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

Posted by espiritu56 @espiritu56, Apr 4 9:58am

Greetings. Looking at a lung resection coming up. I have a good health baseline. I’m 70. Has anyone had this procedure at our age of wisdom, aka Senior? How was your experience and recovery experience? I’m at MD Anderson which of course is amongst the best at what they do. Thanks for the input.

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candyb61 | @candyb61 | 1 day ago
In reply to @azrosegold "@candyb61 the muscle was just like a big bulge on my left front ribcage. It just..." + (show)
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@candyb61 the muscle was just like a big bulge on my left front ribcage. It just was annoying because it felt heavy and awkward like wearing a crossbody purse all the time! It has slowly improved as my nerves heal. I still have nerve pain every day that just pops in to say hello 😩. Another stupid issue is wearing a bra is still very uncomfortable! The Dr did tell me in advance so at least it wasn’t a surprise. I too tried lidocaine patches and cream but didn’t help. Unfortunately it just takes time for your nerves to heal.

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@azrosegold. Im not sure why the chest tube was inserted right below my breast as the side would have been much better for wearing a bra, which I wasn't warned about, and for comfort sleeping. (I really need to proofread my text as I just saw all the auto text misspellings in my previous post!) I actually do know how to spell 🙃 😅.

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candyb61 | @candyb61 | 1 day ago

I'm 64, in very good health and had wedge resection with 8 lymph nodes removed over 3 weeks ago. The surgery went well and I was home in 2 days, after they pulled my chest tube. You will need to really rest for several weeks, but walk every day to expand your lungs as well as use the incentive spirometer which they should give you. The chest tube site is painful and there will likely be some nerve pain for quite a while, but there are meds for that. All in all it was traumatic for me. But I'm glad I did it. I wish you the best!

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