Janell
Hi, I am a 39 year old female and I had my pneumothorax on November 11, 2000. I went to the emergency room and chest x-rays done but they said I had pulled muscles in the chest wall. The next day the hospital called and said the radioligist looked at the x-ray and it was a collapsed lung and I needed to come back to the emergency room. The left lung was totally collapsed, it was pushing the heart and other organs over to the right side. They inserted a chest tube and after 4 days I wanted to go home so they took out the chest tube and the lung collapsed again so they put in a second chest tube and let me go home. That was on a Thursday night. I was to go in for a x-ray on Monday to see if the lung stayed up. I had a valve on my chest tube that we shut off Monday morning 2 hours before the x-ray. The x-ray showed the lung collapsed so the surgeon scheduled me for surgery on the next day. That evening I started having severe chest pain again and the surgeon had me come into the emergency room and found that the chest tube was clogged. I was admitted and went into surgery the next morning. They did a vats surgery which is 3 small incisions, one on the side and 2 on the back. They found a whole in the lung and another area that was weak, so they took off the bad and stapled the lung with titanium staples. I still have chest pain on the left side especially when I have exerted myself alot that day and when I take a deep breath. I have been worying the last few days that it may be happening in the right side because I am having a little hurting every so often. I know this could be just because I am aware that it can happen again and worry about it. Anyone else have this happen to them I would appreciate your input on this.