No Walk in the Park

Wow, what a 48hrs. I am lucky to be home, let alone to have gotten home yesterday afternoon. As Reba wrote, I had a complication during the bronch. Basically, when they snipped a piece of the lung for a biopsy the lungs started to bleed. They apparently did not realize right away and when they were pulling out the breathing tube and scope I started coughing up a lot of blood. So, they re-intubated me. Went back down there and somehow made sure the bleeding stopped. But they had to keep the breathing tube in overnight and keep me in the ICU.

When I awoke saturday morning, I had 2 ivs going, tubes in most orifices, but luckily had no idea what was going on. They kept me very heavily sedated. I vaugely remember Reba getting there in the am. and talking to me trying to tell me what happened. I was told that all night I was asking to write down things and slightly combative everytime they let the sedation up. When the sedation let up enough in the am, I basically demanded they remove all the tubes. I believe, but Rebec would have to verify, Dr. Haithcock came in and gave the ok. They took out the breathing tube, and iv in my arm. Dr. Haithcock came back about an hour later to check on me and explained what happened again. I hardly remember, but he said he wanted to keep me a day or so to watch me and I immediately refused. I actually at this time felt great. The narcotics had not worn off yet, and the breathing tube was gone, so I told him how great I felt. He agreed to watch me for a few hours and let me go Saturday afternoon. They pulled the catheter (note to CIA-good torture technique, forget waterboarding), and I finally got out of there around 4pm.

By then though the toll of the trauma I went through was just starting to effect my body. I was not feeling good, but put on the game face to get home. Thankfully, my parents were down here to help with everything. Good timing for a visit. A little weak and wobbly, but I was just not going to stay in the hospital overnight again. I rested saturday and slept decent last night. Today, my body is expressing the toll of the stress it went through. For some reason, all my muscles in my body seem sore. Neck, chest, legs (probably from the leg workout i did thursday in pt though). My breathing is not great, still have leftover congestion from the procedure and it is hard to take deep breathes because of the soreness. I was under sedation for over 12 hours with a breathing tube just 30 hours ago, so to be home tonight writing this to me seems like an accomplishment.

I don't want this post to seem negative, I want it to be accurate though for when we look back on my experiences. After a double-lung transplant and the recovery associated with it, something like this seems like a walk in the park, but it certainly was not. It was hard...

-mitch