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Aged 51-60
Interview LC43  

Interview LC43

Age at Interview: 54
Sex: Male
Age at Diagnosis: 53
Background: Engineer in nuclear power station, married, 1 child.
Brief outline:Diagnosed with mesothelioma in April 2003, followed by left extra-pleural pneumonectomy (left lung removed, together with chest lining, diaphragm, and lining round the heart, and replaced with Gore-Tex).


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He developed a rapid heart rate after his extra-pleural pneumonectomy.

 



Could you now say a little bit about the side effects of the surgery?

Yes apart from the obvious pain and discomfort I did have a couple of other problems. The normal stay in hospital after the operation is probably about two weeks but after nine days they thought that I was ready to be transferred back to my local hospital. They wanted to transfer me to my local hospital so that, rather than straight home so that the local hospital had knowledge of me if I had any problems. And so they'd arranged for an ambulance to transfer me the hundred and fifty miles and so that morning I got myself out of bed, showered and got dressed and then I felt very breathless and was obviously getting into some distress, I was very hot. 

And one of the nurses asked me if I was alright and I said I thought I'd done too much you know because actually getting on the white stockings you have to wear is quite hard and I thought I'd just tried to do too much too quickly. And so he said that he'd do the observations they normally do, blood pressure etc and then when, the blood pressure was okay but my pulse was 170 beats minute. And they took it again about five minutes later and it was still the same and so I had to have a cardiograph.  And I by then was getting quite worried and the nursing staff were quite worried because apparently when your heart stays that kind of rate then you can have a heart attack or stroke. And so they got the doctor to come and look at me and my heart rate was still at 170 and he said obviously you're not going to be moved today. And they gave me a drug called amiodarone, quite a high dose and this was just a drug to settle my heart down. And then over the next four or five hours my heart rate came down. 
Karol Sikora - Lung cancer
Lung cancer
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