Donna Chisholm
In early 2024, Donna Chisholm was preparing to retire and made an appointment to get a checkup with her new primary care physician. At 64 years old, Donna was in great physical condition and felt “half her age” when she arrived at the clinic to have a routine examination and bloodwork done. Though a former smoker, she had not smoked in a while and was surprised when her physician recommended a computed tomography scan, commonly called a CT scan, as a precautionary measure. The American Cancer Society® recommends yearly screenings for current or former smokers who have a history of smoking twenty packs of cigarettes or more in a year. Donna’s scan results came as a shock.
Detecting a suspicious nodule on the scan, Donna’s primary care physician referred her to a pulmonologist who performed a biopsy and diagnosed stage II neuroendocrine lung carcinoma. From there, Daniel Woolley, MD, FACS, a board-certified and fellowship-trained cardiothoracic surgeon with Cardiothoracic Surgical Associates, affiliated with Chippenham Hospital in Richmond, took over Donna’s care. Donna recalls, “I was in a deep state of shock after finding out I had lung cancer, but as soon as I met Dr. Woolley he put my mind at ease. He was so supportive and his nursing staff took such good care of me. I just felt like everything would be fine.”
In May 2024, she arrived at Chippenham Hospital for her surgery. Donna was taken to the operating room and was placed under general anesthesia. Initially, she had a bronchoscopy performed to ensure that there were no tumors in her airway to prevent resection. She then had a right middle lobe lobectomy performed, a procedure that removes one of the three lobes of the lung on the right side. She also had a mediastinal lymphadenectomy which removed the lymph nodes from the chest for examination. The minimally invasive procedure was performed robotically which allowed the surgeon to remove the lobe through five small incisions, 8-14mm in length. Using this platform, the patient has less pain, a shorter hospital stay, and a quicker overall recovery. In addition to the robot, pain control measure included a cryoablation of the intercostal nerves, which involves freezing the nerves under the ribs to provide numbness while healing.
Donna remained at Chippenham for three days following her surgery, experiencing only minimal pain and no complications. She did use a bit of oxygen and a walker for a few days—something Dr. Woolley assured her was common following anesthesia and lung surgery. Within a few weeks of leaving the hospital, Donna was driving again and had resumed her usual daily activities. She has follow-up appointments with Dr. Woolley every six months, but otherwise is back to normal spending time with her family, attending her grandson’s baseball games, and enjoying baking.
Donna’s final pathology showed that she had an early stage tumor, Stage 1A2. Since the routine screening CT scan caught the tumor at such an early stage, surgery was the primary form of treatment. She did not require any chemotherapy, immunotherapy, or radiation. Donna will continue to follow up with Dr. Woolley with regular CT scans for the next five years as part of her treatment plan.
“Dr. Woolley and his team were phenomenal with my care,” says Donna. “He has an incredible bedside manner and was so professional throughout my entire experience. It is agony to go through such a scare, but he helped me every step of the way and really reassured me that I am going to be okay.”