It’s like a ready to deliver pregnancy bag, just without the prize at the end.
The past few weeks have been quite a roller coaster with this whole pneumothorax thing, but after a few trips to different specialists, several repeat CT scans and being sent to the ER a few times, the pain is only getting worse along with the other symptoms and the hole appears to be getting bigger rather then healing on it’s own, so I am having surgery this morning to place a tube in an attempt to try to get the trapped air out and allow my lung to re-inflate. Because of my size and the size and placement of the hole, my thoracic surgeon is having intervenes radiology place the line and then I will be placed in his care for the next few days. I was told to plan on staying 4 days in the hospital, but if things go extremely well I may be able to come home sooner.
Because of the location of the hole it’s a little more complicated and there is potential that another portion of my lung could be nicked in the process, so I will be watched pretty closely for the first few days. My husband and I joke that Spectrum should give some sort of punch card out for frequent visits to the OR but sadly I am becoming a pro at this surgery stuff. I am not worried about the surgery, in fact this should be my easiest one yet, however my nurses are warning me that this will be quite painful which is kind of bumming me out a bit. There are so many other details to all of this that I will share a bit later after I come out of the fog, but first I need to finish packing my bag and get in the shower. We have to be at Butterworth at 7 and my procedure should take place around 10. Here goes nothing…..