I’m living with one lung after doctors cut out tumour as big as a football
A MUM battled back to health with just one lung after the other was removed so docs could cut out a giant tumour.
Giovanna Distefano, 38, was out running five times a week with no idea she had a tumour nearly 10 inches long between her lungs.
It was only found thanks to a scan after she complained of a stiff neck, which was unrelated to the cancer.
Doctors who found the rare stage 4 thymoma in her chest told her she might have “just months to live” – leaving single mum Giovanna fearing for her daughter Allagra, three.
She said: “I’d promised my daughter I was going to be there for her – it was horrible thinking I wasn’t going to be able to honour that.”
The nine-hour op to remove the growth the diameter of a football had never been done before in Britain, and is among just a handful globally.
Dreams
Carried out in October, it was successful beyond Giovanna’s wildest dreams – and four months on she is cancer-free. She said: “I feel like I’m living again.”
The beauty salon owner from Hackney, East London, had contacted a private doctor about a stiffness in her neck in January last year.
She was referred for NHS scans at nearby Homerton University Hospital, which revealed the thymoma growing between her lungs – and which Giovanna was told was inoperable.
A thymoma is a cancer of the thymus gland, the part responsible for making white blood cells which help the body fight infection.
It affects just 20 people in every million, and thymomas bigger than 3.5 inches are rare – making Giovanna’s one of the biggest ever known.
Within a month of it being discovered, Giovanna had contacted the man who was to prove her lifesaver – surgeon Andrea Bille at Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospital in London.
His team has successfully operated on 10 other patients who had previously been told there was no treatment. Before the op, Giovanna first had three rounds of chemotherapy, losing her hair in the process.
But the treatment was stopped when she caught Covid and was rushed to hospital. She said: “I felt my lungs were failing, they felt like jellyfish. My biggest fear was never seeing my daughter again.”
She was kept in hospital for two weeks with Covid-related pneumonia, and then needed to recover before she could risk surgery. When she finally had the op, doctors warned there was a 50% chance she would not survive.
But mum Giovanna said: “I knew they would save my life, so I told them, ‘I’m doing it’.”
The surgeons found that, to tackle the tumour, they would have to remove her left lung.
But Giovanna remained in good spirits when they gave her the news. She said: “I was just glad it was a success.
“The nurses were surprised to see me and I said, ‘Yes, I told you I wasn’t going to die’.”
She was discharged eight days later and is being monitored and has physio, but currently needs no further treatment. Surgeon Andrea said: “I’m delighted to see her getting back to normal.”
Giovanna added: “I was worried my daughter might be scared to see me looking so ill.
“But I explained, ‘Mummy has got an ouchie so I need you to be gentle’. Every day she checks my ouchie.
“I’m walking two or three miles a day now – a bit like a 90-year-old woman, but I’m doing it. I can’t wait to go back to Pilates classes and to start running again – having one lung isn’t going to stop me.”