Speaking from my experience, there were a few things that were difficult once out of hospital post surgery. Obviously eating is a whole challenge - protein shakes are gross so I was immediately on the hunt for food that would taste good in mush version, harder than you'd think! Basic meat and two veg options tasted best, possibly due to the loss of some taste buds, so we had fun finding new ways to make meat and gravy soups. Interestingly Haggis was a good find, it works well with gravy so made a nice savoury option that we added potatoes to over time to bulk up. Even after solids became a thing, normal foods caused unforeseen issues. Bread was 'claggy' and really hard to manipulate. Crispy things hurt to eat, especially around scar tissue. Crumbly things were a nightmare to manipulate and got stuck in uncomfortable places. Salty and Sweet became overwhelming, so things like crisps tasting horrid. Interestingly spicy things became more tolerable...

One of the other things that I struggled with was eating in a 'polite' way, ie not dribbling and remembering to take small enough amounts of food in so I didn't need to spit things out or use my fingers to move bits around my mouth due to my tongue not working the same way as it did. All a bit disgusting and not something most want others to see, so be prepared if it's a long while before you get asked over/out to eat!

Talking was a bit of a challenge too, I still have a slight lisp, my friends tell me it's in my head, but you may find it's something very noticeable to the person involved. It made me horribly self conscious for months after the surgery as I do a lot of communication in my job and I thought it was really obvious (still do!).

In the main, the physical recovery was not the biggest challenge for me, it was the repercussions that came after, the food challenges, the ways of eating and speaking. These have all been ongoing things that play on my mind alot well after the wounds healed up.

My advice would be that your friend will probably be very self conscious about these things when in public, so don't take it to heart if they don't want to be out or eating around others for a good while after. It will get better eventually as things settle down and the sensitivity lessens. I hope that helps even a little bit!

dx