Mom's First Thoracentesis

Say that three times fast!

Today's thoracentesis went smoothly. The procedure itself only lasted about 30 minutes but there was a lot of pre-op and post-op things they did. We arrived approximate at 9:30 a.m. and had our initial check-in. Mom was given strict instructions not to eat of drink anything that morning. She was also suppose to be off her blood thinner for a day prior.

We were then taken to a separate private room which would be her recovery room once the procedure was done. They started off by getting her all situated, taking vitals, and doing blood work  They are mapped out the area where they would have to make the incision in her back to get to the chest cavity to drain the fluid. We then waited on them to come and get her to do a chest x-ray to see how much fluid had accumulated. Once that was done, they took her to the operation room. She said that they numbed the entire area of her back. Then next went in with a needed attached to a vacuum-like bag and began extracting the fluid. She said she felt a bit of discomfort at the instant they inserted the needle but it wasn't too bad. Throughout the draining, she just felt some moderate pressure in her chest. Once that was done, she was brought back to the recovery room where I was happily waiting for her. It was such an amazing site to actually see her smile. I asked her how it went and she said she felt normal and was so happy to breathe normally. The post-op nurse said there took out about 400 ml of fluid and it was sent to the lab for testing. I am hoping that the fluid is not cancer but if it is, I am ready to battle that head on too. I am not going to lose hope. The fact that she was able to breathe normally today was a little victory today and I am choosing to hold onto that.