and the scars were pretty much gone after a few months. He did have some residual shoulder and neck stiffness so that is something to address ahead of time with the surgeon. It is a surgery that usually can be recovered from fairly quickly. Amy in the Ozarks