Lungs!
plonk
Posts: 37
This is quite a long story so I will keep it as brief as possible.
After really getting into the whole biking thing for a couple of years (which started mainly as a replacement for cigarrettes) I surprised myself by coughing up a bit of blood after a particularly lengthy ride.
Phoned NHS direct, they told me to go to A&E. Had an Xray where they found a shadow that concerned them. Stay in hospital overnight and then the next few weeks is a blur of various medical proddings, probings, scans and tests which all proved inconclusive. Finally had a PET scan where they inject you with radiation, and they said that while the result was not conclusive it looked like cancer. There was a question mark around this as I'm only 33, but it was still a fairly massive shock.
So I was straight off to the Royal Brompton in Chelsea where they made a big hole in my back, broke a couple of ribs and took out the lower third of my lung. Then after a few tense days of waiting in hospital while it all got analysed, I finally find out it WASN’T cancer, just some bizarre infection! Obviously this was amazing news, but the bad news was that they had to carve me up a bit to find that out.
Anyway, fast forward a fairly pleasant 6 weeks of rest and recouparation in the garden with my wife bringing me cups of tea and people generally fussing over me, and I'm getting back to normal.
So today, 9 weeks after I was on the operating table I got back on my bike and did my 10 mile commute to work. And it felt FANTASTIC! I was fairly out of breath for the first part, but soon eased into it, and had forgotten that slightly euphoric feeling that exercise can bring you. It was especially magnified for me today after the last few months.
So I thought I'd post here to air my general feeling of AWESOMENESS. This is compounded by the fact that my lunch today is a homemade wild rice salad with homegrown cucumber, mint, chilli, onion and garlic. And chicken from Tescos. All of which is about 90% AWESOME and 10% horribly smug.
After really getting into the whole biking thing for a couple of years (which started mainly as a replacement for cigarrettes) I surprised myself by coughing up a bit of blood after a particularly lengthy ride.
Phoned NHS direct, they told me to go to A&E. Had an Xray where they found a shadow that concerned them. Stay in hospital overnight and then the next few weeks is a blur of various medical proddings, probings, scans and tests which all proved inconclusive. Finally had a PET scan where they inject you with radiation, and they said that while the result was not conclusive it looked like cancer. There was a question mark around this as I'm only 33, but it was still a fairly massive shock.
So I was straight off to the Royal Brompton in Chelsea where they made a big hole in my back, broke a couple of ribs and took out the lower third of my lung. Then after a few tense days of waiting in hospital while it all got analysed, I finally find out it WASN’T cancer, just some bizarre infection! Obviously this was amazing news, but the bad news was that they had to carve me up a bit to find that out.
Anyway, fast forward a fairly pleasant 6 weeks of rest and recouparation in the garden with my wife bringing me cups of tea and people generally fussing over me, and I'm getting back to normal.
So today, 9 weeks after I was on the operating table I got back on my bike and did my 10 mile commute to work. And it felt FANTASTIC! I was fairly out of breath for the first part, but soon eased into it, and had forgotten that slightly euphoric feeling that exercise can bring you. It was especially magnified for me today after the last few months.
So I thought I'd post here to air my general feeling of AWESOMENESS. This is compounded by the fact that my lunch today is a homemade wild rice salad with homegrown cucumber, mint, chilli, onion and garlic. And chicken from Tescos. All of which is about 90% AWESOME and 10% horribly smug.
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Comments
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Happy days
Very pleased for you and hopefully lots more years of health & cycling to come. 1997 Gary Fisher Big Sur
2009 Scott Spark 60
2010 Ghost 5000
2011 Commencal Ramones AL1
2012 Commencal Meta AM10 -
wooooo - weird lung infections!
Good stuff it was just that and I so miss that buzz this morning...Le Cannon [98 Cannondale M400] [FCN: 8]
The Mad Monkey [2013 Hoy 003] [FCN: 4]0 -
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+1 to alol of the above
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Thanks everyone!0
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Golly! That's one hell of a story for the chaingang.
Fantastic news that it's nothing manevolent. Enjoy the recovery.Commute: Langster -Singlecross - Brompton S2-LX
Road: 95 Trek 5500 -Look 695 Aerolight eTap - Boardman TTe eTap
Offroad: Pace RC200 - Dawes Kickback 2 tandem - Tricross - Boardman CXR9.8 - Ridley x-fire0 -
That is an amazing story. Great that you don't have the C word but I guess a bit of a pisser that you lost a 1/3 of a lung finding out? How will that affect you?Cannondale Supersix / CAAD9 / Boardman 9.0 / Benotto 30000
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Not sure yet. Apparently it re-expands to fill the cavity! My commute today didnt feel that different, so i'm guessing it's not going to affect me that much.0
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Great news it's not cancer. \o/
Reminds me I should make an appointment with my GP about the chest X-ray I had a couple of weeks ago. I'm assuming there's no bad news, 'cause I'd have expected them to contact me if there was anything urgent to worry about.
Fingers crossed your lung does grow back to fill the space.0 -
Congratulations on being Awesome, and welcome back to the road.0
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A similar thing happened to me, not the coughing up blood bit but I was finding it harder and harder to breathe to the point where I couldn't walk more than 5 metres or so without stopping for breath and it was stopping me from sleeping as I would wake up fighting for breath which is not a nice thing at all.
I ended up in a&e being prodded and xrayed too, turned out to be nothing but a very serious chest infection that had over powered everything the gp had given me, I know exactly what you mean when I had recovered from it and got on my bike again, best feeling ever.
Congrats on recovering so well and being back in the saddle. :-)0 -
Does this alter your FCN?0
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That must have been bloody scary. Good news all round, glad you're back on 2 wheels and loving it.0
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Excellent news.FCN 2-4.
"What happens when the hammer goes down, kids?"
"It stays down, Daddy."
"Exactly."0 -
My lungs don't really slow me down - my legs get tired out first. Perhaps you are the same.plonk wrote:Not sure yet. Apparently it re-expands to fill the cavity! My commute today didnt feel that different, so i'm guessing it's not going to affect me that much.0 -
Great to hear you're well and back on the bike!FCN3: Titanium Qoroz.0
