Does anyone on here ride a bike with only one working lung or…..

know anyone that does?
Spoke to my surgeon last Monday and there is a possibility that I might loose my right lung/Phrenic nerve as I have to have a Thymoma tumour(malignant)which is attached to my lung and pressing on my heart!
Op in two weeks (chest cracker) he has mentioned the breathlessness but did not go in to details so any one out there with any stories?
Rich

No lungs on my bike at all!!!

Eek! Hope it turns out OK for you.My guess is that one fit lung is going to be a lot better than two half-killed with nicotine!!

F*** my boots!

Shit dude! Hope everything goes ok, fingers crossed for you!

Can’t offer any help or advice though I’m afraid.

Eeek indeed. Hope work don’t give you a stage 3…. You might even manage to squeeze a couple of Weeks on light duties with that….(post office humour before anyone jumps on me)…seriously tho good luck with the op, hope it all goes well …

Getting my head around it all, it was only picked up on an xray after cracking two ribs after a fall no sypmtoms but now I know something is in there its a bit of a headfeck Surgeon was a serious guy came out of the consultation pretty shook up but I will live hopefully 🙂 not found many cyclists with one lung on google 🙂

My mother in law had only one lung, used to ride up the alps every year on the back of a tandem. Hard to tell how much power gets put through the pedals by somebody on the back of a tandem, but she was pretty resolute.

Whoa, good luck with that buddy! One lung has to be a whole lot better than none. Do they do transplants?

daftvader they had me on indoor work after my fall now I have serious news I,m looking @ 6 mths RnR 🙂

Hope all goes well! I can’t offer advice, can only send my best wishes from one Kendalalian to another. 🙂

There you go, you know at the very least you can get on the back of a tandem. Give TJ a shout

My uncle has lived most of his adult life with one lung (now in his seventies). He was a surgeon and worked all over the world. He always told me that so long as he avoided infections/inclement conditions that he was fine. I would imagine that cycling will keep your good lung even better. But avoid stressing it when it needs rested. Good luck and stay positive about what you enjoy doing in life.

But will I be able to where a helmet? 🙂

Good luck, guess falling off your bike is good for something!

Leffeboy is your man, I think he’s still going on a lung and a half. Good luck with the op.

He always told me that so long as he avoided infections/inclement conditions

Damn does that mean I have to move away from the Lakes !

Light duties suck! I was at Swindon MC for 4 months and a load of the Thames area offices after falling over and tearing the cartilage in my knee… Get an x box/PS/ds helps relieve some of the boredom.

FFS! Good luck mate

Fwiw went through a similar sort of thing at the start of the year. X-rays found what appeared to be something nasty on my lung and no other test managed to contradict it so I had an operation to remove a lung. Fortunately the surgeon had decided to only remove the suspect part initially, go for a coffee while they test it and then finish the job if it was really dodgy. Fortunately he didn’t need to so I only lost a part of the lung.

Obviously not nearly as serious as what you are going for but what I find is that my heart rate rises much faster than before when I push it so I have to take care and watch what is going on. If I don’t then I definitely get out of breath on big climbs and it’s easy to push it to a point where I am in trouble. I tend to pay attention to what I am doing now rather than going as hard as possible.

Going through it all I found at least one person I knew who had had a lung removed a long time ago and I would never have guessed.

On another note I found it hugely helpful to look up a lot about the operation in advance. You wake up with a shitload of cables and tubes connected but if you know in advance that is going to happen and what they all are it really removes a lot of the stress (or at least it did for me)

Good luck, especially with the preparation and getting your head round it. And of course you will need a new bike to help 😉

Think of the weight saving 😉

As always, we’ve had this before well nearly – 😯

Hope you get sorted soon

Hope it all goes well for you Rich. Maybe get a pub ride in this week?

I can’t offer any advice but I hope it goes ok. A friend of mine occasionally used to get a collapsed lung on one side which would slow him down a bit but he still managed to get about.

