So I Had A Little Surgery. . .

Bear with me for a minute, because this is kind of long.  It all comes together at the end, I promise, to explain why I had the right lower lobe of my lung removed on Friday.

I have had scoliosis since the second grade.  I wore a body brace for 5 years, and then my spine started to twist and my rib cage began to crush my lungs.  I had surgery when I was in the seventh grade and the doctor straightened my spine about half way  and attached a rod to my spine.  I haven't had any problems since.

Until now.

For the past two years, I have had a recurring respiratory infection.  It may have been longer than that, but I can only remember back that far.  And I only remember that because I was pregnant with Rosie, would throw up whenever I would cough and had to go to the hospital to get IV fluids.

But since then, every other month or so, I'd get a cough and a fever.  Then I got one last November that went away for a week and then raged back as pneumonia in December.  And then it came back in January.  And March.  And April.  And July.

So my primary care doctor sent me to a pulmonologist, who did a bunch of tests.  One of those was a CAT Scan, where they noticed that the airway into the lower right part of my lung had been smushed and was almost completely closed.  I had a bronchoscopy, where they went up my nose and down my throat and into the airway, which was so small they almost couldn't get in.  A biopsy showed that I still had pneumonia in the lower lobe and a strain of influenza.

Evidently I would get sick and the antibiotic would kill the germs in the rest of the lungs and tamp down the infection in the lower right lobe, but wouldn't cure it.  And gradually, the infection would come back out. I'm not really using that section of my lung because the airway is too small, but it is keeping me sick.

I went to an orthopedist and a neurosurgeon, who confirmed that we would not be moving my spine and ribs off the airway.

Which really left me with one option - remove the lower lobe of the lung. 

In an average person, the lower lobe is 25% of your lung capacity, but I'm not using it much so I won't miss it.  And the blood flow will increase to the rest of my lungs so I should see improvement in my overall lung capacity.

I went to see a cardiothoracic surgeon, who agreed with the diagnosis.  And we talked about removing the lung using video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS), which would be minimally invasive.  I was feeling pretty good about it.  They go in, take off the part of the lung and suck it out, I'm back at work in a week.  But then the doctor mentioned that because of my scoliosis, there was a 50/50 chance that they may have to do the lobectomy the old-fashioned way - cut me open, break my rib, take out the lung, in the hospital up to 5 days, out of work up to 4 weeks.

Regardless, she would start with the minimally invasive way and only break a rib if she had to.  But I really didn't think that would happen.  I even laughed at the brochure, which showed a very old man recovering from the thoracotomy.

I shouldn't have laughed.

I went in for surgery on Friday and right before I went in, the doctor (who is really awesome) said after consulting with colleagues, she decided it was best to not start of trying the VATS.  She was going straight to the thoracotomy.  I had about 15 before the surgery started to wrap my head around the fact that this was going to happen the hard way.

I made it through the surgery fine.  My mom and dad were here, along with Marc and his mom Janice, my aunts Nancy, Esther and Lyn and my Uncle Larry.  So I had a pretty big cheering section in the waiting room.  And the doctor said the lower right lobe did look very infected, so removing it was the best thing. But because of how my right arm was positioned during surgery, my shoulder was KILLING me when I woke up, and continued to hurt despite the morphine they gave me. 

The morphine - was that ever horrible!  It made my blood pressure drop waaaaay down to where I could not be given any pain meds at all.  And I hurt. I hurt BAD.  My shoulder hurt.  The chest tube (which I hate, hate, hate) hurt.  The incision hurt.  It hurt to breathe.  It hurt to talk.  It hurt to cry. It hurt. And until my blood pressure went up, I couldn't take anything.  My mom was about to go full-on Shirley McClain in Terms of Endearment.  And someone had mistakenly put in my file I was allergic to percocet.  So after my mom demanding that her baby stop hurting and me swearing I was not allergic to percocet and my blood pressure starting to rise, I got some relief after 6 hours of no pain pills.

And it got better.   Praise the Lord.  Because I don't know if it could have gotten worse.

Today I am so much better.  The chest tube is still draining a lot and as long as it is doing so, I have to stay here and keep the damned thing in.  It is very uncomfortable, just floating around in my body.  But it hurts less to sit up in a chair, so I've hardly been in the bed today. I'm coughing some, which is a good sign.  And with a good combo of pain meds, I am not hurting as much.

So I'm here.  At ARMC.  Just hanging out in my super sexy hospital gown and mesh underwear and my awesome chest tube and drainage tank.

I'm doing ok.  Just ready to get better. 

And cursing USA for choosing this weekend to not have an NCIS marathon.