Soda Pop Lung

So I head into the ER Monday night, trying to play as cool as one possibly can when she's checking herself in for emergency cardiac surgery.  I'm told I will be watched closely over night in the ICU, and will head to the OR at 6am to have a pericardial window procedure.  The surgeon will cut open part of the pericardium (the sac around my heart) and allow the fluid to drain through a chest tube, which will hang out of me for several surreal days.

Now as an extra bonus, my ER x-ray shows that nearly 3/4s of my right lung is also surrounded by fluid.  Thus, the surgeon recommends that after the pericardial window procedure, I would also need to undergo thoracentesis--a procedure which drains the fluid from the space between the lung and the chest wall through a catheter inserted into the patient's back.  Oh, AND I still needed that PICC line installed again.  Basically, I had four long days of mutilation ahead of me.

In moments like this one, I really start to question the purpose of my human existence.  We are souls that incarnate into this physical realm to express and experience.  But it's sort of bogus, right?  Sometimes I feel like my poor little etheric body is like, "I hate it here, just let me die already." And I'm all like, "No!  Society tells me I have to fight to stay alive and live life and maintain relationships and shit!"

When I came out of surgery on Tuesday morning, it was the closest I have ever felt to the threshold.  I felt so much pain that I wished I had just died during surgery.  I heard the nurses calling my family in and I just kept moaning, "No no no no no." You know how cats crawl under the porch to die, so they can be alone?  I needed a porch.  I wanted to be alone so I could just give up.

I spent Tuesday draining Kool-Aid out of my heart sac, and Wednesday I had the pleasure of getting my lung juiced.  Here is a visual aid:
  

                                                                           Before                                                                    After

They literally drained almost 1.5 liters of fluid from my right lung.  When they weighed me that night, I was 5 lbs lighter than the day before.  That's soda a lot.  I felt like I had been hit by a truck, but I could breathe again!

Tonight I am happily at home with my dudes, my cats and my own pillow.  The doctors are giving me the weekend to recuperate and allow my wounds to heal before starting chemo on Monday.  Last week at this time, chemo was the big scary thing on the horizon.  Tonight, it feels like anticipating a visit to the day spa.