soccerfreak I have a question for you?

sleepless in jersey

Hello~ I scrolled through your history and had seen you had fluid in your pleural?
My Mom just got out of the Hospital on Saturday. She got admitted for difficulty breathing was put on 02, nebulizer and very high dose of steroids after sevral tests they found her tumors have grown and with a vengance and fluid in the lung lining (pleural) now I believe your was where you had the 3 drains right? They didn't remove Mom's the Pulomonologist is hoping the Gemzar will resolve all issues if not than you have to come in and get it drained. So I guess my question is what makes yours needing to have drains and Moms not (was it the amt of fluid)?

A friend of my parents is a head radiologist at another hospital he had told my Dad that she will never ever be off chemo and if she is off even 1 month it will kill her! Well she was off chemo since July 12th and was Hospitalized Aug. 8th do to waiting on scans, than fluid in lungs, than needed LT lung drained (they thought was cancer was neg.) to than poss. infection start z-pack than start chemo in 10days.
So needless to say Mom's depressed knowing she always has to stay on chemo its like her life line.

You have been going through this journedy for quite sometime just trying to get some feed back from you thats all.

Thanks for any info.
God Bless

soccerfreaks

Hi, sleepless
I wish I could help you, but actually the major secondary result from my lobectomy (lower right) was a staph infection (MSSA) rather than pleurisy. It is true that the number of drains increased from two to three once the infection entered the picture, and all of them stayed for basically the entire time I was in the hospital (an original four day stay at the end of January ended up lasting the entire month of February, basically).

The reason for adding the third, I guess, was that they were draining more than fluid -- they were draining infection missed during that second operation... I had to have a second operation to the same lung, where they attempted to scoop out pockets of pus (pardon the grossness), which my surgeon calculated to be about 200, while inserting that third drain.

sleepless, there are quite a number of folks in here on a more or less maintenance plan, switching chemos from time to time as advances are made, some even continuing to work (check out stayingcalm, for example, a wonder and a wonderful woman!). So there is hope for mom. From my perspective it has always been about pain: if they can eliminate pain from the equation, or at least reduce it, we tend to stay resolute in our determination to survive. It is pain that breaks our will when it becomes too great. Hopefully, mom's docs consider this carefully and make special efforts to reduce pain, nausea and other negative results of the chemo.

Best wishes to mom and her family, sleepless.

Take care,

Joe

sleepless in jersey

soccerfreaks said:

Hi, sleepless
I wish I could help you, but actually the major secondary result from my lobectomy (lower right) was a staph infection (MSSA) rather than pleurisy. It is true that the number of drains increased from two to three once the infection entered the picture, and all of them stayed for basically the entire time I was in the hospital (an original four day stay at the end of January ended up lasting the entire month of February, basically).

The reason for adding the third, I guess, was that they were draining more than fluid -- they were draining infection missed during that second operation... I had to have a second operation to the same lung, where they attempted to scoop out pockets of pus (pardon the grossness), which my surgeon calculated to be about 200, while inserting that third drain.

sleepless, there are quite a number of folks in here on a more or less maintenance plan, switching chemos from time to time as advances are made, some even continuing to work (check out stayingcalm, for example, a wonder and a wonderful woman!). So there is hope for mom. From my perspective it has always been about pain: if they can eliminate pain from the equation, or at least reduce it, we tend to stay resolute in our determination to survive. It is pain that breaks our will when it becomes too great. Hopefully, mom's docs consider this carefully and make special efforts to reduce pain, nausea and other negative results of the chemo.

Best wishes to mom and her family, sleepless.

Take care,

Joe

Thanks Joe
Thanks for clarifing that for me.
Have a Great weekend!