mihalo

Hi everyone, Just wanted to pop on here and say a HUGE thank you to all of those who helped me out with answering questions and quashing my fears of having a pneumonectomy. I DID IT! 11th of Feb the Lung went and with it the last of any visible tumors on my PET scans. Scary tho, the PET only showed 1 extensive tumor (that has had everything treatment wise thrown at it for 3 1/2 yrs) in the lung, but after pathology cut it open there were 11argh! Better out than in! Oh for sure. My O2 sats and Heart rate have IMPROVED since they took the diseased lung. My body was working so hard to keep that organ functioning. I am 6 weeks post and 100% back to the full capacity I was before the op if not better. I hope my story inspires any other young old or otherwise ca patients. My primary was not lung, but bowel ca that had spread to different areas of my body. After 5 operations and 24 tumors removed I have NED Yeehaa! I am now a 33 yr old mummy of 3 little boys getting on with life and to celebrate we are going on a fun filled 16 day holiday with the kids here in Australia.....we wanted to come to USA and do Disneyland, but I cannot get travel insurance. So we are doing our own country in style, all thanks to some lovely families here in our local town that did a fundraiser to send us on a holiday.......they are right. We Need IT!! Cheers Everyone and again thank you all so very very muchxxoo Mihalo xxoo

Hi Eric, Katie, Judy, Judy and Mike....thank you all for posting on here and helping me in the lead up to my operation. Just wanted to come on here and tell you all that I had it done (full Left Pneumonectomy) On the 11th of Feb 2011 following a critical lung infection at the end Of january - surgeon decided there was no time to waste and it had to go or it was going to kill me. So today i am 6 weeks post op and absolutely 100% back to doing what I was before the op. I even took the kids last weekend for a bike ride to the park and back, not far, maybe a kilometre or 2 but I certainly couldn't have done it with 2 lungs as the left was soooo badly damaged from cancer. It was so bad that they actually found 11 tumors not 2....OMG that came as a shock to everyone. What also came as a shock was that during the operation I did not falter at all. My O2 sats sat on 96% and when they deflated the left lung they went UP to 97% and my heart rate dropped from 105bpm to 89 and has since dropped again at rest to 75bpm and often during my hospital stay my O2 sats were 99-100%...how crazy is that. I feel great and apart from some medialstinal shift immediately post op...that was corrected (sooo painful!), I had a trouble free recovery. I go for my 6 week check next Tues and am expecting to see some organ shift on x-ray as I have a very irritating grind against my rib cage and loads of gas after eating, and the feeling of being full all the time. I have read this can be due to stomach and intestine shift into the cavity.....will wait and see but to me it makes total sense. Well, thank you lovely people, you quashed some of my fears,and answered silly questions and gave me more confidence to do this, and now I am so so pleased I did. warmest wishes and loads of love and luck.....chat soon Michele (Mihalo) from Oz xxoo

Hi Annette, Sorry I hadn'treplied earlier, I don't recall even seeing your post to me....sorry. So pleased your scans were good, well done you! I am awaiting a PET scan to make sure I have had no more spread since coming off chemo in June last year. If there is no new spread then this pesky lung will be completely gone! Down to one lung, but a healthy one so fingers crossed I will recover ok and have some reasonable lung function within a reasonable timeframe. Best of luck for your March scan. Cheers Mihalo

Thanks Katie, I am recovering well from the shoulder surgery and have begun lung function testing etc preparing for the pneumonectomy soon. Just waiting on an appointment for a PET scan and fingers crossed it is all clear other than the lung so the op will go ahead......so prayers for a good result PLEASE! Luv and Hugs. Mihalo

Hi everyone. It has been a while since I have looked in here.Life has been so very busy. with 3 children, school and Christmas and surgery in between it all! Last time I wason here I was to have some more radiation on my right shoulder (acromion bone) met but that didn't happen.Instead I was on tablet form chemo and booked in for surgery. It took quite a number of months, but finally I had the acromion bone along with a small part of the clavicle and scapular removed with great clear margins. This had to be done before the lung as it carried no mortality rate with it, and boy oh boy was it becoming excruciatingly painful even with loads of morphine on board. So I am recovering from that at the moment but the pneumonectomy will be in Feb 2011 pending no further spread of disease on next PET scan due mid Jan. Fingers crossed I can have this pesky lung taken out and be NED for a little while at least....just long enough for me to watch my babies (aged 8,7 and 3) grow up xxoo Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all on here Cheers Mihalo.

