Musings and Life Events

Musings and Life Events

Home From the Hospital - Wednesday, January 11, 2006

In the wee hours of Saturday morning on December 24th, I had a bad coughing spell which lasted for 30 plus minutes. Richard had already gone to bed for the night. Once the coughing stopped, I couldn't seem to catch my breath, and when I did breathe, it felt as though knives were plunging into my right side with every breath I took. I took some Ibuprofin and sat on the couch sipping ice water most of the night, trying to calm my nerves so that I could breathe. I tried to wake Richard around 1 a.m. but he was sound asleep. The pain finally subsided a little for an hour or so and then I had another violent coughing spell around 3:30 a.m. This one was worse than the one before. I couldn't catch my breath and it hurt so bad when I did breathe just a little. I took another Ibuprofin, but it didn't help. I toyed with the idea of calling the emergency crew, but it was Christmas Eve morning and I didn't want to alarm the neighbors and ruin their Christmas. I waited until 5 a.m. and tried to wake Richard again. This time he did wake up and I told him that I couldn't breathe and needed him to take me to JRH emergency room right now. He was totally shocked because he knew I had always been against going to JRH - unless it was a matter of life or death. He knew right then it was SERIOUS! He helped me get dressed and drove me to JRH Emergency Room. Thank God that the ER was nearly empty when I got there and they took me right on in. There was a Respiratory Therapist named Ron, who recognized my symptoms and started working on me immediately to easy my pain when I took a breath. There are angels in this world disguised as everyday people. He was one of my angels that night. I ended up being admitted to JRH Intensive Care for 5 days, and then moved to a regular floor for 9 days, having everything done from being proded with needles, test tubes, oxygen, cat scans, x-rays and heaven knows what else. The end result was that I wasn't getting any better than what I was at that point. Dr. Muhgul (lung doc) and Dr. Dahbi decided that I needed a more agressive procedure and made arrangements for me to be transported to Chippenham hospital on Thursday morning (January 4th) for Orthoscopic lung surgery with Dr. Lockhart. I was transported directly to Chippenham pre-op and surgery on my lungs began at 10:30 ish that morning. I ended up with a chest tube to drain the fluid from my lungs as well as having infectious sacs drained and cleaned within the right lung. That was the thing that kept me from getting any better with just getting antibiotics. I'm at home and doing much better now. It's going to take some time for me to heal and get back to normal, but I am so thankful that the doctors and nurses where here and available to get me to this point. My friends and family have been overwhelmingly supportive and ready to help any way they can. I will never be able to tell everyone how much they mean to me, but hopefully, one day, I will be able to return the kindness they've shown Richard and me throughout this ordeal. GOD IS GOOD!