Who has had an open surgery?

mom2be,

It is going to hurt a lot. Although mine was Laproscopic it was at 59 years of age which made it harder. Contray to my earlier comment where I suggested you ask your doctor first because you had possable bi-lateral kidney Cancer for which I did not think you woukd find answers here, do not ask your doctor if this is going to hurt. They do not feek a thing. Mine wrote on my discharge summary that I was discharged without pain. He was either drinking or trying out for standup comedy when he wrote that.

Icemantoo

mom2two said:

Sometimes I think I should

Sometimes I think I should wait...but wait for what? it to get bigger? give it a chance to spread? yea, I know it rarely spreads in tumors 4 x my size, but do I really want to take the risk? Ugh.

 

I think a couple of my hang ups are that 1) I will only be paid part of the time I am out, 2) husband keeps saying "if it was me, I would try some natural remedy," and 3) before I can go back to work, I have to be able to push a 700 lb cart. Yes, I am not kidding.

Its not worth the risk! I am new to this and I hope you dont wait. As for the money side of it ... my husband was off two months with no pay and you get by .. we did ... money is nothing compared to your life. And you should give hubby a slap for that comment (sorry I am very independant) natural does not in my opinion cure cancer!

My surgery was 6 weeks ago and I promise you I was terrified beyond belief .. I am pathetic with pain and have had some really bad anxiety issues over this! I also promise you it was not as bad as I thought it would be. The recovery for me has been frustrating ... not soon enough etc. I push myself and wipe myself out. I paid for it this last week with some severe fatique and have slowed down a bit. I was sitting at my desk two weeks after surgery .. stupid but it made me feel better. I am now happy to be at home and rest and do things at a pace I am happy with. Today I drove my car for the first time alone...not due to pain but i was so wound up with anxiety that my driving was dangerous and today I relaxed and did it. I figure that if I am to have this problem I may as well get on with it rather than waste my life on negative thinking. The pain is controlled and the care is good so please try not to worry. Have the surgery and look forward to a long and happy life.

Michelle x

The answer to your first question is:  probably most of us here have had one or more open surgeries.

As regards work, you haven't said what it involves, other than pushing a 700 lb cart.  It will take a long time to heal enough for a constantly physically taxing job, so you would be missing a lot of work if you have an op and return to your present job.  

However, you've given no good evidence for ignoring the professional advice, which is, in your situation, to watch and wait and NOT  to have surgery at present.   The advice you've received here has mostly been from comparative newcomers who, with all due deference, don't, as yet, know much about this business.  They've reinforced your belief that  "I know I have no choice, and I need it out of me..."  which is simply untrue.  There's a flood of wholly ill-advised operations going on prematurely which both puts a great strain on the availability of time for truly necessary ops and which also causes unnecessary pain and loss of work for patients and their caregivers and friends.  

You'll lose nothing by waiting and watching the lesion closely.  Your urologist isn't absolutely certain that it's cancerous and if it is and an op is necessary later on, it will be just the same as an op now.  It's virtually unknown for such a tiny lesion to metastasise so there's no serious risk in continuing surveillance until something indicates that intervention is necessary.  

Meanwhile, it's possible for the lesion to simply disappear or to shrink or remain unchanged.   We can't really know the numbers but it's undoubtedly the case that we all get lesions like yours which, without symptoms, there's no reason to detect and so we live with them indefinitely, or our immune system successfully gets rid of them without our ever knowing about it.  There's nothing wrong with your Husband's suggestion in your present situation - it's not as if he's saying that you shouldn't have an op that's known to be essential and instead should depend on alternative medicine.  Tuning your lifestyle towards the ideal (e.g. in exercise, diet, relaxation etc) and even trying some complementary therapy that's not known to be harmful isn't foolish in itself.

It's annoyingly unscientific when folks talking about, e.g. diet or 'natural' remedies feel obliged to say that they are sure that they cannot cure cancer (just to look as though they're being hard scientists).  Since there are cases of 'spontaneous remissions' that go unexplained, it's not scientific to say that they can't be a result of x or y, unless thorough investigations have been carried out that give good evidence that x or y could not be responsible.  In most instances no such investigations have been carried out, nor are they likely to be. 

