More Surgery

Cheryl Z

My husband who battled colon cancer last year was just diagnosed with lung cancer. It is a new primary cancer not metasticised from colon. He will be having a complete right upper lobectomy in about 2 weeks. Has anyone had this and what can we expect as far as the surgery, recovery and treatment after.
Thank you for taking the time to respond
Cheryl

cabbott

Welcome
Welcome to the group no one wants to join! I'm a two time survivor too, though my diagnoses are breast cancer (2002) and lung cancer (2006). I was really surprised with the second diagnosis. But my oncologist said that folks with cancer have a higher chance of further cancers than the rest of the population. Sort of a bummer to be sure, but the good thing was that they were watching for this and caught things early. Lung cancer in stage 1A is sometimes curable with surgery alone. Even at later stages surgery often removes a lot of the problem and makes way for more successful treatment than chemo alone.

Surgery ouches. Alot. But the pain meds are great and my worst problem was being dependent on others that first week in the hospital. I'm probably not telling you anything you don't already know about that. Different surgeries have different recovery times. I was lucky enough to be referred to a thoracic specialist who did VATS procedures. It is like laproscopic surgery(incisions fit under a bandaid) on the chest. I was actually up and jogging a week after I came home from the hospital--not fast and not far, but I was up and trying. Unfortunately the doctor had to go back in since he thought I had stage 4 breast cancer and it turned out to be stage 1 lung cancer, so he had to do a modified VATS (4 inch insicion) a week later and remove the whole middle lobe. That ouched more and it took me a month to walk around the track after that one. Bigger incisions mean a longer recovery time and more ouchies. General surgeons can also remove lobes of a lung, but they use incisions double the length of what I had with the modified VATS. I'll skip repeating myself on what that leads to and just suggest that you consider getting a VATS procedure if you can get to a specialist that can do one. And if that will work for you. That was me and my recovery. Everyone is different and recoveries are different too. Surgeons won't do anything if they don't think it will help. There are lots of folks around to help, so come back with all your qauestions as you make it through this.

PBJ Austin

cabbott said:

Welcome
Welcome to the group no one wants to join! I'm a two time survivor too, though my diagnoses are breast cancer (2002) and lung cancer (2006). I was really surprised with the second diagnosis. But my oncologist said that folks with cancer have a higher chance of further cancers than the rest of the population. Sort of a bummer to be sure, but the good thing was that they were watching for this and caught things early. Lung cancer in stage 1A is sometimes curable with surgery alone. Even at later stages surgery often removes a lot of the problem and makes way for more successful treatment than chemo alone.

Surgery ouches. Alot. But the pain meds are great and my worst problem was being dependent on others that first week in the hospital. I'm probably not telling you anything you don't already know about that. Different surgeries have different recovery times. I was lucky enough to be referred to a thoracic specialist who did VATS procedures. It is like laproscopic surgery(incisions fit under a bandaid) on the chest. I was actually up and jogging a week after I came home from the hospital--not fast and not far, but I was up and trying. Unfortunately the doctor had to go back in since he thought I had stage 4 breast cancer and it turned out to be stage 1 lung cancer, so he had to do a modified VATS (4 inch insicion) a week later and remove the whole middle lobe. That ouched more and it took me a month to walk around the track after that one. Bigger incisions mean a longer recovery time and more ouchies. General surgeons can also remove lobes of a lung, but they use incisions double the length of what I had with the modified VATS. I'll skip repeating myself on what that leads to and just suggest that you consider getting a VATS procedure if you can get to a specialist that can do one. And if that will work for you. That was me and my recovery. Everyone is different and recoveries are different too. Surgeons won't do anything if they don't think it will help. There are lots of folks around to help, so come back with all your qauestions as you make it through this.

Upper right lobectomy
I had the upper right lobectomy and it's no fun but the healing will come. I did not have VATS so I spent a week in the hospital then it was another month before I returned to work. Be sure he gets an epidural at least until the chest tubes are removed. Once the tubes come out he will probably feel better although he will still need pain meds for some time. I took vicodin for about a month after surgery then I switched to ibuprophen. It's been 10 months now and I still have occasional pain but not so bad that I need ibuprophen every day. I started working out again, both running and on my stair stepper about 3 months after surgery. They will instruct him on breathing excercises and although it's uncomfortable at first, it's really important he should do these. Once he's out of the hospital he should walk as much as possible without overdoing it, of course. Lifting is one thing he should avoid as he might pull something. He also might find bending over to be painful so that s/b avoided too.

If you have any other questions please post back and I will answer if I can.

Cheryl Z

PBJ Austin said:

Upper right lobectomy
I had the upper right lobectomy and it's no fun but the healing will come. I did not have VATS so I spent a week in the hospital then it was another month before I returned to work. Be sure he gets an epidural at least until the chest tubes are removed. Once the tubes come out he will probably feel better although he will still need pain meds for some time. I took vicodin for about a month after surgery then I switched to ibuprophen. It's been 10 months now and I still have occasional pain but not so bad that I need ibuprophen every day. I started working out again, both running and on my stair stepper about 3 months after surgery. They will instruct him on breathing excercises and although it's uncomfortable at first, it's really important he should do these. Once he's out of the hospital he should walk as much as possible without overdoing it, of course. Lifting is one thing he should avoid as he might pull something. He also might find bending over to be painful so that s/b avoided too.

If you have any other questions please post back and I will answer if I can.

Thank you. We are shooting
Thank you. We are shooting for August 10th for the surgery.
Cheryl