Sunday, January 25, 2009

Another hospital stay :(

Yes that's right I had yet another stay in the hellish hospital. Just when I thought I was out of the woods I was sucked back in by another set of medical problems. This time one of those problems was completely unexpected. I developed something called a pneumothorax, you must be asking yourself what the heck is that well I'm going to try to explain the best I can. A pneumothorax is a hole in the lungs that allows air to escape into the area between the lung and the chest wall, these can be very serious and can lead to the collapsing of a lung. Luckily for me it was a very small one and I felt no pain, and of course my lung did not collapse praise the Lord! What they do as a treatment for this is stop all of my respiratory treatments which can be the cause of the increased pressure at causes in the lung, they also give the patient 100% oxygen for 24 hours, and in severe cases insert a chest tube to drain the escaped air. For me the 100% oxygen and a lack of respiratory treatments worked wonders and it cleared up within a few days. My other medical problem was the fact that my pneumonia that I was being treated for at-home had gotten worse since the week before. it had gotten to the point where it was causing me physical pain in my chest and causing my oxygen saturation to decrease. What they decided to do this is for me on a new type of antibiotic, through chests in a lab may determine that might pneumonia was most susceptible to this wonder drug. I am home now and doing quite well, the pain has subsided in my chest, my secretions have dried up to a point, and my pneumothorax is almost completely gone. It was a relatively short stay in the hospital but it sure didn't feel that way, due to the lack of activity you become very bored and that makes the time go by very slowly. It was not a fun time but I took in stride and try to think positively, that's all you can do in this situation is ride it out and hope for the best. My life may seem like hell to an ordinary person but when you're faced with this type of thing on a regular basis it becomes routine and relatively benign. It still gets to me once in a while because I'm human but I do my best to overcome the challenges I am faced with. thanks for reading my blog it really means a lot to me that I can reach out to others who face similar challenges and I can teach those with relatively easy lives but life with a disability is all about. It's all about surviving and thriving and getting stronger with each new challenge and not letting your disability define who you are as a person. It is very easy to make your life all about her disability and to become bitter and withdrawal from the world but it is not healthy and you will be miserable if you live that way. The key is to look on the bright side and focus on the things you can do rather than what you cannot. It also doesn't hurt to have faith in the Lord for he heals all pain. Thank you and God bless everyone!

Mitch

1 comment:

  1. OMG Mitch!! I can't believe you were in the hospital once again. I knew since you haven't been on yahoo in a while that is what happened but i didn't want to believe it. I am sure glad your okay. I worry about you constantly.:):) Just know you are always in my thoughts & prayers. ((hugs))

    Your best friend,
    Salie

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