Donna
My son is 16 years old. He experienced his first Spontaneous Pnumothorax on 8/22/00. He was hospitalized for four days during which they inserted a chest tube. The second Pnumo was on 9/25/00 and they decided to do surgery where they would create scar tissue by rubbing the chest wall with what they called sandpaper. After 6 days they removed his chest tube and the lung collasped immediately. This time they sent him home and were planning to do more surgery 1 week later. We went back for another x-ray at that time and found that the lung had corrected itself so the did not have to do anything. On 11/21/00 he had his fourth pnumo. He was again hospitalized and a chest tube was inserted for the third time. He was in the hospital for 8 days. They have told us that if it happens again that they will have to remove part of the lung and staple the remainder to the chest wall. They are trying to prevent this surgery, so they gave his lung one more change to work correctly. I hope that you do not have a repeat episode for your son and I wish you the best of luck!!