7 months on from surgery

Hi Tracey, I haven’t had a lobectomy, so hope you don’t mind me giving you my thoughts on this. 7 months isn’t an awful lot of time, especially as I’m guessing, like a lot of us, you spent most of that time shut indoors not doing much.  I would guess that the pain is from doing the exercises. I would certainly see my gp or I would contact my oncology team and ask their advice about re starting exercise. Do you have a contact number for your lung nurse? I would phone her and see what she thinks, it may well be that she will speak to your oncologist about it to get their advice.  I’m also guessing that the area that is sore, from what you described, is probably around the bra line area? If this is sore already, any little bit of rubbing will aggravate this.  Good luck, and let us know how you get on. 

Hi Tracey, I had a Lobectomy 2 years age, and I have alway had some numbness in the area under right arm and down that side , no swelling though , but last may got some pain in the area , blood test done and was though it might be a blood clot had ct scan but nothing showing up , so it was thought  to be muscular ,it went after about a month. I agree with Chelle, that you should see your GP . take care Ellen

Hello

It is important you get your teams advise and if you do exercise, it must be from cancer related staff for the right type of exercise you can do. Not sure if curves can provide that?

I have to laugh a bit. In the new year I had a random request from a curves member of staff on social media. 2019 involved lots of treatment and a massive third of my weight lost..... so curves sending me that, made me laugh as according to bmi chart I was underweight!!!

Hi Chelle 

Thanks so much for responding. Yes your correct in your thinking that wearing a bra is not the most comfortable thing right now, thank goodness for home working lol.  I’m not going to exercise apart from walking until I’ve spoken with GP or my lung cancer nurse again to be on the safe side.

Hi Ellen

Thanks for replying and telling me about your experience. My swelling does seem to come and go but the numbness is downright annoying, feels like pins and needle sensation if I brush against my skin there. Definitely going to get in touch with GP/lung nurse and see what they say.  

re bras I swapped from underwired type to softer padded sports bras and have found them so much more comfy and a lot cheaper too. Wish I had found them years ago.

I had a lobectomy 1 and a half years ago and I found for months after the nerves were affected. One side my boob looked like my age, the side I had the operation on looked like it has aged 20 years, hence not wanting to go out braless as I looked very lopsided. 

Upside is, I thought it would never improve, slowly over time it is almost back to normal.

Hi Gina

Thanks for your reply. In fairness to curves they didn’t approach me I approached them as so fed up being overweight and unfortunately my bmi is on the high side as I put on weight rather than lost it. After my surgery in March my follow up with surgeon was by telephone due to Covid and that was a pretty straight forward “got it all , not spread, see you in a year time” conversation which was a huge relief. My cancer nurse pretty much fell off the radar within a few weeks and as I said getting a physical with gps became practically non existent.  I did eventually see a GP about 2 months ago as I became more breathless so was admitted overnight for bloods, X-ray and CT scan but everything showing clear so no blood clot or anything suspect which was good, I asked them about the swelling at the time and they had a good product around and reckoned it was just going to take more time. I am going to speak with GP and or lung nurse and if not getting anywhere with them I’m just going to go direct and write to my surgeon as he was lovely and said I could contact him anytime if I had concerns.

Yeah I’ve been in those soft bras and have a 

 fair collection of them now lol, good to hear you feel an improvement as that definitely resonates with me feeling like it’s never going to look normal on that side again.  I’ve always been a size 8-10 and before surgery went up to a 12 and now had to go into a 14 so massive change for me and doesn’t help that don’t feel like me anymore feeling