After mesothelioma surgery
You will be in hospital for between 7 to 15 days depending on your surgery. You will then need more time to recover once you are home.
When you wake up after your operation
After the operation, you wake up in the recovery room. You will have one to one nursing care. The nurse looks after you until you are awake and well enough to go back to the ward.
Everybody is different when they are waking up after an operation. It takes some people longer than others to wake up. Some people remain very sleepy for a while afterwards. You may be in the recovery room for hours before you are ready to go back to the ward.
Back on the ward your doctor will see you regularly. Specialist nurses may visit you. They look after people who have had major surgery but do not need to be in the intensive care or high dependency unit.
Sometimes you may wake up in the
(ICU) or (HDU) after your operation. This is so your doctors can keep a closer eye on you. This may happen if:
- your general health is poor
- the operation took longer than planned
- the operation was more complicated than the doctors thought it would be
In the ICU you have one to one nursing care. In the HDU you have very close nursing care.
The staff in the ICU or HDU will speak to a member of your family or friends about visitors. But, you usually move back to the ward within a day or so.
Tubes and drains
You might have several different tubes in place when you wake up. This can be a bit frightening. It helps if you know what they are all for.
You might have:
- a drip (intravenous infusion) to give you liquids
- a tube down your nose and into your stomach to stop you feeling sick (a nasogastric tube)
- one or more wound drains coming out of your wound
- a tube into your bladder (catheter) to collect and measure your urine
- a thin tube going into your back to give painkillers (an epidural catheter)
Your nurse will take your drip out as soon as you can start eating and drinking again. After surgery for pleural mesothelioma, this is usually the day after the operation.
After surgery for abdominal mesothelioma, it may be longer before you can eat or drink. Your doctor will listen to your abdomen with a stethoscope. As soon as the doctor can hear your bowel working again, you will be able to start taking sips of water. Gradually you will work up to eating and drinking normally.
The wound drainage tubes usually stay in as long as they carry on draining fluid. This could be more than a week.
If the surgeon removed your pleura, you have one or two tubes called chest drains. These come out of your chest, on the side where you had your surgery. These are attached to glass bottles, which are connected to a suction machine. The gentle suction helps your lung on that side to expand again after collapsing during the operation. Sometimes, the drains are just connected to a drainage bag.
Your wound
You have dressings over your wounds. After a couple of days your nurse changes the dressings and cleans your wounds.
The type of wound you have depends on the area of surgery, and whether you had open surgery or keyhole surgery. You might have about 3 smaller wounds if you had keyhole surgery. Or you will have at least one longer wound with open surgery.
You will have stitches or clips that stay in for at least 10 days. You can go home with the stitches in if your wound is still healing and you are otherwise well. The practice, district or hospital nurse then takes them out. This could be at home or you might need to go back to hospital.
Before you go home, your nurse gives you information about how to care for the wound.
Painkillers
You will almost certainly have some pain and discomfort for the first week or so. But it is possible to control your pain. There are many different painkilling drugs you can have.
It is very important to tell your doctor or nurse as soon as you feel any pain. They need your help to find the right type and dose of painkiller for you. Painkillers work best when you take them regularly.
You might have a local anaesthetic given slowly and continuously through a small tube into the fluid around your spine. This is called an epidural. It is a very effective way of controlling pain. The tube is put in while you are still asleep in the operating theatre. It will stay in for up to a week, even when you are up and about.
After your epidural has been taken out, you might still need painkillers to keep you comfortable. Painkillers work best when you take them regularly. It is important for you to be comfortable so that you can breathe deeply, cough easily, and move around as freely as possible. This helps to stop a chest infection or blood clot developing.
Pain can sometimes be a long term problem following this type of operation but there are effective medicines you can have. Pain may start a few weeks or months after the operation. This is usually because nerve endings have been damaged during the operation. If you have any pain, tell your doctor. They can prescribe medicines to help or they can refer you to specialist doctors in a pain clinic.
Moving around
Your nurses will help you to get up and move around gently as soon as possible. Even when you are still in bed, they will help you to do deep breathing and leg exercises. This helps you to get better and makes complications such as chest infections or blood clots much less likely.
Making progress
During the first few days after your operation you’ll start to feel better. The drips and drains come out and you start eating and can move around better.
You’ll begin to feel that you’re making progress. Most people go home about 7 to 15 days after the operation.
Going home
You’ll need some help when you first go home. You’re likely to feel very tired for several weeks or a few months after your surgery. It helps to do a bit more every day.
You can try:
- sitting for less time each day
- walking around the house a bit more each day
- building up to walking outside
What you can do depends on how fit you were before your surgery and any problems you have afterwards. Talk to the physiotherapist or your doctor if you’re not sure what you should be doing.
Contact your doctor or specialist nurse if you have any problems or symptoms you’re unsure about.
Follow up
You have regular check ups after cancer treatment, to check your recovery and sort out any problems. This is called follow up. You can also use your appointments to raise any concerns you have.
Further treatment
Depending on the surgery you had, your surgeon might refer you to a cancer specialist for further treatment. You might have chemotherapy or radiotherapy treatment once you have recovered.
