Ralph415

Thank you Mary, Merilee, and Richard for your posts. I apologize for not responding sooner. I have been trying not to think too much about the surgery while I deal with some other matters. I did see my doctor and he ordered some additional tests including a new CT scan. I will see him again next month and I think he will schedule the surgery at that time. Your posts about your experiences have been very helpful to me. They make surgery seem less like a nightmare and more like something to just get done and over with. Thanks again for your help. Ralph

Thank you Cindy, Barb, and Mary for taking the time to respond. I found all your posts extremely helpful, encouraging, and informative. I took a few days off because I was getting too stressed over this, but now I'm back to trying to deal with it again. While I know it will be unpleasant, you make it sound like something I can get through. I still haven't scheduled an appointment with the doctor, but I am starting to make plans based on the assumption that I will have the surgery and that's a step in the right direction. I am still worried about the long term effects of the surgery and how it will affect my life. Will it be much harder to breathe? How long does it take for the lung to heal? And is there much pain after the incisions have healed, such as pain due to nerve damage? All of your comments have helped me a lot. Thank you for your help. Ralph

Hello Barb. I have just one nodule that needs to be removed. The surgery will remove either most or the entire lower left lobe. The doctor says he will start with robotic surgery, but he may choose to switch to the more invasive open (non-robotic) surgery depending on what he finds. It's very reassuring to hear you say that the pain wasn't too bad. I actually did worry about the catheter, but I figured that would be the least of my problems. Did you have trouble sleeping when you got home? How difficult was it to get in and out of bed? How difficult was it to go to the bathroom? How difficult was it to go up and down stairs? And for how long did all these problems last? Thanks for responding. It really is helpful to me. Hearing people talk about the surgery makes it less foreboding.

Thanks, Shanna, for sharing this with me. Depression and anxiety are problems I am having as well. I called my doctor today to asked for a drug to treat both depression and anxiety. He said he would fax the prescription to my druggist today but the drug might take a couple of weeks to show any effect. But my biggest problem still comes down to building the resolve to go forward and commit to having the surgery. My frustration is with myself and dealing with my fears and phobias. Maybe I should just put a paper bag over my head and leave it there till the surgery is over. If they ask at the reception desk, my wife can tell them I'm the Elephant man. Please keep in touch and let me know how you are doing. Thanks again.

Hello Cindy. Thank you for your concern and your suggestion. I apologize for not responding sooner. I'm having trouble facing this right now. When I spoke to the surgeon in November, he had someone come to his office who gave me several handouts covering local support groups and other topics, but I did not follow up at the time. I will take a look at the LifeLine Program. Thanks again for the suggestion.

Hello Tom. Thank you for you response. I truly appreciate you sharing your experiences with me. It sounds like you went through a lot more treatment than I will need. I find it very encouraging that you do not recall the pain to have been so severe. The BAC cancer, at least in some cases, is also called adenocarcinoma in situ. If this is what I have, then it's very possible it hasn't spead. So the surgery may be the only treatment necessary to remove it completely. But if not removed soon, it can become invasive. Thanks for taking the time to respond.

A 1.6 cm ground glass nodule was found in my lung last year. Since the PET scan was negative, the doctor said we could watch and wait to see if it was growing. Unfortunately, a CT scan two months ago showed that it was much bigger. The doctor said we could wait till after Christmas, but I should call him in January to schedule surgery for February. Well, I have been staring at the phone for three weeks and don't have the courage to pick it up and call. I know I am one of the "lucky" ones who can have surgery and, even better, the doctor thinks it's the BAC type of cancer, which has a excellent prognosis. But I've never spent a night in a hospital and never had major surgery. I freeze whenever I think about the agonizing pain, the chest tube, the collapsed lung. It's all a bad nightmare. How do you people deal with this?