August 12th

I'm so thankful that the pnuemothorax healed so quickly.  Dr. McCollum told me to expect to be in the hospital 3 days, but after only 24 hours, my chest tube is out and my lung is staying inflated, so I am on my way home.  Thank God!  

With my new diagnosis of Lung Cancer my mind is reeling.  I have only really said the words out loud maybe twice so far.  They sound foreign, and not something that could really apply to me.  I'm only 53 years old, and things like that can't happen to me.  I've got a 2 year old grandson to watch grow up.  I can't have cancer.  Not me.  Sorry.  It's not true.

Everyone keeps asking me if I'm okay.  I'm SO tired of being asked that! I don't KNOW if I'm OKAY! I don't know how I am! And then I feel bad for being angry at them for asking! All my feelings right now are just a jumbled up mess.  I will NOT cry.  I will not give this stupid cancer the benefit of weakening me to tears.  Every time I feel them coming, I fight them back.  It's going to be a long fight. *sigh*  I'm an emotional mess.

  August 11, 2015

9:30 A.M.     I checked in at Mercy Health Center today to get the lung nodule biopsied.  It has been growing, and finally (!), Dr. Adler has decided it needs to be looked at more closely.  I'm really getting tired of having CT scans done every 3 months.  

I've been told by several people that the Radiologist doing the procedure is one of the best, so I feel pretty confident going into it.  I'm just really hopeful to find out once and for all what this thing is, or ISN'T!

1:00 P.M.     The Biopsy is over, unfortunately, I was one of the 20% of patients that end up with a pnuemothorax.  On my way from recovery to the step down unit, I suddenly start feeling pain and extreme shortness of breath.  They do a chest X-ray as soon as I get to the room and confirm that my lung is starting to collapse.  As the pain gets worse and begins to radiate into my neck area over the next 2 hours, a second X-ray indicates we have now moved into an emergency situation.  The nurses are moving rapidly to move all my things onto my bed, unhook my monitors, and are rapidly rolling me into the procedure room, where the doctor meets me and promptly inserts a chest tube.

  August 11th - August 12th 

My experience with hospitals has always been that the night shift nurses were always the ones that I got to know the best.  They were actually the least busy - no meals to deal with, no patients to worry about getting showered/bathed, etc. But my experience at Mercy this time around was NOT a pleasant one with the night shift.  In fact, it was down right UN-pleasant.  

I asked for pain meds repeatedly through out the night, and they were never brought to me. I went all night with NO medication for pain at all! When I asked the morning nurse what the doctor's orders stated for my medication, I found out that it stated I was to get dilaudid every two hours!!  Also, since I had been fasting originally for the biopsy, I hadn't had anything to eat or drink since 9:00 a.m., and she mistakenly read the chart and told me I was nothing by mouth still. When I asked her to see why, she was supposed to check, but never came to tell me why.  By the morning of the 12th, when I've now been 36 hours without food or drink, she admitted it was her mistake and "OOPS! she forgot to come tell me!"

Later in the morning Laura got off work and came to sit with me. I was so thankful to see her.  She is so strong - and when I feel weak, she builds me up and gives me strength to keep going!  She was with me when the phone call came in with the results from my biopsy.  AdenoCarcenoma.  Wow.  I think I'm in shock.