Miracles

I just had to write and share something I learned yesterday afternoon.  My surgeon called one last time around 6:30pm to check on me and let me know he would be gone for the weekend, and he would see me on Monday.  As we were chatting about the surgery and recovery, Dr. Reid shared an interesting situation that happened while he was operating.  He said there was a moment right after my middle and lower lobes had been removed, a huge hole in my chest cavity was exposed, and Dr. Reid, another surgeon, and the pathologist were staring at my upper lobe, deciding if they should take it or not.  All three men debated back and forth about what to do, and at the last minute my surgeon said “No, we are leaving it.”  There was still a small chance that those strange looking cells were not cancer, but if they were, he felt that taking my upper lobe (which would leave me with only my left, smaller lung) would dramatically change my life.  I would get winded easily, exercise would be harder, and that loss of lung capacity would be very noticeable.  Dr. Reid then said I was a young, healthy, active mom and I needed all the extra time I could get out of that upper lobe.  He had mentioned the day before that once the tumor got big enough to make an impact (could take years to reach that point) then the upper lobe would be removed.   Here I thought I would leave the hospital cancer-free, then the surgeon said it was very possible I would leave with cancer cells that would eventually become another tumor that would need to be removed, performing this exact same surgery years down the road.  I was devastated.  Dr. Reid continued with his story…  He told the team to hold off, so they sewed me up, keeping my upper lobe in place.  Jake and I both feel that doctors are usually fairly conservative in making cancer diagnoses and so for three doctors to tell us they were pretty certain that these strange, inflamed cells were cancer, makes us believe that they probably were.  I know many, many people were thinking about us, and praying many, many prayers for us Wednesday night and Thursday.  Fastforward to Friday morning, Dr. Reid called with the results and said the strange cells were just very inflamed cells from the biopsy done a few days before, and nothing more.  Also, he found a huge lymphnode that he also suspected to be cancerous, then it turned out to be clear.  He seemed just as surprised as I was when he told us the news.  I know God answers prayers, and I really feel he answered them here in healing me.  We had two other mini-miracles today.  #1 I am off the lung suction now and the fluid is just draining on its own.  The doctors like to get a chest x-ray after the suction is turned off, just to make sure the lung is doing okay, working on its own to get the fluid out.  After my x-ray, the tech came out and said “Wow, you should get your dr to let you look at this x-ray.  Your upper lobe has taken up quite a bit of that empty space that’s in there now.”  I was told that would happen over time, not 2 ½ days after surgery.  #2  My friend, and coincidentally my exercise therapist, Ashley Buck, has been getting me up twice a day to walk around the floor.  It's really important to get up because that exercise helps get your bowels moving, gets the blood circulating, and overall, improves your recovery time.  Well, just 12 hours out of the ICU I was moved to the main floor.  I was able to walk, pushing my IV pole the entire way, never riding in a wheel chair.  (I'm told this rarely happens that soon out of surgery.)  Then Thursday morning I walked the entire floor once.  Later that afternoon I walked it twice.  Yesterday I managed to walk the floor 6 times in a row, which I was told was 1/2 mile.  This morning Ashley felt I was strong enough to walk on the treadmill, so this morning we headed over to the little exercise room on our floor and I walked ONE MILE!  Then this afternoon we went back and I walked 1.27 miles.  Yes, just barely 3 days out of surgery and I walked 2.27 miles.  (Ashley said she has never heard of any patient doing that before, which made me feel pretty good. ;) )  I have been training some friends for the past few months to get them ready to do the NSL 5K, which is July 3rd.  When all this craziness happened I thought for sure I would have to pull out of the race.  Well, now I have a tiny bit of hope.  I might actually be able to walk the whole thing, being only 3 or 4 days out of the hospital.  (Don't worry.  I'm going to be careful.  My friends are going to walk alongside me, pushing a wheelchair in case I need to jump in it and rest... but I want to at least give it a try.)  Again, huge blessings. 

As a quick recovery report, I’m doing well.  Last night, however, I had a little incident that set me back a little bit.  We had visitors in my room and at one point I tried to shift myself up and over to the middle of my bed and my right hand was on one of my chest tubes, and I didn’t realize it.  When I lifted up, the pressure tweaked the tube a little and it began to rub against my lung, causing horrible pain each time I breathed in.  Over the course of a few hours the pain became unbearable.  I was in tears, writhing in pain, wondering what I had done to cause myself so much pain.  The rest of the night the nurses kept me drugged so I could relax and get some sleep.  When I woke up I had slight pain at my incision site, but thankfully, the pain I had felt the night before was gone.

The dr expects me to be here until Tuesday or Wednesday because my lung fluid is still draining quite a bit.  Once it slows down, the tubes will be clamped off and I will be monitored to see how I do.  If the extra fluid is getting absorbed into my chest wall, then the chest tubes, picc line, epidural, and catheter will be taken out.  No more wires hooked to me!  At that point I will only be on oral pain meds, and again will be monitored for the day to make sure I’m handling the transition okay.  Once all that is over with, I will be discharged.  Can’t wait to get home and continue the recovery process there, with the family by my side.

Thanks, again, for all the good thoughts and prayers sent our way these past few weeks.  Jake and I are so grateful and know we have seen miracles happen this week.  We are truly thankful and humbled.

Love,

Jamie

PS Because you always need pics in a post:

A picture taken after the Hobble Creek Half Marathon last summer with my BBC runner friends, and then another pic of them visiting me in the hospital.  Thanks Heidi, Leslie, and Megan for coming to visit.  It meant a lot!  (Also, thank you to all my other BBC runner girls who I'm sure wanted to make it but couldn't.)