The Start of Recovery

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I stayed in the hospital for another week or so, just recovering and trying to get my oxygen levels straightened out. In that time span, I was only taken on a walk one time because my o2 saturation would drop so low as soon as they took it off. It had to be at a certain point before they would take me. I was hoping to get discharged on a Friday. The day before that, I really struggled with my breathing and even had a slight pain (felt like a sharp pain you get sometimes when you breath in) in my chest area. My doctor came in Friday morning and could tell I was a bit nervous about going home, but we still talked about it happening. He came back a few minutes later and said, "You know what, I'm on call this weekend, so how about you stay through the weekend and if all goes well, we'll look at discharging on Monday." Okay, whatever you say. lol. Shortly after that, they came in and did a chest x-ray (it's really cool that they can do these in the room now)! Later that day, it was mentioned there was some fluid on my lungs. They gave me a diuretic (nevvvveeeeeeer again, haha) to try and get some of it out. About 20 minutes after giving me a diuretic, they came in to take me down for a thorentesis (??) - they stuck a big ol needle in my lung and drained 650ml of fluid from it! Whew! When I got down there, they asked if I could roll over and stay there. I asked for how long and she said 45 minutes. I said, there's no way. It hurt so bad to rotate. They ended up having me sit up on the side of the bed, put my feet in a chair and a bedside table in front of me that my arms reached across and I held on to for dear life for the 45 minutes the fluid drained out of my body. Intense. When the Dr. came over to do the procedure, I asked if I could see the needle. He thought I was crazy and said, "it's big, are you sure?" I said, of course I am. lol. He was right- that sucker was HUGE. When he stuck it in my back, it felt as if I were a tree and someone was chiseling a railroad tack into my bark. OW. But, I'm weird and kind of like pain, so it didn't bug me too much. I did ask to see the bag afterwards and it was almost a full gallon size bag. Yikes. I stayed the rest of the weekend and was finally discharged on Monday, May 9, still dependent on oxygen. : (

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