My experiences with the latest Pneumothorax, VATS and the healing process directly after surgery

Here's the update since having the surgery on Monday. They pulled the chest tube out today and what a relief this was! I don't know how much longer I would have been able to stand having this tube protruding from my side and being tethered to the Pleur-evac chest drainage system device. Not to mention the amount of constant pain that having this tube in has caused, at the incision site, deep in my chest and in my middle to upper back also. Every breath was painful. Just the act of repositioning my body a half inch on the bed was painful and basically everything else I did while it was in was equally as painful. So yes, I'm so happy it is finally out and not to mention that it actually stayed in during this whole process so that it could actually do it's job properly! Btw, at least I know I'm not just being a whiny-wimp by my reaction to the pain that I've experienced lately, cause my nurse did tell me that her chest tube patients seemed to have suffered the most pain of any of her patients, including those undergoing major surgeries.

Since this was my first real surgery I was feeling extra anxious about it, but as I got the first glimpse of my prep nurse as they were wheeling me into the surgery prep room, I started to feel some relief from the anxiety with the sight of her genuine, warm and caring smile. I felt that it was a blessing to have her as my prep nurse and that she definitely met her calling with this particular career path because she was as sweet and helpful as could be. So pretty much immediately they started giving me pain meds and anti-anxiety meds as well and her nurturing voice helped guide me through this process. Then they injected the general anesthesia, but I wasn't really aware exactly when they did this. All I remember is my prep nurse's smiling face, along with some other staff walking around, then waking up in a complete state of shock and  shivering probably worse than I ever have. Not sure, but it almost felt like a form of convulsions cause I do remember, not only a severe shaking, but flailing around on the operation bed and feeling extremely cold and confused, then my God....there was the PAIN. As I was just waking up and having these experiences, it seemed that everyone around me were also freaking out, and I kept asking if the surgery went OK and if I was OK, I was assured that everything was fine as they put warm blankets over me. I asked for more pain meds but they said they had already given me a tremendous cocktail of meds and they couldn't give more right then yet. So I sat there slowly waking up and warming up and finally quit shivering, but the pain was so intense in basically my entire upper body that I could not move or even budge at all. During the Video Assisted Thoracic Surgery, otherwise just called VATS, they didn't find any blebs or anything else suspicious, but they did perform a Pleurodesis, which is mechanically irritating the parietal pleura. In other words, they rough up the linings of my lungs and the lung cavity with a gauze, to make it bleed, which helps the lung stick to the cavity walls as it heals and scabs up.  By now it was late at night and obviously I was their last surgery for the day. Eventually they moved me back to my room, but I didn't have the nice "luxury" room where I had been in the ICU, but a regular private room on what they simply to referred to as "The Floor". 

Pleur-Evac lung fluid evacuation system and my chest tube

That was 3 days ago and like I said, they removed the chest tube today. Basically since they put it in during the surgery, I have not really been able to sleep. This was due to a combination of a lot of pain and the inconvenience of having the tube coming out of my side, plus the fact that just laying down or even inclining a certain amount was entirely too painful. So any sleep had to be done totally sitting up, which is even more difficult for me since I'm a stomach sleeper. LOL these conditions aren't at all conducive to really getting any decent sleep. So after they removed the tube early this afternoon, the first thing I did was just stretch out on the bed, laying down on my stomach and  going to sleep within seconds. I was able to sleep the entire afternoon without being bothered until the room service called to see if I wanted to order dinner. I hesitated since at that particular moment, food was the last thing I was concerned about, but I knew that once 6:30pm came, the room service would be closed and I wouldn't be able to eat anything until after 6:30 the next morning. Since I had been sleeping very well for the first time since before the surgery and was just jostled from a really interesting dream, I couldn't think very well, so I just asked them what they recommend. They told me today's special was butter/garlic angel hair pasta with chicken and green beans, coleslaw and melon/cantaloupe on the side. I said fine, just leave off the chicken since I'm vegetarian...then immediately went back to sleep, on my stomach.