Hi Judy, Gee sounds like you have been on a bizzare journey too. When I was originally diagnosed it was adenocarcinoma of lung only the pathology wasn't consistant with lung adeno all the same I was sent to a Thoracic surgeon to have the left lung removed as the PET scan only showed 3 little dragons in the lung and 1 lymph node in my abdo. Lucky I had a good surgeon and he wanted to investigate that little node first, and he was finally the first person in 4 years to listen to me when I told him I had bleeding from my bowel. A simple colonoscopy became a 3.5 hr surgery to remove 70cm of bowel and a large clearance. He then had the devistating job of having to tell me now that he couldn't save my life and it was in fact terminal bowel ca not stage 2 lung ca as first thought. But because of a great team I am still going well. I hope that your specialists can investigate this abdo stuff for you too. Someone once told me that people live with terminal diseases all the time. Just how long they lives depends on how well its controlled, like diabetes and cystic fibrosis. I like to think that I am in control of my terminal disease, and that its not in control of me. I have also chosen a great team of specialists, that helps. Lovely to meet everyone xx

Thanks everyone for your messages, and warm welcome. i feel like I am invading your territory as I am not a Lung cancer patient as such, but I will be going through much of what you all have been through. Judy sorry to have been a little confusing in my original post. I have bowel cancer with secondaries in my left lung and I am having a full pneumonectomy. I have already had a small wedge resection of the lower lobe of my lung but this time they will be taking the whole lung as the tumors are in both upper and lower lobe and at the carinal junction which is in the centre of the chest. Hey Eric, thanks for your story. I am feeling a little more confident now that I will be able to do this, and although a little slower to begin with I will be back on my feet chasing kids soon enough. As far as constipation goes, being a bowel ca patient I have experienced quite a mix of goings on down there!!! chemo has been just as hard on the bowel with constipation so we almost have a mini pharmacy here with meds for all that stuff. My hubby and I joke that we are "Poo-ologists" with what we know about bowel motions these days! I will keep coming onto this site if thats ok, the personal accounts are amazing. Thankyou. Cheers Mihalo

Hello there brave people. I am a young aussie girl with metastatic bowel ca dx 3 yrs ago already stage 4 and quite progressed. Since then my disease hasn't behaved typically - lucky for me as it has remained stable with only 2 small bone mets in my shoulder since my dx. When dx I had 3 lung mets, and to date they have responded to chemo and radiotherapy but after throwing everything at them, and maintaining control until now, my docs are now discussing a FULL pneumonectomy of my left lung. This is not typical treatment for bowel mets, but as I said it is under control and in no other organs and so we are not prepared to let one little bugger kill me. My Onc wants me to research myself, what life will be like with just one lung. So I am after stories. Good ones, great ones and bad or plain ugly ones. I have 3 little boys aged 8,7 and 3 so really want to be here to watch them grow, but I do need to know the reality of what my quality of life will be like post op. How much it will slow me down, how long it takes to recover and how puffed I will be and how soing chemo after is etc etc. basically anything you can tell me I would be most grateful. Oh by the way my right lung is very healthy having never smoked and always been fit prior to dx. I very much look forward to replies. With thanks in advance Mihalo xx

G'day. I am a 33 yr old ca patient from Oz, just looking for some stories from others who have had a full pneumonectomy as I am about to endure one for met bowel ca. look forward to chatting soon. Cheers Mihalo