Minimally Invasive Wedge Resection
Here is some helpful information about your hospital stay after your procedure.
How long will I be in the hospital?
- Patients who have this surgery most often stay 4 to 6 nights in the hospital.
- You will leave the hospital and go home when all these things have happened:
- Your pain is under control.
- Your chest tube has been taken out.
- You can get up and walk.
- You are eating well.
- Your bladder (urine) and bowel function are normal.
Medicines to help control your pain:
- After surgery you will be given different medicines to help with your pain, such as:
- Tylenol (acetaminophen)
- Ibuprofen (Advil) or other anti-inflammatory medicines
- Gabapentin (Neurontin) or Pregabalin (Lyrica)
- Lidocaine patches
- A muscle relaxer may also be given to help with pain, if needed.
- Patients who have this kind of surgery often need narcotic pain medicine that is taken by mouth or IV (intravenous). Your provider decides if you need to take narcotics based on your pain level.
Activity:
- We will help you walk (with a nurse or other staff) starting the day after surgery. We will help you walk 3 to 5 times a day. This is very important to help prevent problems after surgery such as:
- We will give you an incentive spirometer (IS) and instructions on how to use it.
- If needed, you will meet with a physical therapist before you go home from the hospital.
- Doing small exercises with your IS will help with your breathing.
- This can also keep you from getting sick after surgery (for example, pneumonia).
- This is very important to help you have a good recovery.
- You will be asked to use the IS 10 times every hour when you are awake.
- You will have an alarm on your bed for your safety. We will also keep the side rails on your bed up until the nursing staff says that is safe for you to walk on your own.
- To keep from getting blood clots, you will be given a blood thinner shot and you will use a sequential compression device (SCD):
- An SCD is a machine that gently squeezes the legs to help with blood flow.
What to know about lines and drains after surgery:
- You will probably have a small, plastic tube on 1 side of your chest. This is put there to drain fluid and air after surgery. This will be taken out at your bedside after the amount of fluid is at a good level and there is no air leaking.
- You will have an IV in place during your hospital stay. This is removed the day of discharge.
Diet:
- You can eat a regular diet after your surgery. You should eat your meals sitting in your chair.
- Anesthesia and pain medicines can sometimes make you feel nauseated after surgery. We will give you medicines to help you feel better.
Talking with your medical providers:
- Your team of providers see you every morning to:
- Check your incisions.
- Check your chest tubes.
- Talk about the plan for the day.
- They can also see you at other times if you have any questions or problems.
- A nurse will see you on a set schedule all day and night. You can also ask to see them any time using your call bell. Your nurse will talk with your surgeon and provider team often.
Monitoring after surgery:
- After surgery, you will be on a heart monitor (also called telemetry). You will have small leads attached to your chest to monitor your heart.
- We will check your oxygen levels all the time by putting a probe on your finger.
- We will check your vital signs every 4 to 8 hours. We will check your:
- Blood pressure
- Temperature
- Breathing
- Pain control
- You will be given oxygen after your surgery using a small tube that blows oxygen into your nose (a nasal cannula). The amount of oxygen will be lowered slowly while you are in the hospital.
- Because you had lung surgery in Colorado, where the altitude is high, you may need to go home with oxygen.
When you leave the hospital (discharge):
- All discharge medicines will be filled at the pharmacy in the Anschutz Atrium. You can pick them up before you leave the hospital.
- If you need to have your prescriptions sent to a different pharmacy, tell your providers and they will take care of this.
- Providers will talk to you about when you might leave the hospital all through your stay.
- Before you leave the hospital, we will schedule a follow-up visit with your surgeon.
Your case manager:
- You will have a case manager who will work with you during your hospital stay.
- They will help set up any services you may need for extra support at home.
If you need to contact your doctor or nurse before your surgery, please call the thoracic surgery clinic at 303.724.2799.
After Your Minimally Invasive Wedge Resection
Here is some information about what to expect after you go home from the hospital.
Follow-up appointments:
- We will schedule a post-op appointment with your surgeon about 2 weeks after discharge. This appointment will be set up before you leave the hospital.
- You will need a chest X-ray before your appointment. You can go to the radiology department for your chest X-ray 30 minutes before your appointment with the surgeon.
Recovery times:
- You should be back to your normal routine and activities (including work or school) by about 2 weeks after surgery.
- Patients often feel fully recovered after about 6 weeks.
- Please remember that each patient’s recovery time is different.
Surgical pathology results:
- Final pathology results most often take 5 to10 business days after surgery to finish and get back to your doctor.
- Results are often not ready by the time you leave the hospital. Your doctor will talk about the results with you during your post-op visit.
How to care for your incisions (surgical cuts):
- Small incisions will be covered with Steri-Strips. Leave them on until they fall off on their own or they are taken off at your post-op visit.
- The dressing (bandage) over your chest tube site should be taken off 2 days after your chest tube is taken out.
- There will be 1 small stitch at the chest tube site, which will be taken off during post-op visit. The rest of the stitches will dissolve on their own.
- It is OK to shower but do sit in water (submerge your incisions) for 4 weeks, or until the incisions are fully healed with no scabs. This means no:
- Bathtubs
- Pools or hot tubs
- Lakes or oceans
- Do not put any ointment directly on the incisions until they are well-healed (about 2 to 4 weeks).
Activity:
- You may go back to doing your normal activities if you feel OK while doing them.
- No heavy lifting (more than 10 pounds) and strenuous activity for 4 to 6 weeks after surgery.
- You can start doing light aerobic activity and exercise if you feel OK while doing it.
- You should be getting up and walking around many times each day.
- Pay attention to how you are feeling to decide if you should do other activities.
Driving:
- You will be able to drive after you not taking any narcotic pain medicines and feel better physically.
- This is to make sure your reaction time and strength are back to normal. This usually happens around 2 weeks after surgery.
Medicines to help control your pain:
- It is normal to have some pain after surgery.
- After surgery you will be given different medicines to help with your pain, such as:
- Acetaminophen (Tylenol)
- Ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin) or other anti-inflammatory medicines
- Gabapentin (Neurontin) or pregabalin (Lyrica)
- Lidocaine patches
- Nerve pain is often felt in the front of your ribs or under your breast on the side where you had surgery. This can take weeks or even months to go away:
- You may be given a prescription for a narcotic medicine. You can take this as needed for pain that happens in between doses of more mild medicines (called breakthrough pain).
- Slowly stop taking the narcotic medicines first.
- Next, stop taking Tylenol or ibuprofen.
- The last medicine to stop taking is gabapentin or pregabalin.
- You will be asked to slowly stop taking pain medicines at home when you feel better:
- Gabapentin or pregabalin are the best medicines to treat this type of pain.
- Once this pain is gone, you can slowly stop taking these medicines. Follow the instructions you were given at discharge.
Othermedicines:
You will be sent home with Senna (a stool softener) to take for constipation. If your constipation does not get better, you can take any of these over-the-counter medicines:
-
- MiraLAX
- Colace
- a suppository
- an enema
When to call your doctor:
Please call the thoracic surgery clinic at 303.724.2799 if you have any of these symptoms:
-
- Fever (above 100.4 F).
- Chills.
- Redness, swelling or drainage at incision sites that is getting worse.
- Shortness of breath that is new.
- Pain that is getting worse.
©2021 University of Colorado Hospital, Aurora
May 2021
MinInvWedgeResect_Surg