Where have I been???

[shunut]

So some of you may have noticed that I haven't been posting much.
Some of you may have not noticed.
Some of you could careless.

Some of you may already know where I've been.
Some of you may want to know where I've been.
Some of you could careless.

On Tuesday last week, September 16, I woke up and was have a difficult time breathing. It actually woke me up, which is very unusual and has never happened before. I've woken up from coughing but never because I couldn't breathe. I got up, went downstairs and did my meds and I felt a little better. I figured I'd up my meds and just watch and see if anything else happened. As the day went on I felt a little better but started coughing a little so I decided that I should call my doctor in the morning and ask them to order a chest x-ray. Better safe than sorry, right? The next morning I called them and they said okay (The office staff actually ordered the chest x-ray without even talking to my doctor first. When my doctor asked them how and why a chest x-ray was ordered for me they simply said "Josh called and said he needed it".). So I went to school. After school was done I needed to get some bloodwork done so I went and did that. Then I went to the imaging center and had the chest x-ray done. I left the imaging center at 11:45 am exactly, I remember because I was thinking about what I was going to eat for lunch and wanted to know what time it was. At 12:03 pm my doctor called me and said "Josh, you have a moderate pneumothorax and you need to get over to the ER as soon as possible so we can start you on 100% o2." So I called my mom, left a message for her. Then got in my car and drove myself to the ER. Walked into the ER, which was a heck of a walk because they moved the entrance and I was unaware of that, so I parked near the old entrance. I told the people at the ER desk why I was there and apparently this was serious so I was brought immediately back to a bed. They started me on 100% o2. The air we normally breathe is mainly nitrogen and there is only about 20% oxygen. Before I get too far, a pneumothorax is when air gets trapped outside your lung, usually caused from a hole in your lung, they also call it a collapsed lung. The air that gets trapped is Nitrogen. They give you 100% o2 so that your body reabsorbs the trapped nitrogen and your lung re-inflates. So in the ER they got another chest x-ray and the ER doctors got worried so they wanted to do a chest tube right in the ER. Luckily my doctor got there before they did it and told them no. I was on 100% o2 from about 2:00 pm until about 10:00 am Thursday. The lung looked a little better, but not much so the decision was made to surgically place a chest tube. The actual placement of the tube was cake, mainly because they knocked me out. Afterward it was a little painful because of the placement of the tube. They put me on a machine called a PCA, that gave me pain meds whenever I pushed a button, as long as I was within preset limits. The tube did it's job and the lung re-inflated immediately. Unfortunately because my lungs were compromised and I was laying around for so long, I started to develop a little pneumonia. It was very light and could only be seen on my CT scan. I was already on IV antibiotics because they started those the second I got there, just to be safe, but since there were these patches they wanted me to continue the antibiotics. So they put in a PICC line (fancy IV) and I came home today. I will continue the antibiotics for the next 10 days and then I'll be set.

While I was there I was lucky enough to have 2 extremely hot nurses. One of them actually requested me to be her patient. So that was the bright point of the hospital stay. Actually if all my nurses were hot, all the time, I'd still be there.

Also, this pneumothorax was spontaneous, meaning, it could have happened to anybody. It didn't happen solely because I have CF. Actually, my lung functions are higher than they have been in about 3 years.

tl/dr summary - Got a pneumothorax. Went to ER. Tried 100% o2, didn't work. Had a chest tube put in. Lung re-inflated. Had a little pneumonia from laying around so much. Was in the hospital for 10 days with 2 hot nurses. Have to continue at home IV antibiotics for 10 more days.

Thank you to those of you who helped me, gave me support and deserve thanks, you know who you are.

I took a couple pictures of where the chest tube was. Its a little gross but I don't think anything that will make you wusses sick.






If you want to know more about pneumothorax you can read below. There is also a very good CT image of a pneumothorax.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumothorax

[DFSniper]

Originally Posted by shunut

While I was there I was lucky enough to have 2 extremely hot nurses. One of them actually requested me to be her patient. So that was the bright point of the hospital stay. Actually if all my nurses were hot, all the time, I'd still be there.

tim told me what happened, glad they managed to straighten you back out!

[battlechaser]

Good to see you're still kicking, mate. You're made of tougher stuff than I am, that's for sure.

Hope you have a speedy recovery, and thumbs up to macking the ladies even while you're in pain.

[badlandsrox]

those tubes can be a *****, had a drain (sorta the same thing, but way smaller, and not as much of a pain to get one), and it wasnt too bad when they had it in, but when they take those things out, its the worst thing ever, i cant imagine how yours must of been.

[VS3 Sniper]

Glad to hear your alright man. Tim filled me in on some stuff but not all of it. You've been in my prayers aswell.



On a side note my mom just got back from the hospital where she had to have a PICC put in and till about 2 weeks ago she was on a PCA pump.

[ferret15]

HOLY ****!
How did you get it?

[bigred76]

Originally Posted by shunut

Actually if all my nurses were hot, all the time, I'd still be there.

Hmm, maybe that's why they gave you the male nurse? Glad to see you're up to posting again, Josh!

[shunut]

Originally Posted by badlandsrox

those tubes can be a *****, had a drain (sorta the same thing, but way smaller, and not as much of a pain to get one), and it wasnt too bad when they had it in, but when they take those things out, its the worst thing ever, i cant imagine how yours must of been.

Yeah, coming out sucked. Well, coming out wasn't too bad, its when they had to tie that hole shut that was a *****. There was actually about 12" of tube inside of me.

Originally Posted by ferret15

HOLY ****!
How did you get it?

The hole in my lung? Don't really know, probably from coughing, but there is not way to really know for sure.

[HelpDeskHustler]

Wow that sucks, good luck with a safe recovery... take more closeups of the cut lol....

[Drefish99]

I would have told them you got in a gang fight and that was a bullet wound you suffered during your rumble against the Sharks.