So the surgery happened yesterday. I’ve got three small cuts (largest about an inch) on my right chest. One of them was for a camera (as operation was VATS) and another for an instrument. Both wounds have been sewn up using dissolving stitches and are covered by bandages. The other one has a drain tube in it, about the diameter of a pinky finger. It’s uncomfortable and I’m in quite a lot of pain and feeling dopey from the pain killers. I’m told that walking around helps the healing process so I’m doing laps of the respiratory ward grandpa style!
Edit: I found out from the nurse that actual operation only took 45 minutes. I had a chemical pleurodesis as well as a lung resection. Some of my right lung was removed but wasn’t told how much. I was administered 18 milligrams of morphine in recovery. I’m not sure whether this is much, but all I can remember when waking up with excruciating pain. I just kept asking for morphine and for my mouth to be rinsed with water. When I was released from the ICU the pain was manageable enough to get by with just regular doses of Panadol. I was given a morphine pump, but didn’t use it as I could withstand the pain (but not the light headed and dizziness side effects that morphine had on me).