And so it goes...

I had another procedure on Friday as expected. The surgeon inserted what he charmingly called a "telescope" (and indeed it felt like my thoracic cavity had made room for Mt. Palomar the next morning). After breaking up some adhesions on the surface of the lungs and inserting another chest tube and turning it up to 11, they got the lung to inflate; a pre-requisite to redoing that lung's old pleurodesis. Given the patterns of scar tissue left over from the earlier VATS procedure, they completed most of the pleurodesis through a process of scarification -- I visualize this as a series of cross-hatched light incisions on the pleura and chest wall, similar to the way contractors sink tile in grout.

It was clear that they were conscientious, thorough and slow about everything they did, and I only hope that it lasts a reasonable length of time (eg, forever). The night and day after the surgery were nightmarish. I pushed the pain button and snoozed. I still feel somewhat lousy. I have no idea when I will go home, but the earliest date would be Wednesday, I think Thursday might be pretty likely, and perhaps Tuesday will emerge as wonderful dark horse. The good thing is that I'm too uncomfortable to dwell upon all the sad longer-term aspects of all of this and am instead focused on trying to do things to make things feel a little better right now.