Lung resection at 70: Anyone want to share their recovery experience?

I had my lobectomy at age 69, close to 70, it went well for the most part but I felt pretty rough for a few days, after all it’s major surgery but they’ve made it so much easier to go through with video assisted surgery. I wish you all the best for a speedy recovery and you’ll be back home in about 3 days, not bad for a major surgery.

Thanks. Was that the less invasive type or the full incision type surgery? Thanks for sharing!

@espiritu56 I had the video assisted surgery or VATS, it’s the best way for this type of surgery because it greatly reduces the procedure down to a few small incisions. I hope that this is what you’re going to have because your recovery is much better and faster and your hospital stay is about 3 days. There’s many people here that have had this surgery at all ages and sometimes they even had it done twice. I did have a second surgery about two years later but they took out a wedge of lung instead of a lobe, my lungs were not functioning so well due to COPD so they didn’t want to take too much away. I noticed that you mentioned you’re in good health and that’s always a great benefit as well as being in a reputable hospital, all the best wishes for your surgery and recovery.

This will be full surgery. Had a lobectomy 6 years ago full surgery. They need to remove the remaining lobe this time. This is one of the very best facilities in the country. Their expertise is by far superior. Their tumor board unanimously recommends this. It’ll just be a longer recovery. They said it would be more difficult second time. But yes, a healthy baseline. No other conditions.
Thanks

Hi I had right lower lobe resection aged 67 this was done by vats and a team of 6 was diagnosed with mucinous adenomicarcinoma stage 1 in hospital 4 days discharged with lung drain had weekly home visits nursing team.. I'm 10 months post op still having pain around the wound site and now have copd. You be fine you have a great team working for you..best wishes..

Yes. I was 82. I had a lul lobectomy together with lll wedge. I did have a relatively minor complication of prolonged airleak but that was due to marginal pulmonary function. Otherwise recovery was good. I was back walking distances within 2 months.

I just had robotic lung resection surgery a month ago at age 73. Part of the upper right lobe was removed along with a piece of midsection and six lymph nodes. I spent one night in the hospital. The first few days were a little rough but it's been three weeks and it's getting much better other than not lifting anything heavy for at least another week. I had pulmonary testing pre surgery to ensure I could handle the surgery. I am really glad I went through it as the nodule was found go be an adenocarcinoma putting me at stage 1b NSCLC. Hopefully the surgery will take care of that.

@ladylennie
Hello. Thanks for your comments. Did you have full incision vs the minimal incision robotic surgery?
Joe

@espiritu56 I had minimally invasive robotic surgery at Moffitt cancer center.

Just had a lung resection in mid-March at 77 years old. Spent 3 days in the hospital then home. It's been just over 4 weeks now and I am pretty much back to doing everything I used to do. Still taking it a bit easy but no restrictions. Had a bit of pain from the hose after the surgery but nothing else. Stopped the pain killers while still in the hospital and did not need Tylenol or anything else when I got home. It's not a walk in the park but it's very doable. Good luck and any questions let me know since it's fresh in my mind.