elyra

Thanks to everyone for their good wishes. Yesterday was a mixed day for my mom. On the one hand, the doctors are amazed at how fast she's recovering. The surgeon said that she was doing better (on the day after surgery) than any other patient he's ever had in his nearly 20 years of doing the surgery. Not bad for a 72 year old woman! She didn't have any problem with sitting in a chair -- in fact, she kept trying to get up and walk! The nurses and my family constantly had to keep an eye on her so she wouldn't try to do it on her own and pull out some IVs and tubes. But the drugs keeping the pain at bay have made her very confused and disoriented. She keeps forgetting where she is and why she's there. The nurses said it was fairly normal. She's hardly sleeping either, always awake and talking, usually not making a lot of sense. I don't know if the not sleeping is the drugs or just the environment in the hospital and the discomfort. When I finally got her to sleep for a couple hours in the afternoon I was relieved, but when she woke up she was completely confused. She did not remember having surgery the day before, and refused to believe me. She was convinced that she was in the hospital because she was dying and we wouldn't tell her. She got herself so worked up I think she had a panic attack -- her blood pressure and heart-rate went sky-high, and they had to call her surgeon and a cardiologist to take a look at her. They finally had to give her Cardizem (sp?) to get the heart rate down. After that she was ok, but it certainly scared the heck out of me! I assume she was fine last night since I haven't heard anything yet this morning. Hopefully she got some sleep last night; it might make her a little less flaky and able to understand what's going on. I'm going back to the hospital later for my 'shift' -- we (my family) is trying to work out our schedules so one of us is there most of the time during the day. Laura

Last week I joined this forum when my mother was facing a lobectomy to remove a malignant nsclc tumor from the upper lobe of her left lung. Yesterday was her surgery. My mother came through her lobectomy with flying colors with no complications. The thorasic surgeon said that visually, everything looked normal with the lymph nodes he removed for testing. He said he's done enough of these procedures over the years that he's gotten pretty good at being able to tell if something is amiss. Of course, we won't know anything definite until the lab takes a look at it, but if he's right there's a good chance the tumor hadn't had time to spread yet and it was caught in Stage I. The surgeon came highly recommended, and I like the guy alot so I know she was in very good hands. She had a rough time with the pain when she first came out of recovery, even with a epidural in place, but once the medication from the patient controled pump for pain management started to kick in, she was a lot more comfortable. They did have to give her a unit of blood because her hemoglobin had gotten too low, but otherwise everything was fine. We expected her to be groggy and out of it all day, but after a little nap, she was awake and alert for the rest of the afternoon and early evening. In fact, we all went to lunch while she was napping, expecting her to still be out of it when we came back, but there she was, sitting up in bed and asking "Where were you? I was waiting for you!" So my brother and I stayed with her for another 4 hours until she finally started to fade again and need another nap. The epidural is working wonderfully, and the nurses have been great about keeping her comfortable. There aren't too many other patients in ICU at the moment, so she's getting a lot of attention. They thought originally that she'd been in ICU for 2 or 3 days, but if she continues doing this well, she'll be out of there in no-time. Today they're going to make her get out of bed and into a chair though, so we'll see how that goes. It was a rough day for the rest of the family and I. Every minute you're waiting for them to come out and tell you how surgery went seems like an hour. And seeing mom in so much pain afterwards was difficult too. But as I kept telling her, the worst is behind her, and once they take out the chest tube in a few days, she'll feel a lot better. My mom is a thin, petite woman who looks like a strong gust of wind would knock her over, but underneath it she's a tough cookie. And she gave the doctors a good laugh in the OR. My mother is squeamish about needles, and was concerned that the epidural would hurt a lot when it was first put in her spine. But when the surgeon came out to talk to us after the operation, he told us that it hurt so little that my mom turned to the guy who did it and said "If I had my teeth in, I'd give you a kiss!" The surgeon thought that was pretty funny, but my mom didn't remember saying it later when we told her about it. So all is well with my mom, and hopefully will continue to be so. Laura

Thanks for the welcome! I've already gotten several helpful replies to some questions I asked over on the NSCLC forum -- it really helps to talk to people who've been through this, rather than reading the dry medical texts. And thanks Rich for all the links. Wow -- that should keep me busy for quite a while!

Thanks to everyone for all the information. It's very helpful! It's all pretty overwhelming though -- I think I've read too much about LC in the last couple days and my brain is in overload. But it really helps to hear from other people who have been through this, rather than just reading all the medical jargon on the web. I've joined other lists and have gotten a LOT of info in the last 24 hours -- I'm very, very grateful for how helpful people are at a time like this. I've read a whole range of stories about the surgery, but overall it doesn't seem to be as bad as I originally though (barring serious complications, of course). She does already have a mild case of emphysema (which I forgot to mention in my original post) so I hope that doesn't affect her recovery too much. I appreciate everyone taking the time to reply and share their story. Thanks!!

Hi, I'm new here. Recently they discovered a suspicious mass in my mother's left lung. Now its been confirmed through a biopsy that is cancer. They don't know for sure exactly what type it is or what stage, but they did say it is not SCLC. They say it is operable -- there's one tumor in the upper left lobe of the left lung, with no sign of it having spread elsewhere -- so she's in the process of setting a date for the surgery to remove the one lobe. They haven't talked about using chemo or radiation yet. She's 72 and in very good overall health with no other serious health problems and isn't on too many meds. She's been a smoker for nearly 50 years, but quit cold-turkey a week ago. Can anyone give me an idea of what the surgery will be like? It seems pretty serious and will take a long time to recover from. They say she'll be in the hospital for a week or more following surgery. What kind of shape are people usually in when they come home? Will someone like me (who knows very little about caring for a post-op patient) deal with it right off, or will she need a nurse to visit for a while? Anything you can share about what to expect would be helpful. Mom had breast cancer 8 years ago with a mastectomy, so I'm familiar with the emotional roller coaster of a cancer diagnosis, but this seems much scarier than the breast cancer. My grandfather (her father) died of SCLC 25 years ago, but his was diagnosed at a late stage whereas they caught my mom's early on a routine exam. Thanks in advance, Laura

I just registered so I suppose I should say 'hello'. Recently they discovered a suspicious mass in my mother's left lung. Now its been confirmed through a biopsy that is cancer. They don't know for sure exactly what type it is or what stage, but they do know it is *not* SCLC. They say it is operable -- there's only one tumor in the upper left lobe of the left lung, with no sign of it having spread elsewhere -- so she's in the process of setting a date for the surgery to remove the one lobe. They haven't talked about using chemo or radiation yet. She's 72 and in very good overall health with no other serious health problems and isn't on too many meds. She's been a smoker for nearly 50 years, but quit cold-turkey a week ago. Anything you can share about what to expect would be helpful. Mom had breast cancer 8 years ago with a mastectomy, so I'm familiar with the emotional roller coaster of a cancer diagnosis, but this seems much scarier than the breast cancer. My grandfather (her father) died of SCLC 25 years ago, but his was diagnosed at a late stage whereas they caught my mom's early on a routine exam. Website recommendations would be helpful too -- is there a list of LC-related links somewhere on the site? I have medical questions, but I suppose I should ask them in the other forums. Thanks in advance, Laura