Wow, that’s some niche. 🙂

Fingers crossed, hope all goes well.

Very best of luck with that mate. They always have to give you the absolute worst case scenario with these things and fingers crossed you won’t come close to it.

My old mans lower 2/3rds of one lung collapsed permanently.

So yeah it can be done and thank your lucky stars you caught it on a routine scan for something else. 😐 Can you expand on malignant thymoma? Do you mean your average thymoma or something worse? 🙁

You’re in good hands now though mate, get well soon. 🙂

A guy who I ride with occasionally only has one working lung. Still does most things we do, including a trip to Morzine in July. He gets out on the bike pretty regular, although obviously he isn’t as fast as he used to be, he just does his biking at a slower pace.

One imagines that they’re aiming to remove the thymus – and nothing else. Any other damage would involve unintentional side effects and he will have been warning you about that. Ie it’s a risk not a foregone conclusion!

You can breathe without your phrenic nerve since there are lots of other muscles besides the diaphragm in action. If you lost any lung capacity from a hypothetical phrenic nerve injury, my estimate would be that you might lose 10-15% of total lung capacity (FVC). I’m sure someone has done a study – but it might be worth re-approaching your surgeon if you’re unclear on these sorts of questions.

I can’t offer any constructive info. but I can send you my good wishes – I hope everything goes as well as it possibly can.

Very lucky find on the xray. Hope it goes well with the surgery!!!

Rachel

A Friend in the Cycling club has a lung disease that left him with about 30% of original lung capacity….
He rode up Ventoux and a load of other tour climbs last year, running the London Marathon next year 😯
He just has to listen to his body.
still whups me on a bike whenever I ride with him 😳

Good luck with the operation too, lucky find on the x-ray !!

What are you going to do with the vacant space inside your chest? Fit a Camelback?

Hope things god well and speedy recovery Rich.

Ian Pendry of AA has half a lung missing i believe.

Good luck Rich, sorry to hear about your situation!

He doesn’t post on here often, but Shergie had something very similar happen to him a while ago. He had a 4lb malignant tumour removed from one of his lungs, and though it took him a while to recover, he has since gone on to compete in various 12 and 24hr races solo, including a 5th place at Bontrager 24/12 last year.

So hopefully all is not lost!

Hi guys sounds promising reference the riding 🙂 the tumour is quite large its been there for years and its roughly 11X9 cm surgeon says its strange that I have not had a problems running up to the fall, I complained of chest pain 4 months ago whilst doing the Lakeland 200 and doc had me in for a heart test on a running machine which came back ok and probably said it was angina!!! and prescribed me aspirin :-(.
Planning on finishing work on Thursday just to get a lot of stuff done and mothball my bikes for a few months.
Looking on the brightside I will miss the heaviest part of the working year.
Thanks for all the info and the good luck messages
Rich

royal mail has a Christmas policy…. Total denial tilll we’re in the brown stuff….. Good luck and enjoy missing xmas pressure…

Rich,it may slow you down a bit,but it won’t stop you.Good luck in theatre and a speedy recovery.

PostieRich,
I had pretty much what your describing – well a tumour where my lung should be anyway.
Id had it since birth as it had grown with me, not knowing about it I had just seemingly had to work harder than everyone else to achieve the same results.

By some bizarre twist of fate a near fatal crash was the only way the tumour was discovered (If it had been left undiagnosed another 6 months I’d have been ‘Up sh*t creek’ to use my surgeons words) and taken out.
I was still doing fairly well (Top 10ish) in the marathons and the odd 24 solo so yes it is possible to ride/race/win the odd thing with one lung.

If you want any more info or more details please give me a shout, I’m at pains to go into to much detail here. And besides its home time, my emails on here somewhere or I think we have a mutual friend in RiggsyB.

Cheers for now
Jonathan

Jonathan just the sort of news I wanted to hear thanks for that info I,m getting on a bit now but like to think I,m pretty fit might just lay off the singlespeed whilst on rehab 🙂