*My Surgeon called today and said a fancy piece of equipment that he ordered hasn't come in and he wants to use it in the surgery so he wanted to reschedule it. So it's actually on Wednesday now at 1 PM and now I don't have to get up before the sun rises.*
I was diagnosed with Pneumothorax at the age of 16, and basically what happens is I get little air pockets on my lungs that can rupture and air escapes into my chest cavity, causing chest pain in minor cases and can lead to partially collapsed lungs or so much pressure that the air pushes up against other vital organs such as the esophagus or heart and causes death.
I've never had anything more than minor chest pains since I was diagnosed, but the Friday before Thanksgiving, I had an episode where I was short of breath, had chest pains and had to sit down. I had a routine check up with my pulmonary doctor the Monday after (great timing right) and he X-rayed my chest and said that my left lung was 15% collapsed, so who knows how bad it was that Friday.
Currently my Lung is fully reinflated, but this is a problem that has a higher probability of recurring after each episode (it has a chance of just going away by my mid 20s, which isn't happening it seems) so I'm going to have a surgery known as VATS at 7:30 AM on Tuesday.
The procedure consists of my getting knocked out (of course) and then they stick a breathing tube in me, collapse my left lung so they can operate it so I'm breathing on one lung during the procedure, then they make three 1-2 inch incisions on my chest and stick some cameras and stuff in my chest cavity and they sand down any air blisters on my lung and staple over them so they don't open up again. Then they rub an adhesive up against my chest cavity so that when my lung reinflates, it will literally stick up against my chest and won't collapse again.
The procedure lasts around 30 minutes to an hour depending on how much they have to do, and I'll be in the hospital for anywhere around 2 to 4 days depending on how long it takes my lung to heal, during which I will have a chest tube in to make sure my lung doesn't collapse in the event some scar tissue opens up or something else happens. Then after I get out I'll have about 2 to 3 weeks of painkillers to go through while at my house.
The worst part about all of this is that it happened a couple weeks before the final stretch of the semester so I've been missing classes because of the doctor appointments and the like, Obviously my health > school but it doesn't help that I might drop a letter grade in a couple classes that I had been killing because of things outside of my control. Not sure why I'm letting everyone here know about this, I guess I'm just asking that you guys pray for me or send your best wishes or whatever it is you do.
I'll probably update this thread in a couple days.
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Good luck man, i hope everything goes well.
Originally Posted by Dumb_Dog
