I'm Still Alive

Dear friends and family, I am alive. There were a couple of moments when I doubted whether I'd make it or not, the recovery has been better than I had feared, but rougher than I had hoped.

I was discharged from the hospital on Tuesday afternoon. Since arriving home, I have struggled for physical strength and emotional stability. Thanks to my eternal companion, I am finding both.

I have no recall whatsoever of events on Wednesday following the surgery. I was on heavy doses of morphine and ketamine for pain control. Normally, in this type of surgery, the anesthesia and pain teams like to place what they call a thoracic block - about the same thing as an epidural when a women is having a baby - to provide pain control after surgery. This obviously would have been higher up in the spine than that done for having babies. Anyway, my blood platelets were still low enough that the pain team didn't feel comfortable doing it as the risk of complication would be too high. Thus, I ended up being heavily sedated for a couple of days.

I recall very little of Thursday either - I was still under the influence. Patti tells me that I was quite conversant and that I spent a great deal of time promoting the benefits of a career as a PA to a nurse that was thinking about PA school.

I also recall seeing a good freind of mine from my fire department days - 20 years ago - who is now the fire marshal at the hospital. I guess I happened to see him walk past my room so I called him in to visit. I remember the fact that I saw him and we visited, but I have no recall at all about what we talked about. Sorry Dave!

Thursday afternoon, I was transferred from the University of Utah Hospital to the Huntsman Cancer Hospital via ambulance. Clint already mentioned that in his post. My purpose in mentioning it is that I DO remember that. It was uneventful other than somewhat painful to move from bed to gurney and then to another bed.

I have a large incision on my right upper back. It is healing well and isn't too bothersome for the most part. If I bump it or something, I definately know that it is there.

I had two chest tubes hanging out of my side for several days after the surgery. I think it was Sunday that they finally took them out. Now that was an experience. Bandages were removed that had been in place since the surgery. Sutures holding the two tubes in place were cut and the PA from the cardiothoracic surgery team said, "take a big breath and hold it." Out came the tubes with one long pull. I was amazed to see how much of the tubes were actually inside my chest. I'll include some pictures below. The best way I can describe the sensation of having them pulled out would be to compare it to being turned inside out.

After the tubes were out, I seemed to improve a little each day. I was on oral pain meds after the second day from surgery - Friday I guess. My biggest challenges were coughing. That hurts like the dickens and on one occasion while I was letting myself recline gently into my bed and trying to protect my tubes and incision, I coughed really hard and felt something terribly painful in my chest pop. Right along my breast bone on the right side, right at the bottom where ribs attach, I felt like I had been shot. To this day, this spot is the source of most of my pain. It hurts to move, to breathe, to laugh and most of all to cough. I also found that the hospital beds are really hard on my back. I have had the worst back ache since the surgery. That has been my biggest challenge. I just can't seem to find anywhere to get comfortable. Either the front or the back of me just aches intensely.

Yesterday, out of stupidity or something, I skipped a dose of pain medicine. Wow, did I ever pay the price for that choice. It took a couple of scheduled doses of pain medication after that before I got back on top of it. Last night was probably the best night I have had since the surgery and today, for the first time, I am finally starting to feel a little better.

I struggled with oxygen levels at the hospital. As long as I was on oxygen, my levels were fine. Every time we tried to get me off the oxygen, my blood oxygen levels would drop and I'd have to go back on the oxygen. When it came time to send me home, they sent an oxygen bottle with me and told me to stay on it for a week. So now, I am dragging this long tube around behind me that is attached to a machine in the livingroom and blowing oxygen in my nose all the time. I don't mind the oxygen, but the tube over my ears really makes them sore.

Not much else to report at this time. I spend most of my time trying to get comfortable. My digestion has been a little messed up, but that will improve with time I am sure. Here are some pictures.

Here is a picture of part of the lung/tumor resection.













Wednesday in intensive care at the University of Utah Hospital.












Thursday in "Specialty Care" at the Huntsman Cancer Hospital. Some of my family came by for a visit: My brothers Mick and Derek, my sister Melody (from California) and her son Jordan (attending law school at the Univ. of Utah).









Getting ready for chest tube removal. My head is at the left with my right side up in this view. My new incision on my back and the chest tubes hanging down on the right.










A "better view." Incision on the back, chest tubes below. There are sutures holding the tubes in place that had to be cut. The long sutures were placed at the time of surgery and will be used to close the holes once the chest tubes are pulled out.













Here is a picture of the chest tubes once they were taken out of my chest. You can see where the sutures are that were used to hold them in place. These were at the skin level. Everything above the sutures was inside my chest. Oh joy! No wonder it felt so good when they pulled them out.












And finally, here is a picture of Bill Wong, PA-C that removed my chest tubes and also provided post operative care for me. A great guy!