Needing to vent

[Joan M]

My recovery isn't going too well and it's depressing.

Since July 11 I've been home recuperating from the thoracotomy to remove a fungus which grew in the cavity created last summer by the radiofrequency ablation I had to treat a recurrence of a lung tumor removed a year earlier by video-assisted thorasic surgery (VATS). And now I know why VATS, or minimally invasive thorasic surgery, is preferable to a thoractomy. The recovery from VATS was so much easier. I was back to work in four weeks.

I'm still having "tightness," or an elastic-band feeling, just below my left breast and lateral, and sometimes just below my left rib cage. Sometimes there's tightness in my left breast.

I sent an e-mail to the surgeon asking whether there's any way to determine specifically what is causing the problem? I think he and his nurses might be sick of hearing from me about the discomfort.

I'm very concerned about ending up with chronic post-thoracotomy pain (which I've read about online), because I have to go back to work.

It's worse when leaning back. In general, it gets so bad sometimes that I have to stand up (even when I'm tryng to watch a movie) or sit at a table hunched forward with my forearms resting on the table, in order to relieve the pain. Lying on either side helps and alking helps too. But when I stop, it's back again.

The Percoset does not seem to help (that is, there's discomfort regardless of taking it). I have been taking 2 1/2 tablets a day, and this morning I took only 500mg of Tylenol. No Percoset. Also I dislike taking the drug. But since it's now past noon I'll probably have to take one soon.

I did not have this feeling of discomfort when I first came home from the hospital (I remember sitting and reading novels and magazines all day without this discomfort). It started July 25. Earlier that day I gardened and then went to a luncheon. (I had seen the doctor on July 22, and he said to go about my normal activites.)Nevertheless, I was taking it easy while gardening for about 45 minutes). I was using some light-weight loppers to deadhead some flowers and trim a few plants. But, later in the evening, while sitting still, it felt like something "moved" in the area under the left breast (and I thought, "What was that?"). Later, the discomfort started and it hasn't really stopped since.

I'm wondering whether something shifted? Most patients are off Percoset in about five weeks.

Of courese I'm grateful that the path report showed no cancer, only the fungus, but I'm very frustrated because I'm due to go back to work Sept. 1 and I'm wondering whether I'll make it. Also, I'm not getting paid because I used up my paid time off last October when I had the craniotomy, and 12 months did not pass before the thoracotomy, which would have set the clock back to zero. I've been at my job just under three years and was only entitled to four weeks of full pay in a 12-moth span and that's it (two weeks for every year).

Thanks for listening.

Joan