Hi Elsyer,
Good luck on Friday.
I had a robot assisted lower left lobe segmentectomy last Friday. Today is Tuesday and I'm doing pretty well. My family says I look better every day. This morning, I walked to the end of the street and back and up the stairs into my house. This afternoon, I overdid a little carrying something and had to lie on the couch and watch tv for an hour or so. My cough is getting productive and clutching a pillow to my side does the trick. I'm trying to stay on my feet as much as I can, do the breathing exercises, avoid pneumonia, and get my lungs back.
I was in the hospital for two nights. As everyone here says, the chest tube is the worst. As soon as that was out, pain went from 8 to 4. No, wait, the nausea was the worst! I had nausea, constantly. The took me off dilaudid but kept me on tramadol. As soon as they d/c ed the tramadol, the nausea subsided and I became cheerful again. It's amazing how you forgot the yucky stuff.
The pain in my side ( I have 5 small incisions and a larger wound from the tube) got a little worse today. I took off the big dressing yesterday and took a shower, but also my pulmonogogist had told me that the pain would be worst on day 3 because of the narcotics being thoroughly gone. It's well controlled with ibuprofen, acetominophen and methocarbamol, a muscle relaxor.
Sleeping hasn't been a problem, I have a wedge under the head of my mattress to control reflux. I have two pillows around my head and shoulders. This has me in a good enough position to not feel the incisions.
I'll be thinking of you on Friday. You started quite a nice, very informative thread of comments here. Good luck to you!
Muffy