my cats surgery incisions got infected

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my cat i just got neutered and then his front paws declawed came down with an infection=( what is weird is i never have had a past pet get an infection and this cat was running and jumping and showed NO pain! other than the stitched area looking nasty there was no signs at all! is it common for cats to get their incisions infected? we can only figure he licked at it too much which the first couple of days i kept a close eye on him (except for when i slept) and he was feeling so good and i hadnt seen him messing with them i just stopped watching him as closely.. none of my other pets have had probs and my dog who just had a tumor removed licked hers more than he did his (i had to watch her like a hawk the whole time) so now he is on antibiotics and he should have been healed up by now (its been a week) he is still on the special litter (since he got declawed) he is eating fine (heck he is stealing other pets food) and i bought that collar now so he cant get to it.. any thing else i could do to help him heal faster? im leaving town thursday so he has to be boarded wens and so he needs to be fine by then or else it may cause a problem with the boarder (or cost me a ton more!) never had to deal with infection before and i dont know if there are any extra things i can do to help him or not.. any ideas?