MAY BE TIME FOR WAR AGAIN

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  • Jimbo55
    Jimbo55 Member Posts: 590 Member
    #22
    Hey Mike
    Mike, more positive thoughts your way from this corner. Sure hope it turns out to be nothing to be concerned about. Stay strong partner. Cheers.

    Jimbo
  • Ingrid K
    Ingrid K Member Posts: 813
    #23
    Jimbo55 said:

    Hey Mike
    Mike, more positive thoughts your way from this corner. Sure hope it turns out to be nothing to be concerned about. Stay strong partner. Cheers.

    Jimbo

    hope it's nothing
    Mike

    sending you best wishes that this turns out to be nothing to worry about.
    As others have said, we always worry, that won't ever stop but really we know that it's not bad until you know for sure with biopsy results.

    hoping this turns out well for you and your family.
  • luv4lacrosse
    luv4lacrosse Member Posts: 1,410 Member
    #24
    FOLLOW UP TO ORIGINAL POST
    I saw my Thoracic Surgeon yesterday, and when I return from a business trip / visiting my son at Kansas State University Sept. 15th I will have surgery to either do a wedge resection in my right lower lobe of my lung, and or have the right lower lobe removed. I did a pulmonary function test yesterday, and will have a PET scan a few days before the surgery to see if there are any other parts of me to be concerned with. The surgeon says even with the lobe removal, I will only lose 10-15% of my overall lung capacity, and with me being in excellent physical shape, he says I will not even notice it.

    For anyone who may have been through a simillar situation, can you give me some feedback?

    Thanks

    Mike
  • Skiffin16
    Skiffin16 Member Posts: 8,305 Member
    #25
    luv4lacrosse said:

    FOLLOW UP TO ORIGINAL POST
    I saw my Thoracic Surgeon yesterday, and when I return from a business trip / visiting my son at Kansas State University Sept. 15th I will have surgery to either do a wedge resection in my right lower lobe of my lung, and or have the right lower lobe removed. I did a pulmonary function test yesterday, and will have a PET scan a few days before the surgery to see if there are any other parts of me to be concerned with. The surgeon says even with the lobe removal, I will only lose 10-15% of my overall lung capacity, and with me being in excellent physical shape, he says I will not even notice it.

    For anyone who may have been through a simillar situation, can you give me some feedback?

    Thanks

    Mike

    Sounds Positive
    That sounds really positive Mike...

    Thoughts and prayers they can deal with it as minimal as possible and for the very best outcome.

    Prayers,
    John
  • katenorwood
    katenorwood Member Posts: 1,912
    #26
    luv4lacrosse said:

    FOLLOW UP TO ORIGINAL POST
    I saw my Thoracic Surgeon yesterday, and when I return from a business trip / visiting my son at Kansas State University Sept. 15th I will have surgery to either do a wedge resection in my right lower lobe of my lung, and or have the right lower lobe removed. I did a pulmonary function test yesterday, and will have a PET scan a few days before the surgery to see if there are any other parts of me to be concerned with. The surgeon says even with the lobe removal, I will only lose 10-15% of my overall lung capacity, and with me being in excellent physical shape, he says I will not even notice it.

    For anyone who may have been through a simillar situation, can you give me some feedback?

    Thanks

    Mike

    Hoping all positive for you !
    Mike,
    We have different dx's...but lung function I battle with every day. 10-15% is a very positive thing ! Thank god you've stayed in high physical condition, it's a great thing ! I'm down to 35%, and they still can't tell me if it's cancer. Nodes are too small and with other health concerns it's a wait and see. I wish you the best of the best outcome ! Keep us posted ! Katie
  • fisrpotpe
    fisrpotpe Member Posts: 1,349 Member
    #27
    luv4lacrosse said:

    FOLLOW UP TO ORIGINAL POST
    I saw my Thoracic Surgeon yesterday, and when I return from a business trip / visiting my son at Kansas State University Sept. 15th I will have surgery to either do a wedge resection in my right lower lobe of my lung, and or have the right lower lobe removed. I did a pulmonary function test yesterday, and will have a PET scan a few days before the surgery to see if there are any other parts of me to be concerned with. The surgeon says even with the lobe removal, I will only lose 10-15% of my overall lung capacity, and with me being in excellent physical shape, he says I will not even notice it.

    For anyone who may have been through a simillar situation, can you give me some feedback?

    Thanks

    Mike

    added hope
    with that news Mike it sure has added hope and increase your positive mental attitude going into this stage of continued survivorship. you took it on and one the first time and there is no reason you should no be able to do the same.

    PMA is most important for survivorship and fight
    john
  • KareGiver
    KareGiver Member Posts: 301 Member
    #28
    fisrpotpe said:

    added hope
    with that news Mike it sure has added hope and increase your positive mental attitude going into this stage of continued survivorship. you took it on and one the first time and there is no reason you should no be able to do the same.

    PMA is most important for survivorship and fight
    john

    Mike
    Great news! Wishing you the best!
  • soccerfreaks
    soccerfreaks Member Posts: 2,788 Member
    #29
    luv4lacrosse said:

    FOLLOW UP TO ORIGINAL POST
    I saw my Thoracic Surgeon yesterday, and when I return from a business trip / visiting my son at Kansas State University Sept. 15th I will have surgery to either do a wedge resection in my right lower lobe of my lung, and or have the right lower lobe removed. I did a pulmonary function test yesterday, and will have a PET scan a few days before the surgery to see if there are any other parts of me to be concerned with. The surgeon says even with the lobe removal, I will only lose 10-15% of my overall lung capacity, and with me being in excellent physical shape, he says I will not even notice it.

