My Lung collapsed due to smoking
Posted on Sun November 01, 2009 in emphysema
Views: 454
10/26
I have had a cough for over a month and didn't do anything about it. I
noticed that I was having issues laying on my right side so I had to lay on the
left side while sleeping. If I layed on my back, I also felt out of breath so I
would roll over to my left side, which felt better. This was happening for a few
weeks as well.
While having dinner with my kids last week, my
daugher convinced me to go see her primary physician. She made an appt for me
and I just went to stop her from nagging me. The Dr gave me some coughing
medicine and told me to go get an xray of my chest done. This was tuesday. I
decided to wait a few more days in hopes that the cough medicine she gave me
would help. On thurs morning, I tried to walk up the stairs in my home and it
was incredibly hard, it really felt like someone knocked the wind out of me and
my chest was also more uncomfortable than normal. I decided to go get the exray
of my chest done that morning.
By the afternoon, the radiologist
had called me back saying that I needed to check into the ER ASAP, that my right
lung had collapsed. My daughter picked me up and took me to the emergency room
at Valley medical in San Jose.
They determined that I had a bleb,
an air bubble that had developed at the top of my right lung due to emphysema,
which was caused by my many many years of smoking. I used to smoke almost 1 pack
a day and at the urging of my family, had tried to cut back to 1 pack a week and
was trying to quit. The bleb had ruptured leaking all the air into the outter
part of my lungs causing the whole lung to collapse. The Dr performed a minor
surgery in the room I was waiting in. I was surprised they would do this outside
of a surgical room.
They gave me some morphine and prepared to
insert a tube into my lungs to drain the excess air. Draining this excess air
around the aveoli would allow me to breath normally again and reinflate my lung.
I felt them numb the right side of my torsal, it was painful! it was a very
thick needle but I guess they had to numb a big area. They made an incision
between my rib cage and stuck a long blade in there to create room for the air
tube. I was awake for the whole procedure and it was uncomfortable. When the air
tube went in, I felt like I stopped breathing. I kept telling them I wasn't
breathing but they assured me that the oygen level was fine and that I would
have this feeling for about 10 mins. 10 mins of feeling like your life was being
taken away from you is a very long time! They sewed the tube to me and but
dressing on the incision area. They said they would leave it in until all the
access air drained out, allowing my lungs to reinflate ( the access air was in
the perimeter of my lung causing pressure on it and thus making it collapse.
Inserting the tube relieved the pressure and allowed the lung to reinflate again
as I breathed.
I laid there for a few hours, the pain got better
and so did the breathing. They took and xray and saw that my lung was reinflated
but there was still a steady air leak so I would have to stay in the hospital
until the leak went away. I waited in the ER and 5 hours later, they finally
found a room to transfer me to where I can see my wife and kids. I swore never
to smoke again.
About me
60 / Male
Member since Nov 2009
Profile Views: 526
Journal Views: 1859
regular
About Me: Chronic smoker for 45 years, now trying to quit.
Location: Cupertino, CA
Medical Conditions: emphysema, ruptured bleb. COPD. chronic leg pain.
Health Interests: Addiction, Behavior, Cancer, Exercise and Fitness, Insurance, Men's Health, Pain Management
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Talesa says:
on November 02, 2009 at 03:56 PM
WOW that sounds scary! I'm glad it got taken care of though. I think your story is one that many smokers out there can learn from! Thank you for sharing, Kyle.