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Need Surgery on Cancer & Just Found Out I Have MAC! Help!
MAC & Bronchiectasis | Last Active: Mar 21, 2023 | Replies (33)Comment receiving replies
Hi Busy! How are you doing!? I hope all is well ♥️ I had surgery last Thursday I've been in the hospital ever since. It was supposed to be on Saturday, but they moved it up a couple days. I found out the pathology yesterday and they got all the cancer out, along with 17 lymph nodes which were all negative for cancer. My surgeon did say I may need to get chemotherapy only because of how big the tumor was, 5.2 cm and because that it was called differentiated and the pathology and that just means I guess that it was more aggressive than most cancers so it would be precautionary if I had to have chemo and I'm hoping it would not be that much!
While I was in the hospital they scheduled me for a CT guided lung biopsy, I wasn't really sure why and I didn't feel like I was getting a good answer either. My ID doctor just said he wanted to make sure nothing else was going on because I shouldn't have gotten this because of my age and that I don't have a lot of symptoms and should have relatively healthy lungs. I think they wanted to look for cancer. I went down there for them to do it and I started to panic because I realized I wasn't being put to sleep for that! Anyway they did the first set of CT images in the doctor told me that I didn't have to have it because everything was improving so much, and he said the walls around my cavity had thinned out so much. Do you know what that means? I guess my doctors wanted him to take a biopsy from the thick wall of the cavity. And he said cancer doesn't thin out or shrink like that. I'm not sure if you know anything about that?
I'm hoping to go home tomorrow! If not it'll be thursday. I'm still in a lot of pain but they took the epidural out today, and they had put it in the wrong spot anyway so it was numbing my legs and not my abdomen so they had to turn off the numbing medication like a day and a half after my surgery when my legs were completely numb! I was on a morphine drip for days though so they removed that today. I never thought morphine worked very good on me though.
Anyway, let me know how you're doing and if you have any thoughts on the biopsy and the clearing of that or the walls of the cavity? Are the walls of this cavity supposed to be thinner?
Thanks for any of your knowledge or resources you can offer. I really appreciate it!!
Angela
Replies to "Hi Busy! How are you doing!? I hope all is well ♥️ I had surgery last..."
Hi Angela!!
So Great to hear of your successful surgery!!❤️
Also, very encouraging news on your lung cavities.
Thinking of you & Prayers!
Blessings, Dee
Angela — it’s so great they caught that agressive cancer when they did!!
You must be so relieved it’s out of you now.
I hope you made it home today — always easier to sleep and heal up in your own bed and home.
Warm healing hugs to you,
Cate
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Wow, Angela! This is really good news - and answered prayers. I hope that if you have to have chemo it's only for a limited time. But it really does sound like you got a great report. Although I'm sorry to hear that the epidural wasn't totally effective. I hate morphine...it only makes me stupid!
As far as the lung cavity, from what I understand, many do clear on their on. So I would think, and someone else might know more about this than me, that the thinning walls means that the cavity is healing itself. I sure hope so.
I'm a little confused as to why your doctor suggested that your age affects whether or not you get NTM. I know younger folks (in their 30s) who have it. I was 57 when diagnosed. I know a lady who wasn't diagnosed until 85. My research suggests that one contracts it through a combination of things; exposure to water, soil, air; genetic predisposition; immunocompromised and/or some other serious health condition; thin, Caucasian... My doctor at NJH says that more and more folks are being diagnosed with it as physicians become more aware of this lung disease and radiologists are better trained to read CT scans.
A few things I've been told to do/not to do: Run the fan in the bathroom when taking as short a shower as possible (no baths) (I have a rainhead shower to minimize the mist which is not good to breathe); stay out of hot tubs and swimming pools; always wear a mask when gardening; ask your friends/family to let you know if they are sick with a cold so you can either mask around them or stay away (colds/bronchitis are obviously not good for us).
We were going to replace the water lines into our house since mycobacterium is a naturally occurring bacteria found in water and normally not dangerous bacteria that clings to the lining of the water pipes - including from its source - it wouldn't do any good to go that major expense. In short, unless I wanted to replace the pipes from the Colorado River to my house in southern AZ replacing the lines from the street to my house wouldn't serve any purpose.
I hope you are beginning to rest more comfortably and I pray for a speedy recovery. Keep me posted!! All my best, Busy