Tuesday, October 24, 2006

The Right Lung

I was asleep before I got to the operating room. When I woke up I had two members of the Grand Prairie drama club on each side of me and a catheter in my penis. Could there be anything worse?

The alarm went off just after 4. I hate getting up in the dark, I hate getting up that early. I had hit the snooze button once - I was in no hurry - but Mom and Dad had already gotten up and showered so now it was my turn, I couldn't put it off any longer. I didn't feel nervous (though my stomach told me otherwise) this was just one more thing in an unpleasant routine. I had "checked in" last Wednesday --- I had filled out my paperwork and had blood drawn. So all I had to do now was shower and show up. Baylor opens at 5:00 am, we got there around 5:20 and there were already quite a few people there. I signed in, waited, met with the nurse to double check everything (it's the RIGHT lung) and waited some more. When my name was called Mom, Dad and I followed the nurse into the pre-op room and to my bed. They gave me a gown (designing new ones has to be a Project Runway challenge for the new season) and cap to put on and then I waited some more. First Dr Hebeler's nurse came by then the anesthesiologist. He said he couldn't use my port (since it wasn't big enough for all the medicine they were going to give me) and inserted an IV in my left wrist for the anesthesia. Finally Dr Hebeler showed up --- he wrote his initials on my right hand and told us that the surgery would probably only take an hour or two though it could take three if he couldn't remove the mass microscopically and had to do it manually instead. Then I passed out ....

Dr Hebeler made two incisions on my right side and collapsed my lung. He inserted a camera into one incision and a scope in the other. He located the mass then with the scope grabbed the surrounding lung, pulled it and the mass out in one neat little sack and cut it off from the rest of the lung. In just over an hour's time I was back in the recovery room looking like an octopus --- I had an IV line attached to my left wrist, a morphine port on my right chest, a drainage tube coming out of my lung, EKG lines all over the place, an oxygen line in my nostrils and The Catheter. I stayed in the recovery room for about two hours for observation --- and to be tortured. It's pretty disturbing to wake up to the moans of one patient and the rantings of another --- anesthesia does funny things to people and those two patients probably won't remember any of it!

I spent most of the afternoon napping. You never really get to sleep in a hospital. Last spring was the worst --- I had nurses waking me up every couple of hours changing drips, taking my blood pressure or my temperature. I made it through last night only being woken up three times. Not bad. I wasn't in as much pain as I expected (the morphine drip - which I could use every six minutes - helped). The drainage tube was uncomfortable but not nearly as bad as The Catheter. I couldn't move my legs without thinking I was going to rip something off. Myron came to visit, I watched some TV and listened to my iPod. Just another day in the hospital!

At six am (they never let you sleep late either!) this morning I had a chest x-ray. I was hoping they would wheel me down in my bed (so that I wouldn't have to move. Remember - The Catheter) but they brought a chair instead. So all my friends and I piled into the chair and went down to x-ray to make sure my lung was doing okay. Everyone made it down there fine except for The Catheter - he didn't like traveling much. And, while I was glad to see him go several hours later, his departure wasn't quiet (and that is, I'm sure, the closest I will ever get to the experience of child birth).

Dr Hebeler came in to check on me later in the morning. I was doing well and - yeah! - would get to go home today! He was sure the mass wasn't lymphoma (though it could be a burned out lymphoma mass) or lung cancer but stopped short of guessing what else it might be. I'll have to wait for the pathology report to come out on Friday. He gave me breathing exercises to do over the next two weeks and recommended that I not go to Omaha for three weeks (the lung would need that much time to heal before tolerating more chemo).

So, now it's back to the waiting game ...

2 Comments:

Blogger Ron said...

You simply must explain the "Grand Prairie drama club" reference. I was thinking "Romeo and Juliet" in nurse uniforms. Joseph Papp should have considered that.

11:17 AM  
Blogger Tres said...

Well, there's no real reference --- I was just trying to convey that there was a lot of overwrought drama going on!

10:15 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home