Sunday, October 4, 2009

. . . and then they brought more morphine.

OK, so what had happened was -- last year the tall boy livened things up around here when his lung collapsed. I can tell you way too much about this phenomenon, which is called a spontaneous pneumothorax, but whatever -- Google it if you must. The salient point is that once you've had one pneumothorax, your odds of having another one increase to 50%.

Well, now fast forward to last Thursday, when the tall boy said in a conversational tone, "I think I might need to go to the emergency room."

One waiting room full of H1N1 germs and a chest x-ray later, we got the fabulous news that his lung had begun to collapse again, and that we should be prepared in case he needed to have surgery. For the tall boy the important fact here was: no eating after midnight, and it was now 11:30. What to do?

Wendy's in the E.R., baby! Because that's how we roll.

Awesome fact: The Wendy's version of a Happy Meal has Scooby-Doo trivia card dominoes, with a secret decoder! The merry-go-round, on the other hand, has been pronounced lame.

It's a scary thing when your firstborn, the light of your life, is wearing an oxygen mask -- but you do see that he's texting someone, right?

So then a bunch of scary stuff happened that was not funny at all and hard to make light of, but words like cardio-thoracic surgeon and I.C.U. and pleurodesis were bandied about. Oh, my people -- they removed a piece of my child's lung. No pictures. [Actually, a picture of this exists -- the surgeon took a picture of the hunk o' lung and gave it to us as a memento. And the tall boy totally posted it as his profile picture on Facebook. But not here -- I can cope with just so much, but no more. I'm just saying.]

Hilarious note in this completely not hilarious day -- the tall boy, it seems, knows some really good swears. He used them all on the nice wonderful saint-like nurses in the recovery room, as they ran -- seriously, RAN -- to get more morphine.

At the end of this sucky day, the tall boy's life had been saved by an on-the-ball E.R. doctor, a pulmonologist who treated us like we were his own family, a surgeon who gave off a totally calming Chuck Yeager air, and all those saints nurses. Put your life in this woman's hands, and all will be well.

14 comments:

  1. OMG how scary!

    I'm so glad to hear that you and tall boy were in such good & capable hands. My best wishes for his speedy recovery and for no more occurrences!

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  2. I'm glad he was taken care of. I know that had to be scary for both of you . I hope he has a full recovery - and never injures his texting fingers.

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  3. Amazing that this all happened in less than 48 hours and he was back home walking around on Saturday - I would still be in bed moaning how missing a portion of my lung (and the picture made it look HUGE!) makes it impossible for me to do anything other than suck down ice cold diet cokes and eat chocolate chip cookies! And you forgot the part about the wonderful mother who stayed at the hospital the entire time!
    ~fabby neighbor~

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  4. I'm so glad your son is okay! I know how scary a collapsed lung can be because my husband had one years ago. They had to remove the upper portion of his right lung (after days and days of trying to get it to reinflate). He's perfectly healthy today, but has a nasty scar.

    Take care of Tall Boy!

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  5. Oh Liz, my goodness, how traumatic for you all. Im so pleased to hear your tall boy is recovering well, and just quietly thanks for not posting the pic of the lung.....I think Im with you on that one!

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  6. That is so scary...I cannot even imagine. I am so glad he is OK...but "MOM, are you OK?" is the real question. My best thoughts going toward you and your family for a speedy recovery.
    Holly

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  7. I am relieved to know you had on the ball doctors and health care professionals at your disposal! Hopefully this will be the last of these trying and scary moments. God bless you and "Tall Boy" (he really is a long drink of water, isn't he?) Oh and a shout out to "Polly" above from another "Polly". You don't run into that name very often.

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  8. LIz, we are so glad that you are home and your sweet boy is on the mend. All of you are in our prayers.

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  9. Wow. I'm glad he's okay! That must have been so scary! But you can never stop us teenagers from texting! haha. Good luck with everything!

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  10. So sorry...adorable teen...I can see why you like him:) It's never ending...this mom thing. Sending prayers this will all be behind you now...FOREVER! Holly at lifelaughlatte.blogspot.com

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  11. Just thinking about your son...how's he doing?

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  12. Tall boy here--I'm alive and awake, not so sure about the alert or enthusiastic part though. The doctors have me out of school for a week--something about germs, holes in your lung and 2,000+ kids jostling around in the halls made the surgeon's assistant turn a rather interesting shade of pale--which is of course AWESOME.
    Thanks for keeping me in your thoughts!

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  13. Bluuuurgh. That was stressful. Glad all now seems well.

    I'm not sure about the texting while oxygenating, though. Is that like using the cell while getting gas?

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  14. Liz! I totally missed ALL of this while I was on blogging sabbatical!! I am so happy that he's now doing well - what an ordeal! This is near to my heart because good buddy's lungs collapsed at birth. Different circumstances and outcome, but oh it sent chills down my back when I read this post today. Your family has such a wonderful attitude about it all. (Especially the calculus homework ... yikes!) Love & prayers, karen

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