Post by mrbrill on Apr 26, 2012 21:49:59 GMT -5
I feel very self-conscious posting this, I guess mainly because the transplant is a large backdrop and I feel like I'm still making a big deal about it rather than just moving on from it.
Anyway.
1
*
I woke and glanced at the clock. It was just past 7 in the morning. Groaning, I inclined my body to an upright sitting position, but as usual I found myself breathing shallowly; reaching over to my bedside table, I grabbed my puffer and took a deep intake in, then held my breath; then released and resumed breathing normally. The Ventolin helped relieve my reduced lung capacity to an extent, but it was prominently a minor exercise in temporary respite until the next puff.
Approaching ten years to the date, on August the 28th, 2008 - I would always remember that date - I had undergone a lung transplant. The doctors and the whole medical team understood my state of mind perfectly and didn’t tell me they had found an organ donor until the last moment. I can’t remember it at all, but I assume I only had minutes to process the fact that they had a match and the operation was happening now. So sudden, hardly time for me to react, let alone panic, feel anxious, as would often be the case with me.
The lung transplant was necessary due to a rare illness called pulmonary hypertension. To explain it crudely, the vessels that send and deliver the blood all over the body thin and contract; as a consequence, the heart starts working far harder to distribute the blood to the necessary areas of the body. When the vessels are contracted like this, you could liken the problem to that of a kinked garden hose.
As a result, whenever I would attempt any form of physical exertion, almost immediately I would be overwhelmed with feelings of light headedness, blurry vision, a faint ringing in my ears, and my heart pounding furiously against my chest. When I wasn’t aware of this problem, I set out on a walk around the block and just after the first turn, I had collapsed.
As a rare illness it proved very difficult to identify. I visited various clinics and hospitals - CT scans, colonoscopies, but everything failed until a visit to our local hospital. I actually forget how it was identified - maybe it had something relating to my low blood pressure - but somehow it finally clicked for a nurse and from there he advised we consult The Alfred.
As it had took so long to identify the illness, the problem had deteriorated to an alarming extent. One memory I can actually recall - my memory is very poor - is of being surrounded by a cluster of flustered nurses, so flustered as they could detect no blood pressure on my side. From here I think they hooked me up to an IV.
The first stage in my hospital journey was a stop in intensive care. Somehow it seems amazing to me but in the early stages the doctors who monitored me deemed that I was near death, or in the words of one, ‘hanging from the cliff by his fingernails.’ I suppose that’s why I don’t remember that time so well. Often, I think it was my family who were the ones suffering most; a number of times they would express to me how they could no longer enjoy so much of what life used to bring to them, and once, I saw my mother break down sobbing in the heart and lung transplant clinic. I felt shame in that moment because I stood rooted to the spot and instead of myself it was one of the doctors who consoled her.
Anyway.
1
*
I woke and glanced at the clock. It was just past 7 in the morning. Groaning, I inclined my body to an upright sitting position, but as usual I found myself breathing shallowly; reaching over to my bedside table, I grabbed my puffer and took a deep intake in, then held my breath; then released and resumed breathing normally. The Ventolin helped relieve my reduced lung capacity to an extent, but it was prominently a minor exercise in temporary respite until the next puff.
Approaching ten years to the date, on August the 28th, 2008 - I would always remember that date - I had undergone a lung transplant. The doctors and the whole medical team understood my state of mind perfectly and didn’t tell me they had found an organ donor until the last moment. I can’t remember it at all, but I assume I only had minutes to process the fact that they had a match and the operation was happening now. So sudden, hardly time for me to react, let alone panic, feel anxious, as would often be the case with me.
The lung transplant was necessary due to a rare illness called pulmonary hypertension. To explain it crudely, the vessels that send and deliver the blood all over the body thin and contract; as a consequence, the heart starts working far harder to distribute the blood to the necessary areas of the body. When the vessels are contracted like this, you could liken the problem to that of a kinked garden hose.
As a result, whenever I would attempt any form of physical exertion, almost immediately I would be overwhelmed with feelings of light headedness, blurry vision, a faint ringing in my ears, and my heart pounding furiously against my chest. When I wasn’t aware of this problem, I set out on a walk around the block and just after the first turn, I had collapsed.
As a rare illness it proved very difficult to identify. I visited various clinics and hospitals - CT scans, colonoscopies, but everything failed until a visit to our local hospital. I actually forget how it was identified - maybe it had something relating to my low blood pressure - but somehow it finally clicked for a nurse and from there he advised we consult The Alfred.
As it had took so long to identify the illness, the problem had deteriorated to an alarming extent. One memory I can actually recall - my memory is very poor - is of being surrounded by a cluster of flustered nurses, so flustered as they could detect no blood pressure on my side. From here I think they hooked me up to an IV.
The first stage in my hospital journey was a stop in intensive care. Somehow it seems amazing to me but in the early stages the doctors who monitored me deemed that I was near death, or in the words of one, ‘hanging from the cliff by his fingernails.’ I suppose that’s why I don’t remember that time so well. Often, I think it was my family who were the ones suffering most; a number of times they would express to me how they could no longer enjoy so much of what life used to bring to them, and once, I saw my mother break down sobbing in the heart and lung transplant clinic. I felt shame in that moment because I stood rooted to the spot and instead of myself it was one of the doctors who consoled her.