Hello Jimmy and welcome to OCF. Although I am sorry that you have to be here, you will find no other place to receive the answers, support and questions that you will here.

My second surgery was 9/08 and I had a free flap. Do you still have some of your tongue? I have just a little nub at the very back, but it does move a little bit. I started therapy for speech and swallowing about 3 weeks post surgery and I am still going now for swallowing. We started with liquids and gradually worked our way up to cottage cheese and some pureed foods which is where I am now. Some people do better with thicker liquids and there are products on the market to thicken them that are carried by Walgreens and possible other pharmacies. I had radiation after surgery and it interrupted my swallowing therapy for a couple of weeks.

As the others have said and I'm sure that your doctor has said also, everyone is different and there really is no normal time for recovery. Are you going to therapy? If not, I would suggest that you do just because it is supervised attempts at swallowing different things plus they will give you exercises that you can do on your own to improve your swallowing ability.

I wish you luck and hope that this has helped some.

Patty