After your surgery, as soon as you begin to wake up, your anesthesiologist will remove your breathing tube so that you can breathe properly and cough up any accumulated mucus.
By the time you are fully awake, you will be in the recovery room (called PACU: Post Anesthesia Care Unit). Your nurse will ask you about pain, and if you have pain you will be given appropriate pain medication as often as you need it. We aim to strike a balance between pain-control and drowsiness, and wouldn’t want you to be so drowsy.
You may feel nausea – this is caused by the side effects of your anesthesia (medicine used to put you to sleep for your surgery) and also can be caused by the pain medications that you need to stay comfortable. If you have nausea, let your nurse know and you will be given anti-nausea medication to calm it down.
As you become more awake and aware of your surroundings, you will notice that you have one or two soft plastic chest tubes going from your chest to a box on the floor. This small tube (the size of your pinky finger) is used to drain any remaining fluid after your surgery, and to check if your lungs are still leaking air after your surgery.
Once there is little fluid draining from your chest, and there is no more air leaking from your lungs, this tube will be removed. This is usually removed either the next day for minor chest surgeries or in 2-3 days after a major lung surgery (e.g. a VATS lung lobectomy). However in some people (especially those who have smoked a lot for a long time and have emphysema), it may take a little longer for their lungs to heal and stop leaking air.
One of the best things you can do for yourself after lung surgery is to keep active while in the hospital. And since you had minimally invasive lung surgery, you will find that you will be able to get out of bed and walk either the same day of surgery or the next day.
The next day after surgery you will be expected to get out of bed and walk down the hallway with your nurse assisting you. You will have enough pain-medicine to stay relatively comfortable. Getting up and walking helps you expand your lungs and makes it easy for you to cough-up old left-over mucus that tends to cause pneumonia (if you don’t cough it up).
Exercising with either the Acapella breathing accessory or the incentive spirometer will keep you breathing deeply and coughing effectively to stay out of trouble and keep your lungs clear of mucus- otherwise you will naturally refuse to take deep breaths after surgery.
Frequent walking, deep breathing and practiced coughing (as mentioned above) will prevent you from having pneumonia after lung surgery.
If you adhere to these rapid recovery tips outlined here, you will likely have a better chance at leaving the hospital as soon as those precautionary chest tubes are removed!
With those chest tubes out, you will be able to shower twice a day- taking a shower and allowing the water run down your incisions is good, but avoid dipping or soaking in a tub or pool for at least 4 weeks to allow time for your incisions to be completely healed.
Once home you are encouraged to walk often- either down the street, a park or in a shopping mall (flat ground is prefered). Also cough often to ensure no residual thick mucus remains. The idea in all this, is to keep your remaining lungs fully exercised and re-expanded until you no longer think about surgical pain.
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Read about the author: Ugo Ogwudu, M.D. Thoracic surgeon.
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