Pop Goes My Lung: The Biggest Struggle

I was so eager to get out of the confines of the hospital I never once considered that I would no longer be on constant pain medication, complements of my IV, nor would I have a handful of people at my beckon call any time I needed something.

I also didn't consider the fact that without that pain medication, the two incisions through my rib cage and the fact that my lung had been purposefully beaten and bruised would actually hurt a LOT more.


[ Pop Goes My Lung Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3 // Part 4 // Part 5 // Part 6 ] 


It was somewhere around a week before I literally left my parents recliner. I literally couldn't get out myself if it was reclined, because I just could not use any of my core muscles without crying in pain. I had to have my mom or dad help me get up out of a chair any time I needed to go use the restroom, or eat. I slept in the recliner just because a bed was SO uncomfortable.

Even worse than the physical pain though, was the emotional side. It wasn't until I was back home at my parents house that it really hit me what I had just been through. I mean I woke up on a Friday morning just like every other week before that except my lung was no longer functioning. And then I had a weeklong rollercoaster of emotions when I thought I was recovering, and then learned I was getting worse, and visa versa. And then in one fell swoop I was being taken to a different hospital and rushed into surgery in the lingering hours of the night. And then... THEN.... after being constantly watched, monitored, cared for, they up and sent me home to handle it all on my own. (Granted, I wasn't on my own, my mom once again rearranged her work schedule so I was rarely left alone at their home, and my dad and LT put in their fair share of babysitting time)

So I spent somewhere around an entire week or two in tears. I was in pain. Coughing would hurt, breathing would hurt, moving would hurt. And to top it off the pain medication they had me on was making it worse. I couldn't sleep. I would get an hour or two at night. And when I did doze off, I was having the most vivid, outlandish dreams that would wake me up. I was struggling with the mental aspect where I knew my lung was well enough to go home, but my body wasn't recovered enough to be normal again. I was mentally, emotionally and physically exhausted. And it was scary.

People would crack jokes about "oh aren't you back at work yet? Slacker!" and it would send me off the edge into a crying fit.

It was a few weeks before I ventured out of their house. At least four or five weeks before I was able to be up walking around in a semi-pain free state. Six weeks before I even made it back to work. Over six weeks before I even returned to my own house, and even then I had my mom or LT staying with me.

Truth be told, as I sit here writing this today, two months to the date of my spontaneous pneumothorax, I still struggle with it.

I still get SO frustrated that I am not back to "normal". I don't have the physical capabilities I did. I'm still not able to be completely independent. I can't even mow my own grass for god's sake. And for the girl who has always been too stubborn to ask for help, this isn't an easy thing to face.

Pop Goes My Lung: Finally Free!

There's a certain sense of humility that comes with your mom wiping your butt at the age of 25.

[ Pop Goes My Lung Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3 // Part 4 // Part 5 ] 

But, the alternative was my male nurse doing it. And while Nurse Josh kicked ass, I didn't really want him in the literal vicinity of my ass. So, every potty break my lovely mother was graced with the task of official TP'er.

TMI? Letsbereal, you'd all be in the EXACT same position had your vital organ spontaneously pneumoethorax'ed itself.

Anyways, on to less obtrusive topics, following surgery the respiratory nurses came in every few hours to get me to blow into this machine to test my lung and prevent pneumonia or something. I don't remember. I do remember I hated her. HATED. I would cry and moan and beg them to go away because that machine was the most painful thing I had ever been asked to do (I'm allowed to say this because I've never been asked to PUSH while birthing a child, obviously that would trump all)

I logged another weekend at the hospital, watched a snowstorm from my third floor window, puked up everything I tried to eat, and abused the heck out of the morphine drip on my IV. The weekend sucked. Worse than the weekend before where I just leisurely lounged in the other hospital, unaware my lung was being a little conniving jerk not healing on it's own.

I had so many tubes hooked up to me I felt like a science fair experiment. I couldn't even move in my bed without needing help to rearrange everything. Getting up to try and sit in my chair was an event in and of itself. "Roll'er outta bed!"

 

After a few days I was finally able to move enough to get out of bed and attempt walking. I felt like Baby Bambi toddling around the halls.

I continued to have chest x-rays daily, and I was graced with awesome xray techs who let me sneak peeks of them. My lung seemed to be doing what they wanted it to, and they took me off the wall suction. We all held our breath (ha, had to do it) that my lung would remain inflated on it's own without the help of the suction!

