Minutes by Minute

This is part of a handful of blogs I've written chronicling my experience in going through surgery to remove a carcinoid tumor from my right mainstem bronchial tube. _____________________________________________________________________________ I've now been home for over a week and my progress has been substantial. Emily and I drove home on Monday night (April 24th). My pain levels have remained below 2. Often times I'm in no pain at all. I haven't been taking the pain narcotics they sent me home with and I often don't even need over-the-counter meds to get through the day. The biggest challenge I face seems to be my lung capacity at this point. If I move to quickly, talk too much or too quickly or go about life at the pace I was used to previously, I seem to need to breath deeper more quickly and catch my breath. I often have a slight wheeze. I recently followed up with my primary doctor and got a chest x-ray which seemed to show clear healthy lungs. I returne...

This is part of a handful of blogs I've written chronicling my experience in going through surgery to remove a carcinoid tumor from my right mainstem bronchial tube. ___________________________________________________________________________ I thought it'd be good to put together a small post about some of the staff here at the hospital. We've been quite impressed. Of course Dr. Wigle is top notch and I've written about him before. We've had very limited time with him but I of course had a good 5 hours or so of time with him while I was unconscious and my chest cavity was wide open haha. Mayo is of course super well known not only in Minnesota but throughout the world for their quality healthcare and medical advances. It so clear that they do a ton of education. If fact, most of the staff attending to us has had at least one, sometimes more, students shadowing them. Even in the operating room, we're pretty sure a resident (student) had his hands in my ches...

This is part of a handful of blogs I've written chronicling my experience in going through surgery to remove a carcinoid tumor from my right mainstem bronchial tube. ________________________________________________________ Saturday was one of two days that felt a little tedious. We kind of knew that our doctor and his residents weren't really working over the weekend and thus my bronchoscopy was scheduled for Monday. If I had the surgery done on a Monday I may very well have had the bronchoscopy on a Thursday or Friday and gotten the chance to go home quicker. However, my second chest tube had to stay in until the bronchoscopy and thus I had to deal with that on Saturday as well as Sunday. By midday on Saturday I had adjusted to being off the epidural meds and on oral pain medication (Oxycodone and Tylenol). I was able to enjoy hot showers and could mostly care for myself in the restroom, shaving, etc. Saturday Emily's sister Susan came to visit from the Cities and s...

This is part of a handful of blogs I've written chronicling my experience in going through surgery to remove a carcinoid tumor from my right mainstem bronchial tube. _____________________________________________________________________ Each day I feel substantially better. I slept better on Thursday night even though I did have to wake a few times. They nurses seemed to give me a little more time in between vital checks and medications so I could get better sleep. Friday was a good day.  I did some pulmonary therapy, which wasn't hard, but felt very good. Really just doing some stretches and doing a little work on one of those sitting bicycle machines. We talked extensively with Shari the rehab lady about what to expect and strive for in terms of rehab and exercise. I will walk a lot during my rehab. Very thankful that we have good walking paths in our neighborhood. I did a lot more walking on Friday than I did on Thursday and I started moving around faster as well. I bec...

This is part of a handful of blogs I've written chronicling my experience in going through surgery to remove a carcinoid tumor from my right mainstem bronchial tube. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thursday morning I got a visit from  Dr. Denis Wigle  who performed my surgery. He had already explained this to Emily and our parents on Wednesday, but he gave me the report of how the surgery went. The surgery went much better than he even originally anticipated it would go. He did not have to fully disconnect my airways. He basically had to slice off the tumor on the backside of my right mainstem bronchus, This left a hole in my bronchial tube that needed to be stitched back together. This resulted in a less complicated surgery and much less chance for complications or infections. Dr. Wigle sounded very optimistic that the surgery was successful and said he planned to do a bronchoscopy on Monday morning to take ...

This is part of a handful of blogs I've written chronicling my experience in going through surgery to remove a carcinoid tumor from my right mainstem bronchial tube. ___________________________________________________________________ We left home in Blaine around 6:30 am on Wednesday morning April 19th. My parents were with us as they had come for Easter along with my brother and his family and my sister and her family. My parents stayed the few extra days so they could be with us as we went in for surgery. My parents drove straight to their Rochester hotel on Wednesday and we drove to the hotel where Emily's parents were staying. Evan was with Emily's parents, he stayed with them on Tuesday night before surgery so we could get a good night's rest. We arrived at St. Mary's Hospital and things moved very fast. Way quicker than we expected. In fact, I never saw my parent's or Emily's parents before going into surgery. We arrived early (around 8:40am at th...