| Need advice about post radiation swelling.
Please excuse my layman explanation, its all I really know at the moment, but I will find out any details that you think might help. My mother had a cancerous, golf ball size lump, surgically removed from her cheek in September. She then went through a course of radiation, which they directed at the spot where the lump use to be. Since the radiation, she has had very intense pain (burning, redness, and more) on that side of her face along with massive swelling on that side of her face. After doing tests the doctor said that the jaw bone was dead due to the radiation and that it would have to be removed. She had the dead bone removed, and we hope that would solve the problem. But no, the swelling and pain remained. After another doctor vistit, the doctor said that there was a lot of dead cheek tissue in her mouth and probably bad infection. So she had another surgery to remove the tissue, and we hoped that that would stop the swelling and pain. After that last surgery, they put a traech in her throat and put a feeding tube in her stomach because they were afraid that the swelling might close her throat and she might suffacate. Well its been like 4 weeks and the swelling hasn't gone down. Heres my biggest worry. She is growing weak because of the liquid food diet but they wont take the traech out till the swelling goes down. I believe she needs to get better nutrition to heal, not to mention she needs the swelling to go down. My biggest mistake is not doing more of my own research thinking that the doctors know whats best. It honestly feels like they don't really care that much. I think if we can get that swelling down it will help reduce her pain and allow her to eat some real foods. Can anyone please help me with some advice? I feel like we still have some hope left but I feel like we're running out of time. Why won't the swelling go down? She's going to see an infection doctor on friday to see if the swelling is caused by an infection, but she has been on antibiotics for a while already. Thank you.
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