As humans, we often take little things for granted like our health, being able to breathe well and without pain, being able to just freely get out of bed and walk around and sleeping in the position that we find most comfortable. These are things that I used to take for granted and even though I can't promise how I will feel and think in the future, I do know that now, I don't take these things for granted. I also appreciate life, health, tasty healthy food, good nurses and doctors and friends and loved ones so much more too.

Reference: 
Spontaneous Pneumothorax,
Pleurodesis,
Video Assisted Thoracic Surgery (VATS),
Pleur-Evac
Chest Tube,

flowers my friend picked from his yard

my little setup with everything at arms-reach

the food was exceptional & all produce was local and organic

closeup of my salad with computer in background

3rd and 4th Spontaneous Pneumothorax and Video-Assisted Thoracic Surgery

 Well I finally went to the hospital Friday night and this time have a Spontaneous Pneumothorax in each lung. The right lung is collapsed 15% and left lung collapsed 45%. They put in a chest drain tube for the left lung and were planning on waiting on the right one. Late last night the tube came loose and it felt horribly painful and unsettling, so much that I really thought it was a serious problem, like involving my heart too. I can't even describe the intensity of the pain and the fear I had but I will try. I really don't think the ER doctor put it in properly to start with and he didn't do a very good job instilling my confidence in his abilities to do this either. To start with, when he told me it was 45-50% collapsed and they had to put in the chest drain tube immediately, he then joked about looking up the procedure on YouTube, which may have been his way of easing me up, but I wondered if this is perhaps what he actually did. Then I had the pleasure of watching him gather all the materials needed for this procedure in a way that he did seem like this may have been his first chest tube procedure, just the way he had to carefully look at everything and plan the whole process. Then as I was ready for the operation, he couldn't get the spotlight to turn on, and had to ask his assistant how to turn it on. They fumbled with it for a bit, then decided that it wasn't really needed. I was thinking, maybe you should just find another light that does work, just in case you need it! 

So back to the chest tube coming loose the next day and the pain that came with it. There was blood coming though the tube in spurts and every spurt was accompanied with a horrible burning feeling deep inside my chest, along with what felt like heart pain. As I was watching my stats monitor, my heart rate was climbing up to what seemed like dangerous levels... 124...130...135..... I had already called the nurse and told her and she called the doctor to come up and check it out, but I didn't know if her or the doctor realized the urgency in my situation and by now, I was totally freaking out, pressing the call nurse button repeatedly, like that was going to get them there faster. The doctor finally arrived and with a very calm and cool demeanor, she was talking to me like I was having heartburn or something non-life threatening and besides that, with the questions she was asking me, it didn't seem like she really Got It. Within a few minutes there was a room full of staff (finally) and they were really trying to figure it all out.  Right then, my leg was cramping severely too, so much that it felt like it was going to break in half kind of cramp, that I often get, but this wasn't a good time to have to deal with that little inconvenience too. So they quickly hooked me up to  the EKG, while my leg was cramping and I wasn't supposed to move at all, so they could get a good reading. Another doctor  pulled out the chest tube during this time too, since they finally came to the conclusion that it was no longer in all the way and wasn't doing it's job. So I was thinking, just great! I gained another scar, went through all that to get the tube put in and it ended up just being a waste. Anyway, they were going to put in another one but decided that since I was having the VATS (Video-Assisted Thoracic Surgery) on Monday that they would monitor me closely and hold off on putting in another tube.

So  I will be having this surgery this afternoon sometime after 3pm and it will involve 3 incisions. One for the camera and two for their instruments. They will look around for anything suspicious, remove any blebs, take tissue sample and also do a Pleurodesis which is a procedure where they rough up the pleural lining with a gauze or sponge and then use the scar tissue to stick the lung up. Then they will also be putting in another chest drain tube, which will probably be in for a few days, then hopefully everything will be good and I will be able to go home, finally fixed...I hope. In the meantime, the right lung is still supposedly 15% collapsed, so maybe it will just heal itself? Who knows... But I really am trying to stay positive and hopeful.

I will write an update sometime after the surgery so if this sounds exciting, stay tuned for more!