Surgery + 10 days

OMIGOSH!

Today has been a rough day. A very rough day. Postoperatively, my shoulder looks great. Usually the Doctor does not do an X-ray on the first post op visit but he did today. My new hardware looks in good position, there is no swelling and the incision looks very much better than I  expected. What is there to complain about?

An hour after returning home the phone started ringing... A radiologist I had never heard of, my orthopedic surgeon and the surgeon's nurse. All calling to say Go to the Emergency Room immediately.  A closer look at the X-ray showed a collapsed right lung! Well, that explains a lot.

I was prioritized in the ER but it still was a couple hours before meeting Dr. Right. Very nice ER doctor who implied we would be waiting for the thoracic surgeon on call. More terse emails to children; where I was, not to worry, dear husband has gone home to call everyone. Again, no cell service within the hospital buildings.

Getting a thoracic surgeon late on a Friday afternoon proved to be a problem, especially for something as mundane (!) as putting in a chest tube. An executive decision was made that Dr. Right would do it. He assured me he had done it before. :) We agreed that I could say "ow" as much as I wanted or needed to. The approach was a problem because my right arm could not be moved out of the way as one would normally and I was very concerned that no one put any pressure on my right shoulder joint. I only became really worried when I deduced the rather large young man was present, not as an observer, but to restrain the uncooperative patient!

Sparing you the details, there was a lot of oohing and owing and any discomfort I felt in my shoulder was blocked out by the extreme discomfort of having a tube the size of your index finger shoved between your ribs repeatedly into the pleural space that was accidentally filled with air. Suddenly there was a huge gush like a balloon deflating and cold, sweet air filled my right lung. Wow, that was not fun but we had all survived and my shoulder was unscathed. The tube was sewn in place where it would remain until the compromised lung could heal itself. Only thing left to do was get a portable X-ray machine to peek inside my chest to be sure the tube was in the right place. Dr. Right and I were still on good terms.

Thirty minutes later it was déjà vu all over again. It may be hard to believe but I actually felt worse for Dr. Right than for myself when he had to tell me the tube was NOT in the right place and the procedure had to be repeated. "All of it?" I asked. "All of it," he said. The only part missing the second round was the large young man. I guess I had demonstrated physical self-restraint, if not verbal.

So here I am, back on the third floor, connected on the right by a chest tube to a box on the floor of bubbling water and on the left side to an IV stand of indeterminate hemoglobin boosting blood by- products. I am not particularly breathless now but I am weak as a wet noodle and totally spent. The chest tube discomfort outweighs the shoulder surgery residual pain. I guess my brain can only focus on one source of agony at a time. Thank goodness! Dear husband and Dear son are looking appropriately worried at the sides of my bed. And I am learning a whole new list of names from my dry-erase board.