Down Again but Never Out!

There are always those moments in life where you just can't believe something is happening. Those were the thoughts at least running through my head a week ago. Last Sunday, or I guess two Sundays ago now, I was sitting in my room working on a class project. It had been just two weeks since my last visit for my spontaneous pneumorthorax. I was a week behind in my classes but was starting to really feel good again and knew I would find a way to catch up. I knew the upcoming week was going to be rough with classes ending and I would have to study extremely hard to try to catch up and be ready for finals but hey who ever said life was easy.

And then it happened...my heart started to race and I felt that oh to familiar give of me chest. I quickly made sure I wasn't dreaming and that this was actually happening again! I couldn't believe that after being released from the hospital just over a week ago that I again could suffer from another incident so soon. However despite everything I wanted to believe, reality soon set in and I was off to the hospital again.

A chest X-ray revealed another pneumothorax and I once again found myself sitting on the table having a small tube inserted into my chest cavity. Talking it over with doctors it was quickly decided that after experiencing another incident so soon preventative surgery should be done in order to help prevent this kind of thing from happening again.

Two days later I underwent video assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) with blebectomy and pleurodesis. I could go over what all this means but I don't want to bore you all with the details.

It's now been over a week and I am finally home again. This time because of the more invasive surgery recovery is quite slow. There is reoccurring pain that disrupts my sleep, it's hard to move around and basically life will be different these next few weeks. Recovery is said to take about 6 weeks and I may not feel 100% for several months.

However all these hospital visits have given me much time to think and reflect about my own life and what I would like to do with it. I made a few promises to myself during those days in the hospital and some changes may be reflected in this blog so stay tuned.

My recovery is slow, I am making efforts with the University now to try to get incompletes for my classes until I find a way to make up all the work and now final exams I missed while in the hospital. I once again thank everyone that visited especially my parents, who have been amazing through this whole process. I enjoyed the cards and best wishes and I look forward to getting better.

posted by Jason Dorko at 4:22 PM 0 comments links to this post