hi Trixie, I’m new to this forum, but, I can tell you from personal experience, if your entire tongue is removed you can regain some speech. It’s not perfect, you have to go slow and refer to your inner thesaurus to pick words that don’t rely heavily on hard consonant sounds: G’s , C’s, K’s and so on.

I had total glossectomy last July and I can carry on fairly decent conversations, sometimes it’s like playing charades.

Keep your sense of humor intact and a note pad or dry erase board handy!

My surgeon has recommended a palatal drop prosthetic, soon as I get healed from surgery on Monday I will be heading in that direction.