Talked to dad Sunday evening....

and to be honest......he just doesn't have any real good options left to choose from.

He has so many blebs (bubbles) on his lungs that they cannot go in and remove/fix them all. If they did it would remove most of the lung tissue.

They cannot remove the lung that has collapsed three times because his remaining lung is not much better than the one that has collapsed three times.

So it sounds like he is down to 2 choices....doing nothing and pretty much being guaranteed this lung will collapse again and perhaps multiple times....or having that surgery laparoscopically (where instead of cutting you wide open they go in with about 3-4 smaller incisions and use scopes...etc)....where they blow in more of that talc/sticky stuff. Dad said the surgeon told him they basically take the lung and move it all around while in there to make sure they completely cover it.

BUT they also told dad if they did that he would be in a lot of pain for at least 4 days afterwards.....as they put so much of that stuff in your chest cavity and lung ...but they could control the pain with medication after the surgery. AND there is still no guarantee though I suppose the odds are better than not doing the surgery.

Regardless of what he finally decides to do....one thing is for sure....his lifestyle will change...as I am sure he will have to be less active. I can understand he would always be worried his lung would or could collapse again at any moment....even with a sneeze or cough....or just sitting around. I imagine in time the longer one goes without it collapsing the more one would start to forget about the threat hanging over one's head...but I know his lung capacity is probably never going to be the same and it was not great to begin with.

I will probably go see dad tomorrow...no...I guess it would actually be later on today. He sounded pretty good on the phone tonight.