When does the surgery pain end?

I had a rad. nephrectomy and IVC thrombectomy in 2009.  As I sit here and type, I have lower back pain (acute kidney pain) that has not subsided since the surgery, even though my incision was straight down the middle from the chest to the abdomen.  That highway scar itched for more than a year, and will still itch about once each month. Occasionally, I will have kidney pain the the area of the non-existent kidney. The surgeon explained this as the nerve endings trying to find each other.  I also had a lung wedge resection in 2011, and I get a surprise stabbing pain in that area at the most inopportune moment- like during a meeting at work.  At one point, the back pain was enough that I could not pick my feet up off the floor to walk.  It hasn't been that bad for a while, but right now I do have to use my own special technique to get out of the bed. It's a roll, swing, hoist, stick the landing, freeze, then start walking and slowly straightening up like a caveman's evolution from the bed to the bathroom.

I have learned that not all pain is cancer pain and I need not worry every time something hurts.  That achy knee is not kidney cancer mets to the knee-- it's age and arthritis.

dhs1963 said:

The pain is from the surgeries rather than the cancer

The thing to remember, as I am sitting here with stabbing pain -- it is neurons firing after being damaged in surgery.  It is not from cancer.  I have some other pains that could be related to cancer, I don't know...but that is more like pressure of something pushing against a nerve (I have enlarged lymph nodes that have been stable, right now, I fel them pressing against something).

I wonder if something as mundane as the dopomine levels lead the neurons to fire more/less?  I am also a quick non-linear thinker, which has been attributed to neurons in my brain firing.  If that can happen, why not in other places, causing pain?  Just speculation. 

 

I am 2.5 weeks out from my next scans...probably just scanxiety coupled with pain.

About a week ago the the Doctor called to move my scan from January 14th to January 13th. It was thoughtful since the oncologist is going away for 10 days on the 15th so she can have the results on the 14th and I won't have a wait a week. Still I admit since that phone call all existing pain has got worse and has been joined with a few new aches behnd my lungs.