FloridaKaren

Thanks for posting this! I just had an "aha!" moment! My mother is in the hospital recovering from her surgery (right lung removed) and she's very weak and her oxygen saturation goes way down when she does the simplest of things (sitting up, moving to the edge of the bed, standing, sitting down in a chair, etc.) After reading your post I realize that I've been expecting her to progress much faster and I'm too anxious for her to be back to "normal". I need to slow my expectations down and accept her gradual improvement and do my best to encourage her and motivate her and support her and celebrate every small milestone with her. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Your post really resonated with me and I feel like I've gotten my thinking in a much better place! Good luck to you!

I can't begin to thank you enough for the hope that you have given to me and my family! Thank you all for being so candid and sharing the details of your experiences/surgeries/recovery. I am very sorry that you all had to go through this, but I am so glad that you made it through!!! When Mom was first diagnosed over the summer, it hit us all pretty hard and we thought we had a limited amount of time with her. She responded well to chemo and radiation and she looks so healthy it is hard to imagine that she still has the remnants of a tumor. We are very thankful that she is able to have the surgery, and your responses have really helped us to try to mentally prepare for what she will face when her surgery is over. From what the surgeon has told us, he is going to go in through her back just below her scapula and will probably have to cut through two ribs. I recently graduated from an advanced massage therapy course so I have all sorts of wonderful anatomy books that have been very useful in explaining how our cells work, what muscles will be involved in the surgery, etc. Thanks again for sharing your stories with me, whether you responded to this message or sent me a PM. I am so grateful! Prior to posting this question, we were all getting carried away with thoughts of a horrible recovery period for her, but now we feel hopeful that she'll have a better recovery than we had been anticipating. Here is a picture of me with Mom over the summer just after she got her first wig. She DOES know how to smile and we see that smile alot more nowadays, but this particular day she wasn't feeling very chipper. I still think she's beautiful!

My mother has NSCLC and was initially diagnosed as stage IIIb. Thankfully her tumor shrunk over 70% after chemo/radiation treatments (it was about 5cm prior to chemo/radiation). Her tumor is located in her right lung near her bronchial tube (not sure how technical that sounds ). She is going to have surgery to remove the entire right lung. Thankfully her left lung is in good shape and her pulmonary specialist is confident that she will enjoy a good quality of life with the remaining lung. Mom is 64 years old and aside from her lung cancer, in pretty good health! Based on your experience with lung surgery, what should she expect as far as discomfort and pain? She is very frightened about losing her lung and having to rely on the remaining lung, but she was scared of chemo and radiation and actually fared very well through those treatments so she is trying to not let her imagination run wild with thoughts of how she'll feel after the surgery. If you could share your experience I'd really appreciate it! How did you feel after you woke up, how long were you in the hospital, what type of surgery did you have, how is your quality of life now, how long did it take you to regain mobility, did the healing process seem painful, etc. Thanks and congratulations to all you survivors! I've read some very inspirational stories here and I am ever so thankful for this message forum!!!! My mother wasn't very active prior to her diagnosis. She and my father have been retired for several years and she is very content with puttering around the house and the garden. She is very much a home body and never really enjoyed going out shopping or visiting with friends, so she is hoping that she'll be feeling well enough to continue her puttering once she heals from the surgery. Sincerely, Karen