I have posted on another thread.I am afraid no one will see it. I have a 16 year old son with a mass on his jaw. He was hospitalized 7/17 and put on high dose antibiotics (rocephin and clindamycin) the mass went down some. he also had a CT scan which the ENT said was a necrotic lymph node and could be a parotid tumor or a possible lymphoma. His PCP believes it is Cat scratch fever and told him to come to his office on 7/30/2004. We went to Dr office he said results were not back and it has been about 4 days for the cat scratch test. He measured his lymph node and it is 6cm. We are to go back on 8/5 to see if it has gone down. My son is still on oral clindamycin 900 mg daily. My questions are these. If it is cat scratch fever would a lymph node get that large? It is not a painful node unless doctors push on it really hard. His appetite is coming back. I don't think he has lost any weight. I cannot sleep at night. it seems we are going in circles.Please let me know what you think I love my son very much and if it is cat scratch fever. Hooray. I will keep you posted. sorry for rambling on

My father had non-hodgkins lymphoma which was first diagnosed because of a lump on his jaw. His lump never decreased in size. I would think the fact that your son's "mass" decreased in size somewhat after taking antibiotics is a good sign. Also, Dad's node never hurt, even when the doctors pushed and poked at it. He actually had several nodes in a cluster. When they examined him, they also could feel swollen nodes under his arm. Hopefully, your son's problem is nothing serious. I have a son too, so I know how scared you must be. On thing to know, if it is lymphoma, is that they have wonderful new drugs on the market and are developing new ones. My dad took Rituxan and is now in remission. It was an easy drug to take, none of the side-effects of chemo. Good luck to you...I'll say a prayer for your son!

My son also had a similar lump, actually there were two. Antibiotics did not make them go down at all, and when the ultrasound was done, the radiologist thought it was Hodgkin's Disease because of vessels and such. My son had the nodes removed, and the preliminary report came back indicating Hodgkin's. However, after further studies, the nodes were found to be benign. He did have a cat scratch test done, and it indicated that he did have it at some point in time, so the nodes could very well have been related to that. His largest one measured 6.1 cm, and it wasn't painful at all. He also had an elevated LDH. By the way, this is the second group of nodes he had removed. He also had nodes removed from the abdomen three years before this last group. Nothing was found with those either.

I know it's hard not to worry, but try to relax until everything is done. Many odd things can happen to the body, and more often than not, they are benign. I'll keep you and your son in my prayers and hope that everything turns out great!

Thank you'll for your prayers I will try not to worry. I will keep you posted on his progress. I know he will be fine.