I have left these issues for the end since they are realities that I believe I must live with for the rest of my life.

Since the surgery, I have experienced significant pain on a daily basis. It is centered on my back, shoulder blade and along the lines of the incision in my rib cage. The area of my diaphragm is tender to the touch and will ache with even modest amounts of strain or exercise. I take daily pain medication, but have avoided the heavy narcotic drugs even though these might eliminate the pain for me. I avoid them because they make me hallucinate and because of the long-term risk of addiction. Instead, I live with a limited amount of pain and accept that as the price of extending my life.

Dr. Barth and I have discussed nerve block surgery where the area could be deadened such that I wouldn’t need pain medication any more. This would also remove any chance of my detecting future tumor activity, something that I wasn’t prepared to risk. If a recurrence did happen in the right thoracic cavity, I wanted to retain the ability to feel it and possibly detect it in time for further intervention. For now, I remain on the pain pills and remain sensitive to my body’s moods.

The other issue also appears to be permanent. When I lost the right lung I lost 60% of my respiratory capacity and although my remaining lung is functioning at peak efficiency, I have lost the ability to rapidly supply large amounts of oxygen to my heart during exercise or exertion. Slow and steady exercise is less of a problem so I work out on an exercise bike at least twice a week and I take regular walks. Running and any sustained rapid movement are out of the question and leave me gasping for breath with a pounding heart. Clearly sprinting is out of the question but I might still manage a marathon or two if I trained hard enough for it.

This has raised some significant limitations on what I can do in my daily routine. If I rest frequently and pace myself I can live a reasonably normal life, but being on my feet all day or having to move around constantly would be nearly impossible. To stop my level of fitness from deteriorating I have committed myself to regular exercise. I continue to make frequent trips up and down the stairs and resist asking others to fetch things for me. Working a full day at a steady job is probably an impossibility since I need to nap almost every day. I just don’t have the capacity to tough it out on a consistent basis, although I have done so on occasion. When I do I always pay a price for it the next day.

I continue to have good days and bad days from an energy, mood and pain point of view. I can’t entirely explain these, but I have come to accept them as part of daily life. I am grateful to be able to do most of the things that normal people enjoy, and I work around my limitations with planning, and reduced expectations. Travel is something I still do and can enjoy but I can’t be expected to handle the luggage or sprint for a taxi any more.