Hi,
My dad had VATS 4 weeks ago for stage 1b lung cancer and we were lucky it was detected this early. His oncologist already told us that dad will probably need both radiation and chemotherapy after the procedure, but when he was discharged, we were relieved to hear that they managed to surgically remove all of it. We were told that painkillers will be necessary during the first week, but that we can expect both pain to subside and energy levels to improve by the end of the third week. It’s been almost a month now and dad still can’t sleep through the night without pain waking him up. All the warnings about lifting anything heavier than 20lbs seem like science fiction at this point, he’s barely able to walk for half an hour without pain and discomfort starting. He was in relatively good shape before the VATS, is this recovery normal?
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Hello,
it's definitely a great news that your dad is cancer-free, but you have to take into account how hard is thoracic surgery on the body. At the same time, doctors can only give guidelines and estimates on recovery times - but not everyone will fit in the one week-three weeks recovery. It depends on age, the co-existing conditions, how big was the surgery... It just might be that your dad needs more time to heal. However, you should try talking about this with the doctors who gave the original assessment for his recovery time, just to make sure everything is healing up like it should. Even more so if there is any sign of things getting worse, rather than better.
Wish you all the best,
Nicole
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