chest tube

studlycfman

New member
In January I had a collapsed lung, and i don't know how many of you
have had one but, I had to have a chest tube placed to let the lung
reinflate.  But there's a bonus to the equation, it wasn't my
first collapse and I was already sick.  The last time I had
one they recommended I have a blebectomy (sp?) done to remove the
part of the lung the keeps causing the collapse, and me not wanting
to do surgery and stay in the hospital longer decided not to.
 Then in January it was only about 2 years since the last
collapse I thought doing the procedure would be beneficial so i
said do the surgery and tube me at the same time so I recover only
once, big mistake.  My lung being inflamed from a sickness did
not handle the surgery very well, it left a permanent hole in
the lung. I also developed an empyema  infection in my chest
cavity so I got really sick.  After 2 weeks of being in the
hospital and really only getting worse I was transfered to
University of Michigan Hospital where I'd been going for lung
transplant evaluation.  After I got there it turned out that
my doc there didn't  want the surgery done but I was never
told this valuable information.  Anyway long story a little
shorter I did recover after another 2 1/2 weeks of more antibiotics
than I knew existed, and a couple more weeks at home, and I am on
the transplant list now, but the lung never did close back up
so I have had the same chest tube for over 8 months now and was
wondering if anyone else here has had a chest tube and if so how
long was it in?<br>
<br>
Darren<br>
hopeful tx recipient
 

anonymous

New member
For reasons different to yours, my friend had a chest drain in for a number of months, Im not sure if she has had it out or not...But her chest drain was a small little yoke like the size of a 20ml syringe that she could hook up to a bucket/bag if she needed to drain it. Sorry I can't be of more help to ya!

Shamrock, x
 
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