The Road To Lung Surgery

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I don’t do New Years resolutions. I think anything you want to try to do or accomplish is worth doing at any time of the year. This is just a post about life, stuff, blogging, and me. I’ve spent a lot of time contemplating a lot of things in the last six months. Why the last six months? Well, it was six months ago today that I underwent major surgery. I haven’t discussed it here. In the beginning it was very private and the feelings were just so overwhelming. Let me explain, by backing up a bit.
During the spring of 2011, I started not feeling well. By April I wasn’t sleeping and was coughing at night, sometimes with blood. And sometimes there was a terrible smell, even after brushing my teeth. I went to the doctors, where they told me that I had the flu. I didn’t feel better and after about a week went back to the doctor. They took some xrays and told me there was a mass on my lungs. They recommended I get a CT of the lungs and see a pulmonologist. I had the CT. I scheduled an appointment with the pulmonologist, who would take about three months to see.
I was going to see another doctor regarding some leg vein issues I’ve had and decided I would try and talk to someone there about seeing the pulmonologist sooner. I wanted to bring the CT results with me so I had them faxed to me at work. When I read the report and saw that the two masses were likely cancerous I literally almost collapsed, thankfully a friend was there to help keep me upright. Word to the wise. It’s not a good idea to read your own report without having an idea of what might be on there or someone to catch you, especially if you are familiar with the medical terminology used.
My mind was reeling. I went to my vein appointment the next day as scheduled. After seeing him I stopped at the desk and explained my situation. They had the pulmonologist on call in the ER see me, who interestingly enough was the very doctor I was scheduled to see in a few months. He admitted me to the hospital on sight. This was early May 2011, and the last day i worked at my job.
While in the hospital the pulmonologist did a bronchoscopy. This is a very unpleasant procedure where they look down your throat. They spray nasty tasting stuff down your throat to numb things but you can still sort of feel things. He decided that he wanted me to have a PET scan. I had the PET Scan in late May. There’s no feeling like sitting alone in a room with radioactive stuff that has to be handled with tongs.

And then being put into a machine that can determine some of the things happening in your body. the things you have no control over.

After reading the PET Scan results the doctors opinions remained the same – I had masses on my lungs and there was an excellent chance that it was lung cancer. The pulmonologist had me see one of the surgeons, who decided he wanted a better look by doing a mediastinoscopy. That was scheduled for a week or two later. A mediastinoscopy is a procedure where they make an incision near the base of the throat so that they can get a look at the lymph glands. I had no definite answers after this surgery, just a nifty scar on my neck that to this day makes people ask if I’ve had a trach. While he was in there he did another bronchoscopy. They were unable to biopsy because they discovered I had a bleeding disorder. The feeling was still that it was cancer.

the surgeon said we now had a choice. If they took a look one way and didn’t like what they saw they’d have to schedule yet another surgery to actually get in there. The other option was just to basically do a surgery, sort of exploratory but if they didn’t like what they saw they could deal with it then. Hubby and I thought it made the most sense to just do the surgery and deal with the problem. The problem that everyone now believed was cancer. They wanted to do the surgery in the last week of June. They told me that they were probably going to have to take one of my lungs. Some of the things I heard on this terrified me, like how for some people with one lung things flood and there’s basically no repair and you die. I refused to have the surgery until after my youngest son’s birthday in the beginning of July.
Surgery was July 5. I had dropped to 149 pounds, because by then I couldn’t even keep water down. 149 is not a good look for me by the way. I was absolutely terrified. I awoke from surgery in a haze. The first thing I recall hearing was my husband telling me that they’d taken one of the lobes from my left lung and that the surgeon felt it was not cancer after all. Much of that day was a blur. The pain was blinding. I was on drugs that didn’t even dent the pain. The incisions from surgery were sort of from my side to under the left breast, and on my back. I had a chest tube. Oh God, the chest tube. On day two the surgeon came in to check me out and said it was time to remove the chest tube. He had me lay on my side. I heard this awful screaming, I couldn’t imagine what that person must have been going through to sound like that. The person screaming was me.
More tomorrow.