VATS at U of Miami

[Guest guest]

First I'd like to thank the well wishers about my VATS procedure. Mike, I wanted

to get back to you about how things went for me.

They cahnged the arrival time to 5:30 vs 5 am. I was sent to pre-op after

registering. I talked with many people on the sugery team. Possibly 10 or more.

The anesthesia doctor wanted to use a new procedure on me that acts like an

epidural for child birth. But, it was higher up around the lungs. She explained

that it would be 4 shots next to my spine starting at the base of my neck and

going down along the spine to the bottom of the lungs. This would be in addition

to the general anesthesia. I agreed to the block.

I left the prep room at 7:32 for the 7:30 surgery. I remember going into the

room but the next thing is waking up in recovery at 9:30 am.

Dr. Nguyen had said that I would go to ICU after the surgery because he wanted

to be able to use all of his resources.

However, they took me upstairs to a medical floor. Where I didn't get my

drainage tube hooked up for an hour or anything else either. My wife who is a

nurse went into action at that time. I'd go to ICU if I had it to do over again.

It's good to have an advocate with you if you can because you are too out of it

to know or care what's going on.

Later that day near 4 pm, Dr, Nguyen came up to assess me. He didn't know why I

was upstairs either. I think it was because I talked to Dr. Glassberg about

helping with fund raising (volunteering)and maybe they thought I was going to

donate a lot of money. hahahahaha. The floor was a penthouse room for just one

person. Go to ICU.

My drainage was good. I had a lot of pain in my shoulder joint and my shoulder

blade. When he took out the drainage tube it all went away. I stayed over Friday

night and was discahrged around 9:30 am Saturday.

I was back at the house by noon saturday.

I felt good most of saturday until that evening I had some pizza and resumed my

normal meds. I forgot the lactase enzyme for the cheese on the pizza. I took two

Motrin for pain. I took two more later on.

That evening I went to bed but started getting stomach cramps. I could not have

a bowel movement. All of Fridays food and saturdays was still there. My wife

thought I was having a heart attack as my blood pressure dropped and I was

sweating and pale. So, the paramedics were called and I spent Sat. night in the

local ER. They really couldn't find anything but guessed my digestive system

hadn't restarted after all of the anestegia.

Got out Sat evening during the Dolphins debacle. Today I'm up and around and

feeling pretty good. I've eaten regular food today and washed up. I've gotten a

back spasm when I breathe from laying around

but Aleve seems to be helping. It was probably from watching the Dolphins from

bed. Other than that the pain is quite manageable and I'm breathing OK. I use

the spirometer they gave me to excercise my lungs.

Probably too much detail but I wanted you to know what some of the problems can

be. I'll probaly go back to work Wed.

The best of luck to you Mike. If you have any questions, please let me know.

I'll see Dr. Nguyen in a week from today. Takes about a week for the report. I

do know that I have scarring and he said he got two good samples.

All the best,

Terre