Thanks for all of the replies. Don't know if I made a hasty decision but once I found out I had cancer, I was ready to make a move for fear of spreading.

I went with the free flap. I made the decision the morning of surgery. Everything went well. About 25% of tongue removed. 10 and half hours of surgery and as of yesterday, back home and recovering.

Other than it looking pretty bad, overall, i'm feeling pretty good. Trusted my doctor and plastic surgeons on the free flap. Think I made the right decision. So far, clear margins and negative on the nodes.

Just trying to heal. Would also like to find out why this happened, although probably won't. I'm not a smoker or drinker so not sure what else could have caused this, if anything other than genes. Would be very curious though to do a study on lifestyle products we use as I read oral cancer jumped 11% in 2007 alone and mainly in younger people.

Makes you wonder....