Hello,

My mom had her surgery on Feb. 23 2004. Neck dissection, partial tounge removal, left lower half of jaw bone removed and reconstructed with a bone from her leg. She has 6 weeks of radiation ahead of her. It will be a month tomorrow since surgery, they won't start radiation until her neck wounds heal. That could take some time and this sucker grew VERY fast once it was discovered. When can radiation start? I am worried that durring this healing time the cancer is getting it's second wind and will come back. Should a press the doctors to get moving on the radiation?
thank you.

Annabel, from the tone and number of your posts I can tell that you're very concerned about your mom, understandably so. Take a deep breath please.

Everyone is different in treatment and the healing process to a certain extent, and even one person having treatments can have different things happen different times. I've gone through two neck dissections and each one was different from the the way the scar healed to the lengh of time from surgery to radiation to side effects of the radiation.

How bad is the wound that your mom has that the doctors feel the need to wait 6 weeks? This does seem a long time, but if she's having trouble healing the wait could be justified. Radiation does a number on the tissues that get radiated kind of second degree burns after a time so it may not be a good idea to start too early if the wound hasn't healed properly. Get the docs to explain more the reason for the wait, other than generic waiting for the wound to heal.

In cases like this you have to be your mothers voice and her health care advocate, kind of checking and following up what the docs are doing.

Bob S.

ISP foulup.. would have been a duplicate post if I hadn't edited it.

Thank you, I didn't mean to post duplicates, I am still new at posting in forums and such. To be able to talk to some one else is overwhelmingly comforting. It is only my mom and I in this thing, there is no other family, many friends but that only goes so far. I will discuss with the doctor on the 29th of this month about the lag time between surgery and radiaion. I just don't want something to slip by, the cancer snuck up on her. One surprise is enough in this cancer dance.

The delay is so the tissues can have time to heal before they get blasted by the radiation. 4 to 6 weeks is what I have heard is average. It sounds like your mother is receiving excellent care. You might take a look around the rest of the OCF web site there are extensive resources to read here.

Hang in there, you are doing fine! and yes this is a dance alright sometimes I wonder if it isn't the with the devil.

My physicians didn't won't to wait any longer than 6 weeks to begin treatments. I began exactly 6 weeks after surgery.

Lynn

Annabel,
My husband had his radical neck dissection on Christmas eve and began chemo/rad on January 12. They could not get all the cancer during surgery, so they were pretty quick to get the treatments started. He also healed pretty quickly from the dissection.
Hang in there...try and make sure you have a great support system in place...you will need it in order to help your mom through this!
Debbie

I guess some doctors are more aggressive than others. First time they doc was a little peeved that I delayed for 3 weeks to make a trip back to U.S., second time they made the mask and did the sims the day after the staples were pulled, started RAD the following Monday.

Bob

Everybody is different. I had base of tongue cancer (very small sandpaper like could barely be felt during biopsy). But, it had spread to the lymph nodes in both right and left neck. So, I was sent to radiation first with a "chemo wash".

There was a lot of discussion and controversy among the Docs about what to do next. A city wide tumor review booard found that at least modified neck dissection was indicated for the right side due to the lymph node size. But a PET/CT scan found that the radiation had eradicated all cancer in the tongue, body, lymph nodes. Due to persistence of re occurance in Head/neck cancer the board still receommended a dissection and the Docs and I decided to do it bilaterally. When they biopsed the lymph nodes, no cancer was found.

The point of all this is that radiation using a linear accelator (Notre Dame-St. Joe) and a good Doctor can destroy certain cancers without surgery being required. The cutting edge now according to my four Docs is that radiation with PET/CT scan afterwards can determine if cancer is erradicated. When the industry gets more confidence in this, radiation only will be performed and surgery will not be required.

Sorry for this long post but thought that people should be aware of this developement. In summary, looks like radiation should be completed first and then use surgery (keeping in the "Golden operating window" of about 3-4 weeks after radiation completion) if the PET/CT scan still shows cancer.

We shouldn't push our doctors on what to do next when one treatment is just finished. We are not medically professional but our doctors are. They should have a comprehensive plan on our treatment and know when and what we need.Unless you are in the hands of inconsiderate and irresponsible doctors, that is another story. Some people advised me on having surgery after radiation in order to eradicate any cancer cells left but my oncologist calmed me down and asked me to wait. It took me two months post radiation to have scanning that decided I didn't need surgery. To look back, that 2 months' waiting time was a real torture because I was also scared that if any cancer cells were hiding, they had a chance to fight back .Then would it be too late if I had surgery then? But I had strong faith in my oncologist that he would plan the best for me. So here I am.

Karen stage 4 tonsil cancer diagnosed in 9/01.