TracyG Posted June 4 Share Posted June 4 Hi Everyone, I had a lower left lobectomy 3 months ago, for stage 1a lung cancer. They think they got it all so I'm not having any treatment. I feel very fortunate it was caught so early. I’m 61 years old, female and otherwise in good health. My question is regarding exercise. I love taking long walks and going to the gym often. I’m working with a trainer and along with strength training am doing high intensity training workouts, trying to improve my breathing and endurance. The challenge is that I get short of breath and often get lightheaded. My doctors don’t have a problem with me exercising, but are unable to offer any estimates as to when the shortness of breath will improve, if ever. I’ve tried to find articles about cardio exercise after a lobectomy, but there’s not much available. Any ideas from the group? Thanks! Tracy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edivebuddy Posted June 11 Share Posted June 11 You're well on your way to resuming and absolutely normal life. Just starting routine exercises puts you on course. https://www.lungevity.org/blogs/exercise-after-video-assisted-thoracic-surgery Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karen_L Posted July 10 Share Posted July 10 @TracyG Wowee, such great news on your surgery results! I've been away from the forums for a while, and happened to see your post as I was scanning the site-- sorry for such a late response. Do you have a pulmonologist? Mine is an avid bicyclist and has been the one member of my care team who's been enthusiastic about my cycling aspirations. (Everybody else looked slightly horrified when I talked about the distances I wanted to ride.) He gave me very strict guidelines for the long period of time when I was coming off very high doses of steroids for pneumonitis. I was shocked at how wussy these guidelines seemed, but I needed to be reined in. One of the things he has me do periodically is a PFT, pulmonary function test, which will gauge lung volume and other stuff. That gave me some understanding about why I was not bouncing back into my normal-for-me exercise routine. (Let's just say that I went from riding 40-60 miles to celebrating the fact I walked 2000 steps....) I'd suggest a consult with a pulmonologist about developing your capacity to exercise the way you want to. Maybe there's something else going on that, if it could be addressed, would ease the breathlessness. For example, I also have mild/moderate exercise-induced asthma. Since all this cancer stuff, I've needed to make some changes in the way I use my albuterol inhaler. But, let's not overlook the fact that you're only three months away from a pretty intense surgery. You have to give your body a chance to build strength, and for your other lung to learn it has to compensate for its partner. (My radiology oncology likes to show me how my other lung continues to develop .) You're going to need to work hard to be patient with your progress. It took way longer than I wanted to get close to where I used to be. It continues to surprise-- and distress-- me that I'll never be the rider I was before lung cancer. So your head might have some catching up to do too. I'm just recovering from Covid and a week of crappy asthma and I have to start back way more slowly than I want to. Listening to my body is the hardest thing to do. If you're breathless, your body is telling you what it needs. Try to listen. Which is so easy to say and so bloody hard to do.... Keep us posted. I'd love to hear how you're doing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TracyG Posted July 22 Author Share Posted July 22 Hi Karen, Thanks so much for your comments and suggestions. That makes total sense to see a pulmonologist- I’ll see if I can get a referral when I see my doctor next month. I’m afraid I just saw your post so I apologize for my delayed response. I’m not sure why I didn’t receive an email alert - perhaps I need to change my settings. My breathlessness has improved a bit. I’m not sure whether it’s my body (and mind) adjusting or actual improvement, but I’ll take it! Of course now I have to contend with the wildfire smoke in Oregon, which cannot be good for my lungs or my breathing, even though I wear a N95 mask whenever outside. I’m so sorry to hear you got Covid! I hope you’re continuing to recover well. I also struggle with patience as I move forward in my recovery. I’m happy to hear I’m not the only one pushing myself physically with exercise. I worry about putting too much stress on my body but I really enjoy working out. It’s my therapy! Thanks again for your comments! