R's VATS Lobectomy for Lung Cancer

PA Hertsen Moscow Oncology Research Center, Moscow Russia

March 4, checked into the hospital the night before surgery

March 6

March 7, this is R's left side with his arm raised.  The incision second from the left was where the chest tube was.  After the chest tube was removed he was more comfortable.  

Also March 7

March 8

March 9

March 10, the kids came for a visit after church!

March 11 HOME!

The view from his hospital room, various sunsets and moonrises.

Over Christmas holidays 2018 - 2019 while we were in NC R experienced stomach pain, after a couple of days and it interfering with his golf game he consented to going to Urgent Care.  The doctor at Urgent Care facility thought it was his gallbladder and expected him to need surgery, so he sent him to the ER.  Once at the ER they ran some blood tests and a CT scan with contrast of his abdomen.   The ER doctor explained that it was diverticulitis and that was easily cured with antibiotics.  However, sometimes more is caught on the image than you expect.  But, he said the thing is you have lung cancer and if you hadn't just had a CT with contrast I would be sending you back right now for a CT scan of your lungs.  After explaining to him that we were headed back to Russia in days he urged us to seek further care.  Because we had no information we opted to not tell anyone this news yet.   Once we arrived back in Russia a whirlwind of tests ensued.  And surgery was scheduled.  The surgeon explained that the procedure would be a VATS (Video Assisted Thoracic Surgery) Lobectomy and that he would remove the lower lobe of R's left lung and lymph nodes from the area.  They would do a bedside biopsy to confirm the diagnosis of cancer and then the lymph nodes would go off for testing to see if the cancer had spread.  Coming out of the surgery the doctor called it Stage 1 adenocarcinoma, a type of Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer.  Unfortunately, there was cancer found in a couple of the lymph nodes so it was upstaged to 2b and followup chemotherapy would be prescribed.  On the morning of March 5 I arrived at the hospital before R was taken up to surgery.  After surgery R was taken to ICU and the doctor told me the surgery had gone well.  I was not able to see him in ICU but arrived shortly after he was returned to his room on the 6th.  While we are confident that the surgery R had was topnotch, the surgeon trained at Mayo Clinic in Rochester MN, some of the periphery care was lacking or strange or inadequate.