    For anyone who may have been through a simillar situation, can you give me some feedback?

    Thanks

    Mike

    yep
    Same lobe, RLL, Mike. They took the entire lobe, but fortunately it is the smallest of the five. They advised that I might not be able to run any marathons again, but that I could play the piano something I couldn't do before (I know, bad joke, old joke). since I was not interested in running any marathons, I was happy with the outcome; Not counting the MSSA attack, which kept me in for another month, I was expected to stay in for about four days and was on pace to beat that when the MSSA arrived. If they do VAT surgery (video assisted surgery) the invasion should be minimal (I have three scars where the tubes were inserted (the third one coming later for the staph infection) and a smiley face scar under my right armpit. They encourage you, of course, to get up and about almost immediately, and so you will be Igor for a few days, dragging a pole around the hospital floor with IVs and especially the drain device for tubes accompanying you.

    You can expect respiration fun about every four hours (where you breathe something through a mask for five, ten, fifteen minutes. The occasional 'mustard gas' (that's what it felt like) may have been part of treatment only because of the infection.

    You MAY once or twice find yourself gagging on what comes up from your lungs. I was completely breathless one time, rather scary, and eventually they helped me get a huge chunk of something to come out. That event started in the bathroom and we all had a big laugh about it once we were sure I was going to live.

    You can also expect an epidural and you will welcome it, trust me. It is higher up your spine than where pregnant women get them (or so I was told) so it might take two or three pokes to get it in (there is less target area the higher up you go)

    Honestly, prior to the infection it was quite bearable. The worst of it, other than the chunk I upchucked, was getting the darned plumbing down my trachea, which they have to do while you are conscious, since you have to be controlling your own breathing at the time. That can be painful, at least if, like me, you have had some interesting surgery done to your oral cavity and neck.

    Then again, things have probably improved measurably since 2008.

    Hope and Humor, Mike! Make 'em laugh and they'll treat you right.

    Take care,

    Joe
  • BrianKrashpad
    BrianKrashpad Member Posts: 188
    #30
    Mojo
    and prayers Mike. Just keep keepin' on.

    Be well.
  • Debi16043
    Debi16043 Member Posts: 53
    #31
    soccerfreaks said:

    Lock and Load
    Mike:

    I am a head/neck cancer (dx August 05) and lung cancer (dx June 07) survivor and am now NED (No Evidence of Disease). For the h/n cancer I had a sizeable portion of my tongue replaced along with a nerve transplant and a radical neck dissection, followed by 33 of 35 scheduled radiation session and several rounds of chemotherapy (cisplatin). Once the steroid wore off (I was like the Tasmanian Devil in terms of energy for about 24 hours following each chemo treatment) I was lying-on-the-bed-in-a-fetal-position-in-the-dark-with-thum-inserted-in-mouth-and-bucket-beside-bed sick for a couple of days. I met with ENT regularly and with OncoMan every 3 months following either a CT scan, a PET scan, or both. Eventually this was extended to six months and then ENT man, after five years said "You know where to find me if you need me" and we were done, with some occasional visits for dilations.

    I asked GP in June of 07 why I still had this nagging little cough since I had quite smoking two years prior. He immediately ordered xrays and CT scan. Now, I was seeing GP because of an infection in facial area (cellulitis?), and had begun taking an antibiotic. In any event, the reports back were not good. I've written of this extensively on my CSN profile and blog, but the bottom line is OncoMan said I had as little as 10 months to live. There were nodes throughout both lungs, all lobes. Palliative care, chemotherapy to try to prolong quality life was the one option. Then in August, following another CT to observe growth, it was discovered that all of the nodes but one were gone! Turns out the Keflex I took for cellulitis apparently also took out the lung infection that the docs had misread as cancer based on my previous history.

    They put me on a CT scanner to try to get a needle to the nodule for a biopsy, trying a number of awkward positions, but my ribs were not cooperative and it was on to a wedge via VATS surgery (video assisted, less invasive). The deal was, if it was the same kind of cancer (squamous cell carcinoma) and proved to be metastasis, they would not remove the lobe, since they could not know where else it might have gone. But if it was new, they would remove the lobe (lower right). They did the biopsy while I was still under and determined it was SCC, but not whether it was mets, and so elected to remove the lobe.

    Following a bout with MSSA (a relative of the staph infection MRSA), I was sent home with a man purse (24/7 picc line meds for the MSSA for a month) and regular rounds of chemotherapy to 'slay the strays'...carboplatin and taxol, nowhere as insufferable as the cisplatin, a walk in the park, in fact, by comparison.

    Longer answer than you wanted, but I am NED, still.

    Best wishes.

    Take care,

    Joe

    Cellulitis
    I too have had cellulitis since june 2012, now going for pet scan to see if its really an infection or another tumor. Did yours turn out to be cellulitis or new tumor?
  • luv4lacrosse
    luv4lacrosse Member Posts: 1,410 Member
    #32
    Debi16043 said:

    Cellulitis
    I too have had cellulitis since june 2012, now going for pet scan to see if its really an infection or another tumor. Did yours turn out to be cellulitis or new tumor?

    BOTH
    I had Cellulitis, and a new cancer was found when I got a ct scan to see if any of the infection needed to be drained or removed. It was found by accident, and what a blessing because I was not due for a scan until the end of October.

    Mike

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