Monday, May 23, 2011

Read my lips: No new pneumothorax

Today was a huge day for me.

I had a one week follow-up X-ray to see if my lung was still doing ok, and not showing further signs of collapse. At this point, collapsed lung would necessitate not only another godforsaken chest tube, but potentially greater measures, like sucky chest surgery.

A collapsed lung, you may recall, is called a "pneumothorax". Pronounced, "NEW-moe-THOR-ax". Since I've had them in the past couple of weeks, then they'd resolve, then they'd recur, I have often found myself saying, "I hope I have no new pneumothorax." And it would always bring to mind George H. W. Bush's famous GOP presidential nomination speech sound byte:

"READ MY LIPS: NO NEW TAXES"

Those words, stated in his particular voice, have been running through my head at all hours over the last two weeks. Like a bad pop song you can't shake. Or like the scary sound from the Friday the 13th movies you'd hear just before Jason fatally bludgeons an unsuspecting coed. Just adding to the hell of it all.

But I'm happy to report that today's x-ray showed NO NEW PNEUMOTHORAX. Which means NO NEW TORTURE for me. We are back on track.

My body soap theory seems to be correct...

3 comments:

  1. AWESOME news Shelly! I've been checking your blog every hour for this good news:)!

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  2. May the strawberry body wash soon be a thing of the past. Thinking about you often...

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  3. pneumothorax, stay in the Dr Seuss book you came from! Seriously though, I had one after a bad snowboarding accident, not fun. I avoided the dreaded chest tube though...i can only imagine. Yikes. Glad to hear you're back on track. Git r dun!

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