Pain On The Train
I was 20 years old and it was my first year of college in London, I was travelling on the underground from home to college when I suddenly had a pain in my chest and was finding it hard to breath. Even though I thought I was having a heart attack I did not want to scare the passengers sitting opposite me so I remained calm, however I'm sure they noticed my failing condition.
I got off the train at the next stop and made my way to street level, I was still finding it hard to breath. I hailed a cab and told him to take me to the nearest hospital. When I arrived they checked me out and came back with some x-rays saying 'you poor thing, you've had a collapsed lung'.
The medical term for a collapsed lung is a pre-pneumothorax which occurs to some people who grow too fast, it is when the lung can't catch up and becomes unstuck and collapses. The basic procedure I went through is to remove the air between the lung and the chest to re-inflate the lung and hope it sticks.
After having air sucked out of my chest with a huge syringe I stayed in hospital for two weeks and was sent home, It looked like I was ok.
Rave Casualty
I went back to my life of hanging out with my friends, going to parties and occasionally attending college lectures.
It was news years eve and I was at a warehouse rave in East London with three of my friends, it was a great party and we were all having a good time. It was about half past midnight and I stepped outside to cool off and started to feel the pain in my chest, it was happening again.
I went back inside and sat by the wall and tried to breath slowly, my friends were dancing and I thought I would wait too see if it would get any better, a girl tried to get me up to dance but I couldn't move. Twenty minutes later I made it to my feet, I tapped my friends shoulder and told him he needed to drive me to hospital.
The hospital was busy and hectic as it would be on news years eve, people were screaming and howling all night.
I went through a similar procedure as the last time and got sent to a hospital bed.
I then spent the next two to three months undergoing operations, complications, infections and worse, it brought me to the edge of pain and sanity.
The Long Stay
The first operation to stick the lung in place left a huge scar which then got infected and required a further operation to remove the infection, during this time my temperature went to the limit beyond which is death. At one point I was given penicillin and turned out to be allergic to it which can also result in death, my whole body turned to a rash for several hours.
Sometimes I would need to have tubes put into my chest, which involved cutting an incision in my side and feeding a tube to the lung area, this would go wrong occasionally and result in searing pain.
They also stuck tubes into other places I would rather not mention.
For the first half of my stay in hospital I was in a busy public ward with several others, most of which were in very poor health. I made friends with a few different people and enjoyed having some company, even though half of them were dying.
The second half was spent in the private ward as I did in fact have health insurance and my mum was anxious to get me the best care. Even though the private room was much more comfortable and had a TV it was lonely.
After a couple of months in hospital my spirit was breaking and I wondered if I would ever leave. Eventually the infection passed, my lung seemed to be fixed and I was allowed home.
I was always weary for the next few years and expected the problem to come back anytime but I was out of the woods when I finally stopped growing at 24.