Kimberly, I am not a trained medical expert but it seems to me that there are possibly 3 or 4 words that she might have heard and perhaps mixed up or shuffled together.

Neck Dissection or Radical Neck Dissection or some doctors use the word Resection instead of Dissection,
which could result in an ear to ear incision, it is done to allow surgical access to lymph nodes for removal. If they cut ear to ear it seems to me they likely would remove more than 4 nodes. While this surgery sounds bad, (and sometimes looks bad) recovery is usually pretty quick. This is a common procedure in oral cancer treatment.

Glossectomy or Partial Glossectomy,
surgical removal of part or all of the tongue. since it sounds like his cancer was tongue, he may have had a partial glossectomy. The larger the cancer, the greater the portion of tongue might be removed.

Tracheostomy,
Surgery to create a small hole in the throat to allow for breathing if his surgery was more complex. This is usually temporary and will be allowed to heal up.

You can find a lot more information here in the main OCF web site by clicking on the HOME PAGE button at the bottom of this page.

I hope this helps you.

Thanks, Mark. I will se if I can copy some info for her. She is a little more open to getting some info now, but she won't go out and look for it herself yet. I guess that's good, it is progress..

Kimberly,

It sounds like your friend is so overwhelmed that she in not processing the information that the dr is telling her. My parents experience this with my sister. I always go along to add an extra pair of ears. I will take notes while my parents respond to the info that the dr gives. Sometimes they are so emotional that they cannot remember important info. Maybe you could offer to go along to take notes or make suggest that they invite another family member along to take notes.

This was so helpful in my sister's situation. At one point a Petscan was supposed to be scheduled for the next day. They never took her to get the scans though. My mom and dad were dealing with heavy emotional issues and didn't remember that my sister was supposed to get a petscan. If I hadn't looked over the notes and asked about it, there is a chance that she may not have been able to get a scan (b/c of insurance of outpatient care).

My sister also had her nodes removed in her neck and they did make an incision from behind one ear to the other. She did have a trach for about 23 days.

Hi,
I had a modified radical node dissection they took out 28 nodes. It left a lot of scarring but it is commonly done to check if nodes are cancerous. I'm glad I had it done, the nodes were clear. If they weren't clear I would have had radiation and or chemo and at least known of the cancer. A must!