so i had my thymectomy last night at Northwestern Memorial Hospital out in Chicago and man am i sore as a mutha. for some reason it took my doc 7 hrs to do the surgery and now im recovering in the ICU. 2 lung drainages tubes, a catheter, an epidermal, 3 IV lines, and a pain med button are all attached. if you guys have any questions feel free

Wow - what an ordeal for you! But hang in there...things will only get better.

Glad the surgery went well and it's over. Take care.

Geez, Brandon, give yourself a few minutes to heal!

I'll bet they were trying to get every single little bit of your thymus. Have you spoken to the surgeon yet? They usually come in to check on their patients after they carve them open.

I haven't had a thymectomy, are the lung drainage tubes standard? I'd ask them about that for sure.

I'm sort of having fun trying to figure out where they put the three IV's.

I hope you feel better very soon. Whenever I've had surgery, the first week is the worst as far as pain. Take it easy with any morphine!


Annie

yea the surgeon said my thymus was situated a lil bit weird and like many myasthenics it was hyper-plastic so thats why it took so long but i have the drip and pump iv on the right hand i have the iv for hydrocortizone or any kind of flushes they want to do with a syringe on my left hanf and they had an A line IV on my right wrist to monitor my blood pressure heart rate and oxygen levels wirelessly with the monitor (thts pretty cool i thought). the lung drainage tube were expected so thats all kosher. my pain button isny morphine actually its hydromorphone (Dilaudid) because when i passed kidney stones a couple years back they gave me two huge vials of morphine sulfate and it did absolutely nothing at all for the pain so morphine is out of the equation for me but thanks for the questions and the support guys

im totally okay with the ordeal because its a lot better than the alternative (even without the guarantee that it will work) since im 20 yrs old (turn 21 on tuesday) and i take 50 mg of prednisone every day, dont wanna tka etht stuff forever....not a very good prognosis on that

Brandon,
I had 2 of them so believe me I totally know you are going through right now. During one of the surgerys a nerve was hit and my right diaphram got paralyzed It's going to take a few months of pain and soreness but it will be worth it when you are feeling better. Good Luck
-Tracey

Holy crap, how can you be posting from the ICU in that condition? You deserve an award!! Thank you so much for posting; it is very helpful to us and good to hear how you are doing.

I just got diagnosed and I'm 49. My neuro is sending me for a Chest CT right away with the strong possibility of a thymectomy, so I am interested in anything I can learn about it. I'm wondering about people my age who had them. He said the literature recommends anyone under 60 having him no matter what, so I wonder why doesn't everyone get them?

I'm wondering if there may be one in my near future.

not everyone gets them because it really depends on ur neurologist and people over 60 make this a higher risk surgery im not quite 49 so i couldnt help you with that but any questions you have for me just fire away im happy to help and share my exp with people who might need this. im happy to hear that your neuro wants to jump right in....took me almost 2 yrs for me to convince my neuro to go with it. and request tht you get IVIG before hand....i feel like tht stuff is magic juice for MGers even after my surgery tht was yesterday, i feel 10 times better than i have in months next to the pain but thts a common side effect of someone cutting into you and removing a part of your body i guess

Brandon- glad your doing well man (as well as you can be haha your in the icu). Sounds like they're taking pretty good care of you, and all the tubes and ivs sound all normal from what I had. I bet you'll be out of there in no time- make sure to keep your lungs strong. I messed that part up and one collapsed.


Keep strong man

thanks a lot bro. Im down to just the lung drainage tubes now and they wanna kick me outta here tomorrow. but if anyone is around chicago i would recommend Northwestern for sure the nurse staff is amazing and the doctors do their job. cant really ask for much else.