Hi @vickimartin I see you are new here and I had given this post a while to simmer but no response as of yet to your situation. Most people in the head and neck group have had squamous cell cancers in and about the mouth, face and neck. Typical treatments of surgery often followed by radiation and/or chemo or in some cases just medicine.
For me it was a tonsil tumor with some intrusion into the sinus. Surgery and radiation left many serious mouth and throat issues among them the inability to open my mouth very far. I quickly learned to eat everything with knife and fork. Everything, sandwiches, chicken, ribs, hamburger, just every standard finger food you can think of. OK popcorn but that is done with chopsticks. Anyway my point is that often things such as the mouth don't work the way they used to. We learn to adapt and we try and try. Although my dentist is at odds with the situation as I would imagine yours would be as well. It has been getting better over the years with mouth exercises. Yawning for instance is not the knee buckling painful experience it once was.
Perhaps someone else might chime in here soon. In the meantime welcome and don't hesitate to ask questions here that likely only a patient would experience. We pride ourselves in that respect. Good healing.