Doc appoitment

Went to the doctor yesterday. He said I am doing really well and that my surgery sites look really good. I am still on restriction so still no driving or lifting or working. I could work if I had a desk job but since I walk around all day and do a lot of bending and lifting, its going to be a couple more weeks.

I did sleep in the bed last night for an hour and then got up and came to the couch because I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep. I was awake almost the whole night. This morning I finally fell asleep and slept for a few hours. I am still tired though......

The pain is getting less and less every day so it is improving. Hopefully soon I will be able to lay down on my side or my back. I miss sleeping like a normal person.

Starting the process of looking for a real job (aka not retail) we will see how that goes. Hopefully I can find something that pays well. I need to pay off some student loans and medical bills lol.

2 weeks out

Well I was doing really well and moving right along with my recovery but I have had a minor setback. I decided one day to try laying down on the couch and see if it would hurt because I am so over sleeping sitting up. Well I laid down and got sort of comfortable and ended up falling asleep. I woke up in extreme (like screaming my head off) pain. I had knocked my pain meds forward too but I think I am going to reduce the time between doses again because the last 2 days I have been in a lot of pain. I'm really over this. I want to be able to go out and drive wherever I want and I want to be able to work-even though I don't really enjoy my job.

i go to the doctor for a follow-up tomorrow so I will probably update after that.

Feeling better!

The last couple of days I have been feeling pretty good. There is still soreness but it is nothing like I was dealing with last week. I am slowly trying to push my meds back to every 6 hours and hopefully I will be there Tuesday. 

I am able to get up and down by myself (usually) and each day things get easier. Last night about halfway through the night I got up and climbed into bed because I was so tired of sleeping on the couch. I could only lay there about an hour and then had to have Jeremy help me up and back out to the couch. I want nothing more than to sleep in my own bed again. I am sleeping on the couch in an upright position and can't wait until I can lay down again. 

I have surprisingly been loosing weight. When I came home from the hospital my weight was up but that was because of the fluids they pumped me full of.  I have lost about 3 lbs in 3 days so thats pretty good! Now it just needs to continue:) 

Our friends have been good about bringing us meals so that we don't have to cook. It's really nice to have such good friends. Jeremy has been doing great with the cleaning up after everything. He's the best :)

Well thats it for now.....I'll probably update in another couple of days. I go back for a follow-up on Thursday so hopefully that will bring lots of good news!

One week out....(almost)

Well I am almost one week out from surgery. I am still in quite a bit of pain but most of it is muscle or incision pain. My back is starting to hurt because I can only sleep sitting up and I can't sit in the same position for more than 2 hours or my lung starts spasming. So every two hours I try to get up and walk around a bit.

Jeremy and I got up this morning and went for a little walk to the end of our road which isn't really far but I had to stop a couple of times to rest. The stairs in and out of our apartment kill me. It was really nice in the shade this morning. Then we came back and took showers and were lazy for a bit. Jeremy has been really helpful and actually has been cleaning the apartment since I can't do it. He cleaned the kitchen yesterday and cleaned our bedroom today. He also gets me whatever I need which is great. I'm going to miss him when he goes back to work on Thursday. Hopefully I will be ok by myself. I'm sure I will, it's just kind of scary because I know there are some things that I still can't do......

I tried to push my meds back a half hour so that I could gradually work to six hours between doses instead of 4 but I'm so much pain today. Most of it isn't surgery related-it's female related which sucks even more. I did 4 1/2 all day but I am going to take my next dose at the 4 hour mark.

When I get tired and push it, I get more pain. But at the same time I am so sick of sitting and being cooped up in the apartment. Jeremy and I went to Khol's so I could buy some tank tops with the bras in them since bra straps irritate my stitches. I walked through the store and as soon as we got home and finished dinner I took a nap. I can't wait to be myself again.

Surgery

Well my surgery was Wednesday. I had to be there at 8:30 but my surgery got pushed back when I was in pre-op because of a couple of emergencies. Jeremy and my mom were able to stay with me until I went into pre-op. I know I was there for a long time but I think they must have put me asleep because I don't really remember the majority of it. I remember Dr A coming in to mark me for surgery and waking me up so he could see my back and I remember them moving me to the operating table and putting the mask on. I had an IV in my left elbow and two in my right wrist. I think I had another one too but they removed it before I woke up. The two in my wrist hurt so bad, I couldn't move my wrist.

I remember waking up in such pain that all I could saw was it hurts. They allowed my husband and party to come in and see me in recovery. There were a lot of people in and out during my surgery. By the time it was over it was around 5pm. Jeremy had asked to be let into recovery to see me and I know I asked for him when i woke up. I remember just saying his name over and over and then he was there. Transferring beds was so painful. They had to roll me to one side and stick the pull disc thing under me and then roll me back and repeat on the other bed. I remember that I was getting annoyed because everyone grabbed my wrist to help move me and I had to HUGE IVs stuck in so each time they grabbed them it hurt.

I know I was in and out the first day and was nauseous from the sleeping drugs. I tried to eat ice chips but they made me feel like I was going to throw up. I have no idea what time everyone left but when they were getting ready to leave they asked me if I wanted a popsicle which I did but was afraid I would throw it up so I passed.

The mass was a cyst and it was benign so that was good. It just kind of stinks that I needed to have this big of a surgery to figure out what it was. But it requires no additional treatment and It was removed before it got too big and affected something in my lungs. He was able to leave all my lung and none of it was removed. I'll have to ask him when I go for my follow up where it was attached.