So, you've asked why should you wait and, aside from the reasons I've given you, there's the fact that the gurus in RCC treatment say you should.  Wait for it to get bigger?, you say.  That's a specious question - wait to see if it's going to get bigger and if it gets bigger at a snail's pace, possibly keep waiting (assuming you don't have symptoms).  Wait for it to 'spread'?   You say, is it worth the risk?   The risk is virtually zero, which is why the medical experts say you should wait.

I hope you'll see the sense of not rushing into an operation that may even be completely unnecessary but which there's no real disadvantage in having later anyway.

Texas_wedge said:

Who has had an open surgery?

The answer to your first question is:  probably most of us here have had one or more open surgeries.

As regards work, you haven't said what it involves, other than pushing a 700 lb cart.  It will take a long time to heal enough for a constantly physically taxing job, so you would be missing a lot of work if you have an op and return to your present job.  

However, you've given no good evidence for ignoring the professional advice, which is, in your situation, to watch and wait and NOT  to have surgery at present.   The advice you've received here has mostly been from comparative newcomers who, with all due deference, don't, as yet, know much about this business.  They've reinforced your belief that  "I know I have no choice, and I need it out of me..."  which is simply untrue.  There's a flood of wholly ill-advised operations going on prematurely which both puts a great strain on the availability of time for truly necessary ops and which also causes unnecessary pain and loss of work for patients and their caregivers and friends.  

You'll lose nothing by waiting and watching the lesion closely.  Your urologist isn't absolutely certain that it's cancerous and if it is and an op is necessary later on, it will be just the same as an op now.  It's virtually unknown for such a tiny lesion to metastasise so there's no serious risk in continuing surveillance until something indicates that intervention is necessary.  

Meanwhile, it's possible for the lesion to simply disappear or to shrink or remain unchanged.   We can't really know the numbers but it's undoubtedly the case that we all get lesions like yours which, without symptoms, there's no reason to detect and so we live with them indefinitely, or our immune system successfully gets rid of them without our ever knowing about it.  There's nothing wrong with your Husband's suggestion in your present situation - it's not as if he's saying that you shouldn't have an op that's known to be essential and instead should depend on alternative medicine.  Tuning your lifestyle towards the ideal (e.g. in exercise, diet, relaxation etc) and even trying some complementary therapy that's not known to be harmful isn't foolish in itself.

It's annoyingly unscientific when folks talking about, e.g. diet or 'natural' remedies feel obliged to say that they are sure that they cannot cure cancer (just to look as though they're being hard scientists).  Since there are cases of 'spontaneous remissions' that go unexplained, it's not scientific to say that they can't be a result of x or y, unless thorough investigations have been carried out that give good evidence that x or y could not be responsible.  In most instances no such investigations have been carried out, nor are they likely to be. 

So, you've asked why should you wait and, aside from the reasons I've given you, there's the fact that the gurus in RCC treatment say you should.  Wait for it to get bigger?, you say.  That's a specious question - wait to see if it's going to get bigger and if it gets bigger at a snail's pace, possibly keep waiting (assuming you don't have symptoms).  Wait for it to 'spread'?   You say, is it worth the risk?   The risk is virtually zero, which is why the medical experts say you should wait.

I hope you'll see the sense of not rushing into an operation that may even be completely unnecessary but which there's no real disadvantage in having later anyway.

Hey Tex,

In light of your exceptionally inspiring and (dare I say) heroic assessment of your recent setback it is a bit disconcerting for me to take exception to something you have written here.  Still, to be perfectly honest, I just don't understand your saying this:

"It's annoyingly unscientific when folks talking about, e.g. diet or 'natural' remedies feel obliged to say that they are sure that they cannot cure cancer (just to look as though they're being hard scientists)."

