Hello all,

I'm 36 male, who finished chemo and radiation almost 3 months ago. I had surgery late September 2021, with removal of 40% the entire tongue and 108 lyphnods from the neck. Though I feel I'm through the worst of this, and well on the way to recovery, my PET scan will hopefully say the same.
Already well surpassing what was told I'd be able to do as it comes to being able to eat in a normal function, still having trouble with being able to eat normally. Glad to have found this group.
Looking forward to reading more and seeing how others have gone through this process and new way of life.

Sounds like you are doing really well after your ordeal. Most people that have partial glossectomies, struggle eating, but eventually difficulties in doing so, speaking clearly, and eating normally return with practice and time. The hardest thing to learn is moving the bolus of chewed food to the back of the mouth for swallowing. If a month from now this is still an issue, most treatment centers have a speech and swallowing specialist on staff that can give you exercises that will get you past this. Good luck. Eating and speaking well are things that I no longer can do at all, I would give anything to be able to enjoy a meal with others these days.

Thank you very much for the welcome. I know I am extremely blessed and lucky to be where I am with everything. Truly I understand what you mean. I wish I had found this group while going through my treatments. As of now, working with a speech pathologist 3 times a week to help with the speaking and eating. They are still baffled about the eating solid again. 🤗🤗 As for the speaking, I feel like I sound horrible, but a majority of people understand most of what I say. Hoping to improve, but if not, glad I'm speaking at all.

I know I sound terrible and most people cannot understand me, so I am trapped in a world of the written word. I would be interested to hear over time what kinds of exercises etc. they have you doing to improve your situation. I might learn something new, and others here as well may find a take home workaround to strengthen their speech. Thanks for checking back in. B

I also lost about 40% of my tongue from my run-in with cancer on my tongue 8 years ago. I was very motivated to speak normally again, as most of my employment comes through speaking (I'm a minister and a teacher). As far as I can tell, most people don't have trouble understanding me, though I know that there are certain sounds that I still have trouble with and probably always will. It's almost impossible to lose that much of your tongue and not have speech issues. I only hope that I can continue to speak as well as I do, without regretting that I don't speak as well as I used to.

As for eating, I was very motivated to eat normally (or almost normally), which I was able to do shortly after my surgery. As Brian said, there are issues moving food around and trouble with food in the back of my throat. I also eat much more slowly than I used to and always need to have water handy. Spicy food, really hard food, or really gooey food are difficult, if not impossible.

But, for the most part, I eat normally, and am very thankful for that, since there are many oral cancer survivors who are not able to eat normally.