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karen_L Posted July 22 Share Posted July 22 @TracyG, oh no, wildfire smoke is just awful. When we get smoke, I too wear an N95 outside. That said, our house is so old that, with no insulation, the smoke seems to just seep through the walls. We’ve invested in some bigtime HEPA air cleaners with filters that are supposed to filter wildfire smoke. I hope we don’t have to find out if they work…. If your breathlessness seems better, it probably is! The particulate matter in wildfire smoke is especially bad for us; I hope you can exercise indoors. And, I may be an outlier (I don’t think so) but I think as much as activity as we can tolerate is critical to QOL and maybe even cancer stability. At least my docs are now onboard with my fitness hopes and cheering me on! Keep us posted! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TracyG Posted July 22 Author Share Posted July 22 Thanks Karen, I also purchased air purifiers and they’re working well to keep the smoke out. I hope yours do too, or better yet that you don’t need them! Unfortunately, I’m outside in the smoke (masked) as I have 2 dogs that need walking. But my cardio is inside at the gym. I hope you’re right about exercising and cancer. But because it really helps improve my QOL, I’m all in. I’m having my 6 month CT in a couple weeks and trying not to stress over it. Speaking of, do you know if is it standard that they should have obtained bio markers when they removed my cancer cells? I’ll ask the Oncologist but I don’t think they did any extra testing. I admit I haven’t done much research on this so I’m not very informed. Also, are you aware of any blood tests that will identify lung cancer cells? It seems like that would be better than a CT scan which doesn’t show anything until a growth has already developed. Not to mention the cost of the CT! Thanks, Tracy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karen_L Posted July 22 Share Posted July 22 Hiya, @TracyG You don't need to go out and do BIG research into all the latest on lung cancer, but in order to ensure you get the right care, there is some basic lung cancer info you need. Yes, you need to have biomarker testing. The gold standard has traditionally been tissue biopsy; sometimes, the tissue from a patients' diagnosis will still be around, so maybe yours is and maybe they can send it off. Better yet, they did at the time and just didn't mention it to you. (!)There has been a lot of development in blood biopsies, so that may also be an option now. Before you see your doc, and before your next scans, check out this section on Lungevity. It will tell you why biomarker testing is so critical and may help you develop other topics for discussion with your doc, or even questions to raise here. I don't know much about the standard of care for early stages of lung cancer. (I do know I always envy anyone who can have surgery.) Maybe @Lou can chime in here with thoughts about what post-surgery followup is recommended for such an early stage? My initial response is always GET FOLLOWUP CHEMO/IMMUNOTHERAPY but that could be dead wrong. I seem to write about exercise a lot on my blog. This post has a relatively recent report on exercise and cancer that you may find interesting. Pet your doggos for me! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TracyG Posted July 22 Author Share Posted July 22 Hi Karen, I enjoyed your blog on exercise, thanks for sharing. I get about 500-600 minutes of exercise per week - it’s good to hear more is better! I’ll read the section on bio markers. I’m usually a big researcher and tend to get into the details on everything. But I found myself backing off after the cancer diagnosis as there is too much information, a lot of it hard to handle emotionally. So it’s good to have a reliable source with a small bit of information that won’t take me down a rabbit hole. My doctors all agreed that I didn’t need additional treatment after surgery, and they claimed there was a 90% cure rate in cases such as mine. I hope this is true, but I’m certainly open to other suggestions regarding the standard of treatment. The pups say woof! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karen_L Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 500-600 minutes is awesome. I went poking through the protocols for treatment of NSCLC on NCCN.org so that you don't have to. "NCCN is a not-for-profit alliance of 33 leading cancer centers devoted to patient care, research, and education." They keep/develop protocols for all cancer types. I linked the page to NSCLC if you're interested -- you have to set up a free account to use the info. Under Stage 1A, it shows that the standard of care after the initial line of treatment is surveillance, meaning you get periodic scans CT plus contrast scans. The guidelines say every 6 months to start. So, no discrepancies with the care you've received. Celebrate! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TracyG Posted July 24 Author Share Posted July 24 Wow Karen, thank you so much for doing that research! It’s good to have that confirmation of my current plan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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