Interview LC02

Age at interview: 53

Age at diagnosis: 51

Brief Outline: Diagnosed non-small cell lung cancer August 2000, followed by chemotherapy, then right pneumonectomy (right lung removed) in December 2000.

Background: Company chairman, married, no children.

He chose to have a lung biopsy without a local anaesthetic because the doctor said it wouldn't hurt, but it did.

In my case the other thing that they do, there was two things they did, they did a, and I don't remember the name of this one, but they more or less they used ultrasound on my back to gauge where the liquid was in my lungs because they were wanting to get a sample of the liquid to see if there was any cancer agents in the liquid. So they pass a very fine needle through the wall of your back using the ultrasound as a guide and extract some of the liquid for pathology and so that they can have a look at it and see what the liquid contains. So they did that on me and that was; I was lulled into a false sense of security in that in as much as it was a very pretty young doctor and she said it wouldn't hurt and it did (laughs). So my advice would be take a local anaesthetic on that, which was offered but she said it wouldn't hurt and I believed her (laughs) she got me.  
 

Describes what it is like to have a CT scan.

The CT scan again it's a totally painless operation, or not an operation it's not an operation, procedure I should say, where you lie on a flat bed, they sort of prep you by putting a shunt into your vein. And then what they do is they project the bed that you're lying on into this tunnel and it's a confined area and I could see if you were claustrophobic it could be a wee bit worrisome but it shouldn't really affect you because I mean you can see either end of the it you can see through it, you can raise your eyes back and you see the ceiling at the other end. There's, you know there's no real need to be concerned about it, and then at one point of the procedure or when they're taking x-rays they pump a dye into you to give you a resolution on the x-ray so that they can differentiate between the different bits of tissue that they're seeing. The dye itself is totally harmless, I'm diabetic it had no impact on me whatsoever other than to make you feel like you'd peed yourself. You get a warm glow round about your waterworks, but I can assure you haven't peed yourself, it's just a feeling you know. And it's, as I say totally painless, and really neat slides you get from it, it's quite something when you see them after the event. It's almost worth having it done just to get a look at the pictures you know it's quite phenomenal the human body.

Describes what it is like to have a mediastinoscopy, which he had under a general anaesthetic.

But the other thing that I had happen to me was that they decided that more or less prior to the operation, because this was towards the end when they were deciding that they were going to operate, they decided that what they really needed to know was whether the cancer has got into my lymphs. So they did a mediastinoscopy which is where they cut your throat down here, you're under a complete anaesthetic at this point, they cut your throat about here and they peel it back and go down inside the chest wall to have a look with a camera. Not dissimilar to the bronchoscopy one but slightly bigger and brighter lights and then have a look around in the area on the outside of the lung etc to find out if there is any cancer cells present.  They can also, there's a grab, a snip thing that they can take some samples for pathology and check that, whether there's any cancer agents or cancer present in the samples that they've taken. That in itself is not discomfort, you just end up with a, depending on how good the stitches are just a very little scar and it's tender for a couple of days but not anything to write home about, very simple really.

Describes his post-operative recovery at home; the district nurse removed the stitches.

I convalesced at home, it was a bit sore for quite a while, spent a lot of time in bed. We'd get up and sort of strut around but each day I was getting that little bit stronger. Our house has stairs and I started off more or less crawling up the stairs after the operation and then I got to being able to walk up a couple of them. There are 13 steps, or 13 treads on the stairs and my goal was as quickly as possible to be able to walk up all 13. And then once I'd achieved that, and I achieved that quite quickly it was to be able to do it twice in a day and then three times and then to be able to go up them and come back down again and go up again. And that took a while, but we got to it. It was being aware of the fact that you were breathing.  

We never, if you think consciously you never think about breath but when you've had the sort of operation, a complete lung taken out you actually start being aware of your breath and each breath you take. That feeling dies eventually but you know I was trying to get myself off the drugs, I felt like I'd been taking too many for too long so I was cutting them out as quickly as possible, I was taking fewer and fewer painkillers and getting the type of painkillers reduced so that eventually I was only taking paracetamol and I was then only taking that when I needed it.  

Did you have stitches to remove?

Yes I had to get the stitches removed. My district nurse came in a couple of weeks after the op and removed these.

Explains that he developed pneumonia because he wasn't warned that his immune system had been affected by the chemotherapy.

It didn't go according to plan because one of the things they omitted to say to me was that when I started getting the chemotherapy it would really impact my immune system, it would impact my ability to fight off germs. And although I'd been falsely diagnosed previously as having pneumonia, about, within ten days of me getting the first dose of chemo I had a very severe dose of pneumonia, it almost developed over the course of a weekend. And what was happening was that a lot of my employees and friends and colleagues were coming around to the house to see me because they knew that I was dying and knew that we had an open outlook towards this so they were all coming around to say hi and you know we're rooting for you etc. and it was really appreciated, but because they had omitted to warn me about my immune system I was being hugged and kissed, by all sorts of people, men as well as women. And as a result of that I caught every germ that they had. So I ended up actually being, seeing my new GP because I had changed GPs within the practice and switched to the GP that my wife uses. And that GP came round to see me and immediately got me admitted to the hospital and I was put into a ward where I was barrier nursed.