Hello there...

I’ve finally received my surgery date, it’s 12/17/07. I have “off” until that date, this is so that my body has time to heal itself up from this weeks round of chemo in prep for the surgery. This date does kind of stink, being that it is so close to Christmas and also because a good friend of mine (who I haven’t seen in forever) is flying in from Okinawa Japan on that exact date. Frustrating, but I know that putting it off or trying to get the date moved is not an option for me – because I realize that timing is everything when dealing with cancer. When dealing with anything, really. If I have to spend Christmas in the hospital, so be it. If I am home, fine. I just can’t wait to get this over with. That is a Christmas present in itself for me.

I met with a (not “thee”) surgeon the other day that performs this lung surgery regularly. I do not particularly like this man. It probably seems like I have formed some sort of hatred for males in the medical industry after reading my last post, but I swear I haven’t! This man performed my metaport surgery back when I first started treatment, and messed up. The port would only work when I would lie down flat, if I got up to do anything it would occlude and become completely non functional. Receiving chemotherapy is difficult enough without having to lay down on your back the entire time in order for it to be delivered. My nurses would get frustrated and would even go to him and ask that he come by my bed to speak with me about what could possibly be wrong and how to fix it. Two months go by and the man would walk by us in the hallways with his head down and ignore us. Two months went by before he actually came by to talk to me. And when he did come by, he came off as very defensive. I asked him why he didn’t test the port out in the OR with me sitting in an upright position. He literally laughed at me and said “well because this never happens.” Well guess what buddy, you made it happen. The part that irked me the most was that snide chuckle. There is nothing funny about anything that goes on inside of that building. Do not laugh at me when you’re the one that can’t perform your job accurately.

Back to the surgery discussion. I told my Oncologist that I refuse to let this man perform the surgery on me due to a history I had with him. He did arrange for a different surgeon (this guys boss – he’s amazing) to do the surgery, but for some reason they still wanted me to meet with chuckle-master. Which I found to be really awkward…

I went into that room chock full of questions for him. I already knew the answers to most of my questions because I had done my research and have also grilled the patients that have had this surgery performed already. But still, it feels better if you vocalize them. The Dr. pulled up the latest c-scan of my chest. What a weird sight! Previous to my diagnosis I loved watching graphic operations on Discovery Health and was fascinated by the inside of a human body. But when I am forced to look at my own insides, not so much. He showed me the spots in my right lung, there are only 2 and they are indeed, very small. As weirded out as I was to be looking at my own ribs, lungs, and heart suspended in an x-ray, it was almost comforting to see how tiny the dots were in comparison to my other organs, and to know that they are being removed.

I also have [potentially] good news. Originally I was told that I will need 2 lung surgeries. Now I’ve found out that if the spots are benign, then I do not need a 2nd surgery. However if it’s not benign, then I would. SO kids, the word of the day is – BENIGN! I am not kidding when I say that I ask you to think of this word often, in conjuction with the words “Kelly” “Lung”, etc. ☺ I am all about positive thoughts and forcing that word into my own galaxy.

The surgery will take about 3 – 4 hours and I am happy to report that they will not be going in through my chest, but through my back via the incision line that I already have from my last surgery. Where they removed my back muscle. What they do is deflate your lung so that it is flat and use their fingers to literally pinch around the tissue to feel for hard spots. They will obviously remove the two that they see in the scan, but often there are more hiding out. If the spots feel hard and boney, it is likely Sarcoma. If they are soft, it is likely not.

Once they’ve removed everything, they either stitch up your lung with dissolvable stitches, or use surgical staples. I asked if the staples dissolve, they don’t. Weird to think that there could be metal living in the area that passes oxygen.

He explained that after the surgery is performed, he will not have answers for us. That the specimens have to be sent off to the lab for testing, and we will not get the results back for a few days. That is the most frustrating part for me, the waiting and wondering. It’s almost worse than the actual surgery.

Due to my horrific “waking up” experience from my last surgery, I asked for him to detail out the waking up and recovering scenario for me. He assured me that I should not wake up with a breathing tube in my esophagus again and that I will not have that line in my jugular vein. Thank God! Instead, when I wake up I should just have an oxygen mask on, and will actually have that on for 2 or 3 days. I was curious as to how the lung inflates back to its normal size after the surgery, so I asked. And he said it’s a combination of them pumping oxygen into me, and myself actually breathing on my own. When I awake they will ask me to take big breaths of air in order to pump that sucker back up to size.

I asked if it will hurt to breathe, like in my actual lungs - and he said not so much. But it will feel more like someone kicked the crap out of me. My back muscles will feel extremely sore. Because of this, they will be giving me an epidural. Yep, just like the screaming mothers that are about to pop out a human receive. I asked if it can be done while I am asleep, unfortunately it cant. There’s something about people poking near my spine that really unsettles me, y’know? Either way I’m sure I’ll appreciate the effects of it.

The most important thing that’s stressed with lung surgery is movement. The day after surgery you must get out of bed and walk around, dragging every bit of medical machinery that is attached to you. They will ask me to cough, spit, gag, hack, and every other unpleasant activity you can think of to remove any excess fluid from my lungs. This is to prevent pneumonia.

When I had my last surgery they had placed 4 drains into my body to remove the swelling fluid, the fluid drained into small bags. This time, there is only one drain. But I’m told that this bad boy is almost the width of a hose, and doesn’t drain into a bag – but into a BOX that sits on the floor. It extends out the side of your body, under your arm. It’s not placed into your lung, but next to it. To be honest this is what I am dreading the most. The sight of it all and also the removal of it. When they remove it, they ask you to scream before they even pull it out. Good times! At this point, for me – a lot of this has become comedic…

You know when you’re having a bad day and things just spiral out of control? You get a flat tire on the way to work when it’s snowing, the jerk of the flat tire causes you to spill your medium-hazelnut-cream-&-three-sugars on your brand new white D&G sweater, your cell phone flies into the back seat and explodes into a million tiny pieces. Causing you to wave down a fellow driver in what looks to be a promising car.

…It’s kind of like that. Where you feel so overloaded with tragic events that you become numb and nothing really surprises you. All I can do is remember to breathe, keep calm and most importantly – stay positive.