Hi Rosemary:

Good to see you back and sorry to hear your daughter is having some complications. I'm writing from work so it will be quicker for me to do this in list format bit here are my thoughts after reading your posts:

1. Is the doctor who is prescribing the antibiotics the surgeon who did her procedure? If not, it would be advisable to have the surgeon and the radiation (or other MD) touch base to determine if the infection can indeed by treated with antibiotics or if it is indeed a "pocket of pus" that the surgeon could drain. It would be better for the surgeon to handle anything like that since he knows the anatomy of the surgucal site and where he had placed suture, etc. best.

2. Was there a repeat CT scan done to evaluate the infection?

3. It is isn't always prudent to keep prescribing different antibiotics to treat an "infection" without knowing what the infectious organism is-that is how drug resistant infections get started then can't be tackled. Has anyone done a WOUND CULTURE which means swabbing some of the pus with a cotton swab and sending it to the lab for analysis (culture & sensitivity) which you can get a preliminary result on in 24hours. The C&S also tells what drugs the organism will respond to.

I am learning with Dave that when there are a lot of cooks making the soup, they often compete about who will stir the pot. If an MD told you her suture line might collapse, go back to that person and request an explanation of the risk of this happening against your daughter's need to continue radiation.

Hope this helps in the short run. Send more info and I will try to be mroe helpful.

Best,

Kim


kcdc
Wife of Dave,diagnosed with Stage III Tonsillar SCC,August '02
Modified radical neck dissection followed by radiation therapy
'There is glory and radiance in the darkness and to see we have only to look"