ATrueFA
Well-Known Member
Forgive me if I am not real coherent as I have just been released from the hospital and I am still on morphine.
First I want to say thanks for everyone support and to the person that sent flowers and other that sent cards. I also want to apologize for being overly grumpy to anyone that called me while at the hospital.
I went in for surgery last Thurs (3/23) and the surgery lasted 4.5 hours. Because of the way the tumor was growing in the main airway of the right lung and the large footprint it had they very nearly decided to take the whole lung but decided on trying to save the upper and lower lobes first. If the tumor has been just a little bigger and/or lymph nodes had been involved they would have taken the whole lung. The surgery otherwise went very well according to the surgeon. I awoke shortly after surgery on an epidermal (spinal tap) pain medication machine and at first had very little pain or discomfort but that night the machine kept getting error and beeping constantly and pain on the level of 7-8 set in. They could not get it to stay working so they removed it and put me on a stansard morphine pump. For the next 2 days I got no relief either as the IV had not been done correctly and much of the morphine just dripped onto the floor. Basicly the whole time I was there I had little pain relief and got no sleep at all. Otherwise everything went well and with breathing exercises and sulphide breathing treatments the lung lobes re-xepanded and they were able to remove one lung drain tube yesterday and one the day before along with the bladder catheter (what fun that was) Because of the lung drainage tubes I was pretty much tied to the bed and had to use a potty chair next to it. With the exercises my breathing volume went from 1000ml to 1500ml the first day after surgery. It was also a shared room and the guy next to me was like party central with at least 8-10 people (max 2 according to hosp rules but they wouldn't enforce it) so between the pain, the error code beeps and partying next bed over any form of rest or sleep was right out. No hope of hearing the TV either. The daily xrays came back clean. I am scheduled for a CT scan in 2 months and possible localized radiation treatment in the future. I am now home alone during the day on morphine tablets 3 times a day and they seem to work better than the pump did. I was finally able get some sleep and get some rest but the pain does still flair up time to time enough to prevent sleep or rest. The prognosis is good but the surgeon is slightly worried about how close they had to cut to the margins to save the other 2 lobes. If it were to come there would be no choice but to remove the rest of the right lung. He doesn't think there is much chance giving it about an 80% success rate. I thought I had a fairly high pain threshold and if you have never had major lung surgery you don't know what pain really is. Its enought to totally scramble your thoughts. I even went into uncontrollab;e shaking for a while when the epidermal machine broke. The doc said there are thousands of nerves that branchout through the area they have to cut through so you have all these raw nerves all sending full tilt pain to your brain, not to mention the pain from a couple of cut ribs. Still, its much better than the alternative. The biopsy showed lymph nodes all clear and the tumor was baseball to grapefruit sized malagnant non atypical carcinoid tumor. Because of it size and age I am very lucky it didn't metastize even though this type useually only goes to other parts of the lung. I am also lucky not to have bleed to death from it as it was a time bomb. If it hadn't have been caught when it was I probably would have had a totally different outcome.
Again, thanks for everyones support, I will continue to update.
Dave
First I want to say thanks for everyone support and to the person that sent flowers and other that sent cards. I also want to apologize for being overly grumpy to anyone that called me while at the hospital.
I went in for surgery last Thurs (3/23) and the surgery lasted 4.5 hours. Because of the way the tumor was growing in the main airway of the right lung and the large footprint it had they very nearly decided to take the whole lung but decided on trying to save the upper and lower lobes first. If the tumor has been just a little bigger and/or lymph nodes had been involved they would have taken the whole lung. The surgery otherwise went very well according to the surgeon. I awoke shortly after surgery on an epidermal (spinal tap) pain medication machine and at first had very little pain or discomfort but that night the machine kept getting error and beeping constantly and pain on the level of 7-8 set in. They could not get it to stay working so they removed it and put me on a stansard morphine pump. For the next 2 days I got no relief either as the IV had not been done correctly and much of the morphine just dripped onto the floor. Basicly the whole time I was there I had little pain relief and got no sleep at all. Otherwise everything went well and with breathing exercises and sulphide breathing treatments the lung lobes re-xepanded and they were able to remove one lung drain tube yesterday and one the day before along with the bladder catheter (what fun that was) Because of the lung drainage tubes I was pretty much tied to the bed and had to use a potty chair next to it. With the exercises my breathing volume went from 1000ml to 1500ml the first day after surgery. It was also a shared room and the guy next to me was like party central with at least 8-10 people (max 2 according to hosp rules but they wouldn't enforce it) so between the pain, the error code beeps and partying next bed over any form of rest or sleep was right out. No hope of hearing the TV either. The daily xrays came back clean. I am scheduled for a CT scan in 2 months and possible localized radiation treatment in the future. I am now home alone during the day on morphine tablets 3 times a day and they seem to work better than the pump did. I was finally able get some sleep and get some rest but the pain does still flair up time to time enough to prevent sleep or rest. The prognosis is good but the surgeon is slightly worried about how close they had to cut to the margins to save the other 2 lobes. If it were to come there would be no choice but to remove the rest of the right lung. He doesn't think there is much chance giving it about an 80% success rate. I thought I had a fairly high pain threshold and if you have never had major lung surgery you don't know what pain really is. Its enought to totally scramble your thoughts. I even went into uncontrollab;e shaking for a while when the epidermal machine broke. The doc said there are thousands of nerves that branchout through the area they have to cut through so you have all these raw nerves all sending full tilt pain to your brain, not to mention the pain from a couple of cut ribs. Still, its much better than the alternative. The biopsy showed lymph nodes all clear and the tumor was baseball to grapefruit sized malagnant non atypical carcinoid tumor. Because of it size and age I am very lucky it didn't metastize even though this type useually only goes to other parts of the lung. I am also lucky not to have bleed to death from it as it was a time bomb. If it hadn't have been caught when it was I probably would have had a totally different outcome.
Again, thanks for everyones support, I will continue to update.
Dave