They woke me up like once an hour that night to do my vitals and weigh/xray me. It was so annoying. I wanted to sleep but they would let me. The next nursing shift was in the morning and they helped me get comfortable and out of bed into a chair for a few minutes. It was hard to move because I had so much cords and IVs. I had a chest tube which by the way, are very painful. They hurt more than the surgery itself. The main folio was annoying because I still had the urge to go to the bathroom but I couldn't force anything out.

The first night I had a rash appear on my face. It was red and flaming hot. They gave me a little benedryll to help and it of course knocked me back out. The next day the rash was back. It was never ending and would disappear when the doctor would come to make his rounds.

My IVs were discontinued Thursday night and I begged them to take the one out my wrist which they refused because they needed two IV Access points. My main folio was taken out on Friday morning which was amazing. Those are annoying. When the doctor came around and looked at my rash which actually stuck around he said it was probably from the epidural so they were going to take out my chest tubes and epidural. By Friday evening I was free from tubes and could walk around by myself. It did hurt to walk around by myself and sometimes I would get a little dizzy. Once they removed the epidural it hurt to sleep because I couldn't give myself extra meds with my button before moving. I wasn't convinced it was working until they took it out and saw what it was like without it. It had been working...very well actually. It was hard to sleep or sit without it because I was in so much pain.

The PT came on Friday and Saturday to help me walk around and get up/down a flight of stairs. My feet are currently swollen because I am not moving around enough. Friday night I spent most of the night in my chair because it hurt way too much to lay down. Saturday morning they came and took me for an xray to see if my lungs were ok to go home. The xray was fine. Looked good. So then I had to wait on the doctor to come around and clear me to leave which he did around 2. It was so good to leave. I like being home even if it doesn't have all the easiness of the hospital. I will miss the room service at the hospital. You picked what you wanted off of the menu and they delivered it when it was ready.

I am home now, I slept about 4 hours in our bed and then woke up screaming in pain. It sucks that it takes that much to wake me up because I feel bad about being so loud. Our neighbors probably think he beats me up lol. I got up and sat in a chair for an hour or so and then made myself comfy on the couch. I slept there the rest of the night and was pretty comfy. My only issue is the mucus that I am coughing up. It gets stuck in my throat and I can't cough it up. I had Jeremy buy me one of the bulb syringes and I use that to suction out my throat when it feels like there is mucous in there.

Anyway hopefully in a few days I will feel good enough to have people come over. My husband is doing such a good job taking care of me. I'm so glad I have him to help me through this. I had to wake him up a couple of times last night to help me move which he was fine with and he makes sure I take my meds on time. Today I am allowed to take a shower and I can't wait to wash my hair! I am so tired of bathing out of the sink it is nuts.

The day before.

Well tomorrow is my surgery. When I went in yesterday to get some testing done she told me I was scheduled for 7am which means I would have to be there by 5:15am. Most likely it will stay at that time unless my doctor schedules emergency heart surgery, they always get priority over lung surgeries. It's going to be an early morning.

Yesterday I had some blood drawn, and EKG which was really short, I always thought they would be longer. Then I had to give a urine sample of course. Being a woman is annoying. They get a urine sample every chance they can to check for pregnancy. I guess it is a good thing but it is annoying. I have to have one more urine test before my surgery too.

They are going to call me after 2 to give me my report time for in the morning....I'm just ready for this to be over....

How it all started....

This is my blog that I am going to update to follow my surgery and recovery. I am having major surgery on Wednesday and I am a little scared. A little backstory on how this all happened.....

A couple of months ago I was at work and started to feel short of breath. It was the strangest thing. I brushed it off thinking it was heartburn until the next day when I woke up and it hurt to breathe. My husband took me to urgent care who of course rushed me right in. They ran some bloodwork (8 viles!) and did xrays to check for pneumonia. The xrays were clear of course and the doctor decided to send me for an ultrasound to check my gallbladder and all of my other organs. While we were waiting for that appointment, they called me and told me that the blood test they ran for blood clots came back elevated and that my white cell count was high so they wanted me to go for a CAT scan.

The ultrasound came back around the same time the CAT scan results came back. The good news was that they did not see a blood clot. The bad news? They found a mysterious mass on my lung. So they wanted me to go for a PET/CT scan to see if they could tell what it was.

I had to go see a lung specialist the next week. The original doctor had put me on the Zpack to kill any infection and my pain was much better. The lung specialist had no idea what it was. He wasn't even convinced it was on my lung, it could be on my heart. He referred me to a surgeon to do a scope surgery to remove it. That surgeon saw my CT scan and determined he was not the right person for the job. So I got referred to someone down in Clearwater.

The new surgeon Dr. A (as he will be called here), decided he needed to do a Thoracotomy. (You can click on the link for a detailed summary of what they are going to do if you want. )

Essentially, they are making an incision on my back right side, spreading my ribs to get access to my lung. Once they determine if it is attached to my lung or my heart, that will determine which surgery they do. If it is on my lung, they will just remove the part of the lung it is attached to. If it is attached to my heart, they will have to bypass my heart like open heart surgery, and remove it that way.

I am going to be in the hospital for about 5 to 10 days. I could get released on day 4 if I am doing well and depending on which procedure they end up doing. Once the tissue is removed, it will be sent off to be tested for a variety of things, including cancer.

I'm trying to mentally prepare myself. I have never had surgery (aside from wisdom teeth removal) and have never broken a bone. I'm trying to be calm about it but sometimes I just can't. I get tired of everyone asking me about it every time they see me. I know they care, and want to let me know they do, but at the same time, the more I talk about it- the more freaked out I get.

Part of the reason I started this blog is because I am tired of telling people what is going on. They can come here and read it, and I don't have to talk about it anymore.

I just want this horrible thing to be over. I want to know what it is so that my mind can rest. I am going crazy with the "what ifs".

I will update after my pre-op appointment on Monday, I promise :)