@Lemontree, I’m soooo sorry for your pain & suffering. Intraoral ES surgery is really awful & a challenging recovery.
You’re correct. The transcervical (surgery through the neck) is a less painful recovery in some ways because it doesn’t impact the ability to eat, drink & swallow in the same way that transoral (through the throat surgery) does. There is a higher risk of infection through the throat since your food & drink have to pass the incision. I firmly believe you should make a follow-up appt. to get your throat checked because of the gross taste you have in your mouth. A clean wound should not be causing that. Gradually, over the first month after surgery, you’ll begin feeling better. If I were you, I’d politely demand to have the second surgery through your neck.
I’m aghast about the dismissive way you’ve been treated by your surgeon. If you have an infection then you certainly need antibiotics for a longer period. You should also ask for a 10-14 day course of prednisone if you can swallow pills. Those are generally small but they can help significantly w/ swelling.
Are you able to suck on ice chips or popsicles to help ease your throat pain or is that too difficult?
Here are links to a couple of threads written by people who had intraoral surgery. There are others as well if you want to search for them (use “intraoral surgery” as your search term). There is reference made to the surgeon Rxing a prescription mouth rinse to help prevent infection & promote healing, but I couldn’t readily find the name. That is definitely something to request from your surgeon.
You could send a private message to @Weezie65 &/or @BFresh to ask how they’re doing now & what helped them most during recovery. I recall BFresh had a slower recovery than Weezie.
I’ll be praying that your wound will begin healing in earnest so you can start feeling better. 