Finally on that dreary Monday morning, my most favorite resident doctor, Luis, came in with a nurse and two biohazard bags. With a big grin on his face, he announced he'd be taking out my chest tube! This was it! That meant my lung was reinflated! I was healed! My grin grew to rival his. Until he started putting latex gloves on and prepping the area, and I realized he would be taking out that chest tube, without any numbing or knocking me out.

I think I may have broken the bones in my mom's hand squeezing them so tightly. But after a few seconds, and the weirdest sensation I have ever felt, suddenly I no longer had a plastic tube shoved into my rib cage!

They removed my IV's and art-lines, they (gasp) let me lose the hospital gown, and put on real clothes for the first time in two weeks. They had me sign some forms, set me up for an appointment two weeks later, told me not to go jump out of any airplanes, and just like that sent me on my way.

Of course, as with all things in my life, I should have known this would not go as smoothly as expected. I'm Chelsea. I can't just have a gaping hole in my lung one week, and be fine the next.

Pop Goes my Lung: The Post-Op

[ Pop Goes My Lung Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3 // Part 4 ] 

It was somewhere shy of 4AM when I came to. I blinked a few times to register my dimly lit surroundings. SICU5127 I read on the wall. Surgical Intensive Care. I was in a post-op room. The surgery was over. I wave of relief washed over me.

And like that, the relief disappeared, instantly replaced by misery. The pain was nothing I had ever experienced before. Breathing hurt, lying still hurt, simply being alive hurt, moving... ha... moving was out of the question. The incisions on my side were throbbing. The weight of the blanket on my chest was unbearable. The oxygen tube in my nose itched, my lips were so dry, I was so thirsty. Vaguely remembering the device tucked into in hand, I pushed the button to administer pain medicine as I shifted ever so slightly and let out a moan of agony.

Mom jumped out of her chair and immediately came to my side. "Pain," I told her, "I hurt... so... bad". Without missing a beat she pushed the call button on my bed and a nurse hurried in with two pills in hand. Mom tried to gently massage my neck and shoulders, any wince would cause my entire core to tense up, bringing me to the worse pain my body had ever felt.

"The surgery went well," she proceeded tell me, in that soft, comforting voice that only a mother can maintain. "They found the hole at the top of your lung." She paused to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. "You have your own room! Luis made sure you got your own room, they brought you up here around 1:30 this morning" she smiled, and continued to rub my back. Thankfully, at some point within the story the pain pills started to take over my blood stream and I dozed back off to sleep.

Pop Goes My Lung: Into the Operating Room

I think the first time I really cried was in that tiny, 8x10 room.
Seven days.
It took seven days for it all to sink in. I was about to undergo a pretty major surgery. Someone was going to be inside my rib cage, messing around with the very thing that keeps me alive, that allows me breath. That's pretty terrifying once you let it sink in.

And I cried and cried. The whole time. I think my mom even cried with me. And then my dad showed up and did the typical dad thing and was all "ohmyyoucrazywomen. I'm going to go get a milkshake" Which made me cry even more, because I was on an NPO (nothing to eat or drink). They both just kept reminding me that this was the hard part, and after this I would get better. This was the clicking as we climbed to the top of the rollercoaster.

We waited and waited. Somewhere around 7:30 that evening the phone in my room rang, it was my surgeon, she briefly explained the surgery and said she would be on her way to the hospital soon and they would take me down as soon as she got there. I shot LT a simple text saying I was heading to surgery soon, then stared at the blank walls trying to calm my mind.

One of the resident doctors came in with a sharpie and began detailing surgery spots on my rib cage and back. He wrapped up his sketching session, and smoothed my gown back into place. Luis was his name. He had an accent, and somehow his quirky demeanor momentarily helped me feel at ease.

The clock closed in on 8:30 as the nurse walked into my holding cell and told me it was time to go.

It's funny the things I remember. Being stopped in the hallway to sign a handful of forms. The head anesthesiologist being very upset that I had not been given a pregnancy test the entire time, and having to sign paperwork saying I was aware of that and would not sue the hospital. The girl going over the entire surgery with me step by step, detailing that I would be put under full anesthesia, a breathing tube inserted down my throat, an art-line placed in my wrists for monitoring my heart, two incisions on my right ribs - one under the breast for tools, one a bit further down for a camera. The tools would act as sand paper, tediously used to scar up my lung.  The bottom incision would then encase my new chest tube, a bigger chest tube, a more painful chest tube. They warned me of the pain multiple times that evening but it wasn't until I was laying there just a few yards from the operating room doors that it hit me.

