I'm so sorry for the delayed update, my surgery recovery has been a bit more challenging than I expected. My insurance authorization was for 2 days and I really thought I would be home in 2 days and on the road back to work, silly type A me!! LOL
Surgery went smoothly, and as expected. My surgeon attempted to first take just the mass and the surrouding portion of the middle lobe of my lung, but the onsite pathology came back malignant (as suspected) so she had to take the whole middle lobe. She was able to do so robotically without going into a full thoracotomy/opening my chest, which was an absolute blessing. She took 12 lymph nodes, and the pathology on those will be back in 2 weeks and the determining factor in whether chemo and/or radiation will be needed.
Although no surgical complications, there were multiple post-surgical complications that delayed my release and are further delaying my recovery. My 2 day stay turned into 7. I developed an air leak, a pneumothorax, a chyle leak, an allergic reaction to the surgical bandage adhesive, and then a reaction to the pain medication I was (delayed in) receiving.
I've also learned that my STD covers 60% of my wages, not 80. Ugh.
I have a post-op visit next Tuesday, 1/20 and hopefully will have pathology results for the lymph nodes then and some idea of chemo/no chemo and when I can expect to return to work. I will of course share results!! Please send prayers, karma, good juju or whatever your thing is that the nodes are cancer free 🙏
I so appreciate all of your support, and honestly, it's what's keeping me going through an extremely challenging hospital and recovery experience. Thank you so much, all of you. <3