I am someone who talks alot about following a proper diet while spending a heck of a lot of time researching just what that might entail. Yet I also state quite clearly that I do not believe that just dietary changes (or taking supplements) - ALONE - can "cure" cancer.  This is being scientific in the true sense of the term.  To date there is no acceptable scientific "proof" - as in the case of controlled double-blind experiements, etc. - that might allow any "responsible" scientist to make any such claim.  Meanwhile, you and I both know that the term "spontaneous remission" is just a broad catch-all phrase that simply connotes mainstream medicines inability to explain what they feel is unexplainable (at least so far).

Now I personally believe that I have had great "success" based on changing my diet.  But my success, rightfully, should only be classified as being in the realm of "purely anecdotal" (along with all spontaneous remissions).  This is following the well understood "rules" of the scientific method, which I unabasedly try to adhere to.  In doing so I am not trying to prove that I am a hard scientist.  I am simply acknowledging the limits of that science.  They are not the same thing at all.

Remember, it only takes the observation of one black swan to "prove" that a "scientific" statement that "all swans are white" is  completely false.

I had an "Open full-neph" non-robotic surgery a little over a year ago on 07/17/12 on my right kidney. My RCC tumor was 5.0cm & the path report came back Stage 1 / Grade 1 all contained and no vusual signs of spreading. They thought pre-surgery based on the CT and other imaging that it was a 6.2cm tumor.

I had never had major surgery before so I was very frightened of being put under and that was a big hurdle for me to get over but obviously I didn't have the choice given my tumor size on whether to wait, the only question was whether to have a partial or full nephrectomy. I saw 3 specialists and spoke to another one who read all my imaging. It was a mixed bag on which way to go. I was on the borderline but it still would have been a judgement call once they opened me up. I chose to go with a full based on many factors.

My healing was pretty normal. I went home on the morning of the 19tth, which shocked me, but the Dr was obviosuly pleased with my progress. I spent one night in ICU after surgery, but that was scheduled, not a surpise. I had a pain killer drip of something, probably morphine, that I controled when I needed it, and I stopped 'hitting' myself after the first day. I was in very little pain but was very unconfortable, especially when they needed to move me. I was walking on the 2nd day and that was very, very slow going, which to this day I mostly attribute to the pain meds having an effect on your mind/ body...everything is off.

I came home and spent most fo the 1st week in my recliner but was able to move around and walk very slowly up and down dtarirs 1-2 times a day w no help. I git a slight infection at the incision site so antibiotics were prescribed. The next few weeks were spent mostly sitting and doing sone slight walking, but I was driving in 2-3 weeks, but I did not try and really push myself very much and listened to my body.

I had help cooking, helping me shower using a chair, and going to the bathroom, etc. It was very slowgoing. 

Honestly, the worst part for me was the constipation for about a week / and bloating that never seemed to want to go away. Loose drawstring shorts and tee-shirts were the uniform. 

I'll be honest, I'm not sure I would have healed any faster with a partial/ robotic.

All the best with your decision/ God Bless!!

mom2two....when they open you up they have lots of room to see and work.  They give you wonderful drugs to sleep and then drugs after... the toughest part will be to get your bowels working again... dancing comes later...just get some help with the children for the first several weeks...and take your time.....

Gordon Charles said:

Take a look at You Tube....

mom2two....when they open you up they have lots of room to see and work.  They give you wonderful drugs to sleep and then drugs after... the toughest part will be to get your bowels working again... dancing comes later...just get some help with the children for the first several weeks...and take your time.....

I had an open also. For an amazingly healthy strong, active man, I've had many surgeries. I believe that I will heal from anything. So Bring it on. You'll heal also. Just do what your Doctor thinks is best. The patient isn't the one to make many medical decisions. A couple days of reading the internet is not like a career in medical school and the OR.

Hello 

I had it done on Sept 13 2013. cut front to back on my right side and there was pain but wasnt as bad as i thought it would be.

the meds are good so you will be fine. i had a button to push if i needed more meds and used it when i knew they were going to get me up.

it will take a few weeks to get going ,after that you will do alright...good luck

jim

GSRon said:

Ah Jim... how did you do

Ah Jim... how did you do that..?  It is only the 10th..? 

Ron

I had it in 2012. getting old you know, it has been one year for mine and going for my cat on monday..