I was so nervous the muscles in my left leg were twitching to the point it looked like I was tapping my leg. I gave a half-hearted "brr!" but I know no one believed it.

Reliving this now as I write it actually has me in tears. I remember my mom and dad kissing my forehead as they headed into the waiting room, with a simple "See you in a little bit kiddo. Love you" And like that I was on my own. Wasting no time, I was wheeled into in the operating room, lifted onto the operating table, the nurses piled warm blankets on me to control my shivers but they had no effect. They were nervous shivers, not cold shivers.

I remember a lot of people in the room. At least 6 or 7. I remember being so, so cold, and wondering why operating rooms were so sterile and white, couldn't they just add some cheerful paint. I remember commenting on everyone's bright, colorful hats. I remember one girl slipping a pale blue hair net on me, gently tucking the stray strands of hair behind my ears. I remember the anesthesiologist began messing with my left arm, inserting the art-line with a quick but painful prick in my wrist, and another girl rushed up and took my right hand, holding it and squeezing it. She kept telling me softly that I would be alright, she would be here the whole time.

I remember being so.freaking.scared.

I never even saw my surgeon. The nurse to my right was talking with me, just fulfilling her job description I'm sure, calming the patient and ensuring their comfort. I began blinking more, and longer. The anesthesia was running through my veins now. The blinks became lazier and my mind began to blank. I let my eyes stay closed as my grip on her hand loosened. I remember her thumb gently stroking my hand as I faded away from the reality of that cold, white room.

Pop Goes My Lung: The Persistent Leak

X-Ray was taken when I first got to the ER.

The hilarity here is that I shot my boss an email that Sunday evening (yes, two days after my lung spontaneously combusted) saying I probably wouldn't be into work Monday but I'd be back Tuesday. In retrospect, I crack up at how naive I had been. In reality, I did not return to work for 6 Mondays following that email.

(the next part of the Pop Goes My Lung Saga continues below. Click here to catch up on part one and part two!

After the ER doctor inserted the chest tube, her little optimistic self assured me that my lung would re-inflate and heal itself and I'd be out of the hospital on Monday.

(This is the waterseal that my chest tube connected to, don't ask me exactly what it did... besides something to do with monitoring breathing and sucking out air)

Little did she know that not once in my life has any aspect gone the "easy" route. So naturally, when my lung refused to re-inflate and heal itself time and time again in those following days it really came as no surprise to me.

My life that week was a constant hypocritical, anxiety-inducing battle. One minute I'd be telling everyone I was getting out of the hospital the next day, and the next minute I was discussing surgery with my doctor. Having never spent any time whatsoever as a hospital patient, I was uneasy and restless, but quickly settled into some semblance of a routine.

Every morning involved an x-ray, every meal I would get the fresh fruit cup, every passing hour involved HGTV, every four hours was pain pills, every afternoon was sprinkled with visitors, and every evening my mom would pull out the recliner and sleep by my side.

Somehow in the grand scheme of things I was graced with a little bit of luck on my side, and my doctor who was assigned to me once I was settled into an inpatient room, had wifed up a thoracic surgeon. Which means he would hurry home every night and tell her thoracic surgery-loving-self about my lung's activities for the day. (At least that's how I imagine it in my head. Why wouldn't my organ be the thriving topic of their dinner conversation?!)

After six days of that roller coaster ride, it finally became evident to all parties involved that my lung was not going to heal on it's own using the traditional method. And surgery became inevitable. The moment that sealed the deal was when I began to squeak. Hinting that not only was my chest tube not doing what it was supposed to,but also that air was leaking out of it. If I laughed, sneezed, breathed in deep, my chest would squeal like a dying dog toy.

So while my doctor wrote up the transfer orders to send me to the hospital where his wife did her surgeries, Mom and I packed up six days worth of flowers, candy, balloons and other random goodies and I got to experience my very first (and hopefully last ever) ambulance ride.

The laughs and smiles ended shortly after the paramedics wheeled me into my new hospital room. I went from having a new, spacious room to myself to sharing a tiny, cramped, outdated hospital room with what seemed to be a crazy, crack addict. After a few hours of her constant requests for drugs and more drugs, I had a breakdown and asked every nurse, doctor or cleaning person I saw to please, please, PLEASE get me out of there.

[The story continues on with Part 4 here]