Oct 05 2011
12 Nights
After being discharged after a 14 hour stay in hospital and returning within 10 minutes I was about to face 12 nights in Medical Short Stay, a ward that normally has a 72 hour limit.
During the 12 night stay I had further pain attacks during the nights, further chest x-rays and ultra-sound. With the further chest x-rays it revealed I had developed around 1 litre of fluid on my lung and my lung was partially collasped.
This then meant I had to under go a procedure to drain my lung, not once but three times over the next few days. Entering through my rib cage with a large needle from my back they drained 200ml of partially blood stained fluid the first time, nothing in the second and a good 300 or more the third time. This was clearly not in all but they stopped and sent it away for testing.
I’ve now been out of hospital for 5 days taking warfarin for the DVT and PE plus 8 day antibiotics for the inflammed and possibly infected remaining fluid on my lung. Overall a very stressful time but glad to be out on the mend and now concentrating on my ATR recovery.
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One Response to “12 Nights”
So sorry to hear about your setback and thanks for sharing. Now I know why they prescribe blood thinners for those first few weeks after ATR or ATR surgery when we all do next to nothing and are at risk for this sort of nightmare scenario.