What a long and trying day it's been! First and foremost, I want to thank all of you so much for all of your private emails to me, you people are about one of the greatest groups of people I have ever been in association with!
As for the problem at hand, I went ahead and got the x-ray, and as I suspected, there was/is a problem. I'm at about a 10% collapse, in the upper portion of my left lung. No surgery or chest tube required at this time, so I am at home now and resting. I am told that this will most likely clear up on its own, which I believe it will. However, I am still interested in helping it to heal more quickly and more permanently (right now there is a 50% chance that it can collapse again within the next 6 months even if it heals fine). So please, keep those suggestions coming! I am going to close for now, but just wanted to give everybody an update. Am drugged up right now on painkillers (I forgot how good narcotics were!), so am not even going to attempt to respond to all the private messages that I got, as I am way to groggy/goofy. I did want to let everybody know that I am OKay though, as things were up in the air with my last message. Once again, thank you all so much for your emails. Mike, I'm sure you're aware of this already, but you have really made a place here that is full of loving and caring people. Thanks for doing what you do :) -James ----- Original Message ----- From: James Allison To: [email protected] Sent: Friday, January 28, 2005 7:09 AM Subject: CS>Help with... Hi everybody. Sorry I haven't said much lately, but I've been having problems that CS doesn't seem to help. I just got out of the hospital 2 weeks ago (did 6 days in there) due to a spontaneous pneumothorax (which is medical terms for a lung collapsing without any reason in particular. For those that are learned in the field, actual reason is blebs). I did have a chest tube in me for the time I was there, but I didn't opt for having the surgery where they go in and actually fix the problem (they basically cut, staple and glue your lung to the lung wall). To make a long story short, for the past couple of days I've had the same symptoms that I had before, and before going into a very scary situation (the whole hospital rigmarole) once again, I thought I would see if anybody here had any suggestions. I've done some lookups on the net, and almost everywhere says that surgery is the only real option. Does anybody know of any less evasive options for this? I'm gonna stick by the computer for a few more hours and hope for suggestions, then call and schedule an x-ray, which I think I already know the outcome of. If you don't here from me for a couple of weeks, you'll know the outcome as well ;) -James
