Interview LC32

Age at interview: 52

Age at diagnosis: 50

Brief Outline: Lung cancer diagnosed in February 2002 followed by left pneumonectomy (left lung removed).

Background: Postman, married, 2 children.

Suggests that his wife had to cope with a great deal, perhaps even more than he did.

But one thing that I think we've talked about me as a patient I think the spouse in these matters goes through a lot more in a certain way than I, it's something, when I'm speaking with people I always say “we” rather than “I”, because I think in a different way she went through possibly more. She was the one that had to leave the hospital when I was at my lowest ebb, and go home on her own, that can't have been very easy. She was the one that didn't voice her fears as much as she might have liked to. Although we do have friends who I'm sure she, she was able to talk to them. But to a large extent whoever, the spouse or the parent of the patient sometimes takes the brunt of a lot of things that go on. So I like to, as I say I like to, when I speak and when I think I like to say “we” rather than I went through this because that is how we went through rather than I went through it.

That's really important.

It is important, well it's important to me and my wife I don't think she'd disagree with that although she's not, she would never admit that she went through those bad times. It's something she actually hasn't discussed with me but I know her and I know that she did so, but I don't need any discussion on the matter really.

He used an epidural infusion to control the pain after his pneumonectomy.

I think I was in theatre for four hours and then they kept me there on observation for an extra two afterwards. I think the reason behind that was with me being overweight and with me, I tend to have coughs and that sort of thing, I think they just wanted to be sure before they sent me back up for observation on the ward. Nonetheless when I got back on the ward and became aware again I was  told that they'd taken away the whole of the lung and part of the pericardia which is something that surrounds the heart. They warned me that they'd gone dangerously close as he put it to the voice box and that my voice may be affected but that he had felt that things had gone very well and that he had got the whole tumour out which obviously was a great relief to us all. But at that time, I mean at that time I was, although I was relieved I was very weak and very, I had what the ladies have when they're pregnant, to keep the pain away?

An epidural?

I had an epidural and a little button to press when the pain came along. And that was a great comfort to me because at one stage before I realised I could help myself the pain got quite bad. And seemingly they had told me to press this button but I must've been in a daze and I'd forgotten so they came over and said "You don't even feel the slightest tinkle, you press the button and we don't want you feel anything at all." So that, I mean in future I used the button.

Recalls that after surgery he was told to bring up as much phlegm as possible.

On the other hand one of the worst parts of my recovery was that to, I had to bring up any phlegm, which was to be tested actually, they gave you cups to bring this phlegm up into because it was tested each day a,  presumably for the cancer I'm not quite sure. And to see if there were any, anything wrong in it. But, it is actually horrible trying to force yourself to bring this stuff up, it's not very pleasant to be doing in front of other people and I've no doubt not very pleasant for other people to see you do it. Nonetheless it was something that had to be done. And it was there throughout the day for you to do so (laughs) whether visitors were in or not it was something you had to do was to bring it up. And you had to do it as best you could because you were teaching, basically you were teaching your one lung to do the job of two and it, that's how the doctor said it to me that the better you can do this the more training you are to keep the, any kind of infection or anything like that out of your system and now that you only have one lung you had to kind of get your one lung to do the job of two so this was part of the rehabilitating and, but it is horrible, it's not a very nice thing to be doing. And there was such a lot lying on your chest over the, probably because you're lying down and that, it wasn't coming up in the normal fashion so you had to force yourself to bring it up.
 

His doctor communicated extremely well.

What was communication like between you and the doctors?

Communication was quite good. The doctor that came and seen me on a regular basis, he was a Chinese man and he was lovely, his attitude was superb. He, it's very hard to explain how good he was, he didn't leave anything to chance, he explained everything to you and he would reiterate that anything, any question that I wanted to ask to ask him and he even said at one stage, 'If you write them down because sometimes you don't, or get your wife to ask me, because sometimes you don't always remember what you want to  ask'. So he was good and he also, as I said before, the worst part was bringing this spittle up and he was underlining the fact that this was so important to me, getting well and he would say like "Spit for England," and things like that. And I laughed at that stage, and said "Well definitely not for England," and my wife explained to him that I was Irish. So he was humorous as well, he was very good in communicating; I thought that he was a lovely man. So as far as communicating with the doctor was concerned that was very easy, he was very easy to approach.

He recalls a night when good bedside nursing helped to relieve his respiratory distress.

Oh the nursing care was second to none. This was epitomised by one particular incident where I was at a very low ebb in the middle of the night, I was coughing and it was to the point where there was tears coming out of my eyes and I just couldn't breathe and I was very, very distressed. Now there was a nurse there and she was rubbing my brow and so much so that I had the feeling that it was my mother looking after me, it's a strange thing that crop into your mind. But she was like that, she was, I said to my wife several times since I've come out that that's not the type of thing you can teach somebody that's the type of thing that you either have or you haven't got and yes it epitomised the type of nursing that I received.

The physiotherapist taught him breathing exercises.

Did you have to have any physiotherapy?

Yes, the physiotherapist would come along and she'd do some movements with my shoulder, try and get my shoulders and my body moving a little bit but mostly it was breathing exercises that she gave me. She reckoned that most people breathe through their mouth when they should breathe their nose which is something I learnt and gave me breathing exercises whereby I breathed in through my nose and then out through my mouth and that then I should do this at regular intervals. I'm supposed to still do them at regular intervals and supposed to just keep my breathing right as that is a problem that I have which it's an ongoing problem. But not, certainly not an insurmountable problem.