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In-flight surgery with a coat-hanger and silverware

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Re: In-flight surgery with a coat-hanger and silverware

#171

Post by yowlingcat »

kmano8 wrote: post #94
marcodiego wrote: post #14

I've had an spontaneous pneumothorax when I was a teenager. Had to undergo emergency surgery with only local anesthesia. The surgeon while cutting my chest asked: "You're sure it is this side, right?", which I confirmed. He then said: "Ok, if you're wrong I'm not going to jail alone."

This happened to me in college. Driving home from the movies, chest started to hurt on inhale .. I decided to "sleep it off", which obviously didn't work. Went to the ER in the morning. Got the chest tube and spent about a week seeing if it would heal naturally, then they removed the offending part of my lung, and did a mechanical pleurodesis (a procedure that sticks your lung to the chest wall so it can't collapse).…

Goodness, is this more common than it seems? Happened to me in my mid twenties, same build. I remember talking to the doc (thank goodness it went away with oxygen for a few days) who said "Yup, this stuff just happens to otherwise healthy males your age. No one's really sure why."

Was a little unsettling.

Re: In-flight surgery with a coat-hanger and silverware

#172

Post by mikeryan »

marcodiego wrote: post #14

I've had an spontaneous pneumothorax when I was a teenager. Had to undergo emergency surgery with only local anesthesia. The surgeon while cutting my chest asked: "You're sure it is this side, right?", which I confirmed. He then said: "Ok, if you're wrong I'm not going to jail alone."

About three years ago I got in a mountain bike crash and broke my collar bone and three ribs, managed to ride off the mountain (for any locals it was the Mailboxes trail in Santa Cruz) drove home to the East Bay and walked into the ER.

They did the first round of X-rays and were about to let me go since there's not much they do with ribs and collar bones these days. The last minute the Doc came back in and told me that breaking my first rib is pretty difficult and they wanted a few more X-rays which is when they found my pneumothorax and shit hit the fan. I was suddenly in a neck brace and had a Doctor shoving a tube into my chest and had to spend three days in a trauma ward to make sure everything was okay.

All this being said, I knew I had a broken Collarbone right after the fall, but outside of that I literally rode my bike three miles off the hill and drove home for an hour and walked into the ER, and was about to leave feeling fine. It's somewhat "common" for these to be missed after traumatic accidents - though most ER's know to look for them.

Re: In-flight surgery with a coat-hanger and silverware

#173

Post by kps »

busyant wrote: post #100
fritzo wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But who would accompany him to jail, a cadaver?

When you dissect a joke, it dies on the operating table.

Things are dissected when they're already dead. When you vivisect a joke, it dies on the operating table.

Oh. Never mind.

Re: In-flight surgery with a coat-hanger and silverware

#174

Post by throwaway684936 »

kmano8 wrote: post #94
marcodiego wrote: post #14

I've had an spontaneous pneumothorax when I was a teenager. Had to undergo emergency surgery with only local anesthesia. The surgeon while cutting my chest asked: "You're sure it is this side, right?", which I confirmed. He then said: "Ok, if you're wrong I'm not going to jail alone."

This happened to me in college. Driving home from the movies, chest started to hurt on inhale .. I decided to "sleep it off", which obviously didn't work. Went to the ER in the morning. Got the chest tube and spent about a week seeing if it would heal naturally, then they removed the offending part of my lung, and did a mechanical pleurodesis (a procedure that sticks your lung to the chest wall so it can't collapse).…

I had those kind of pains for years and they were always minor and went away after a few days. Always wondered what they were, but figured they were harmless. Eventually I got a worse one, went to the hospital, got a chest tube. It went away but I got another bad one, so they did surgery. A couple months later the same process happened to the other side.

I'm very glad they did a pleurectomy both times instead of pleurodesis; I've heard people describe pleurodesis and it's pretty terrifying, both the recovery and the permanent after-effects. Noticeably reduced breathing capacity isn't uncommon.

People think it's related to body type, but the surgeon said the more modern understanding is that it's due to "blebs" (actual medical term) on your lung that burst - which the pleurectomy removes. Pleurodesis is usually unnecessary in young people. I was more prone to blebs due to a genetic syndrome.

Re: In-flight surgery with a coat-hanger and silverware

#175

Post by LordDragonfang »

kmano8 wrote: post #94
marcodiego wrote: post #14

I've had an spontaneous pneumothorax when I was a teenager. Had to undergo emergency surgery with only local anesthesia. The surgeon while cutting my chest asked: "You're sure it is this side, right?", which I confirmed. He then said: "Ok, if you're wrong I'm not going to jail alone."

This happened to me in college. Driving home from the movies, chest started to hurt on inhale .. I decided to "sleep it off", which obviously didn't work. Went to the ER in the morning. Got the chest tube and spent about a week seeing if it would heal naturally, then they removed the offending part of my lung, and did a mechanical pleurodesis (a procedure that sticks your lung to the chest wall so it can't collapse).…

For anyone reading these comments with growing anxiety who gets occasional, short duration stabbing pains when breathing in (lasting only a couple minutes at most), allow me to put your mind at ease by directing you to the Wikipedia page for precordial catch syndrome:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precordial_catch_syndrome

Very similar symptoms, totally harmless, to the point where the recommended treatment is "reassurance". As long as the pain lasts for less than 3ish minutes, you have no reason to panic.

(I used to get very anxious every time I had these symptoms, after a friend of mine in high school described the same experience as the others in this thread, trying to sleep off the pain and ending up hospitalized for a collapsed lung. Learning about PCS really put my mind at ease)

Re: In-flight surgery with a coat-hanger and silverware

#176

Post by Animats »

Lufthansa takes this seriously. They encourage doctors to sign up for an incentive program, and about 10,000 doctors who fly Lufthansa have signed up.[1] They carry an emergency kit for use by a doctor on board, one that goes much further than a first aid kit. The airline covers medical liability.

[1] https://www.lufthansa.com/us/en/doctor-on-board

Re: In-flight surgery with a coat-hanger and silverware

#177

Post by geophile »

marcodiego wrote: post #14

I've had an spontaneous pneumothorax when I was a teenager. Had to undergo emergency surgery with only local anesthesia. The surgeon while cutting my chest asked: "You're sure it is this side, right?", which I confirmed. He then said: "Ok, if you're wrong I'm not going to jail alone."

Like a few people here, I also had spontaneous pneumothorax as a teenager, a few times. Never severe, no medical intervention required (beyond diagnosis), which I'm finding a bit strange, based on what others here are writing. This was in 1975, so maybe procedures are different now?

Anyway, I want to discuss two specific things.

1) At the time, being a young college student, I pigged out on junk food, often popcorn that I would pop in a pot using oil. I came to associate my cooking popcorn in this way with pneumothorax occurrences.

2) I was tall and quite underweight. I'm wondering if other young people who had spontaneous pneumothorax tend to be shaped similarly.

Re: In-flight surgery with a coat-hanger and silverware

#178

Post by JoeAltmaier »

et2o wrote: post #150
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a 'Good Samaritan' law in most states, protecting those that try to help in an emergency in good faith.

Doesn’t apply to a wrong-sided procedure

That's incorrect

Re: In-flight surgery with a coat-hanger and silverware

#179

Post by FabHK »

sgjohnson wrote: post #132
FabHK wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wager to say that to most people in the developed world such thoughts would not occur, and almost certainly not to Brits (that are used to the NHS).

The NHS is garbage. After experiencing them once I took on a private health insurance that cost me £300ish per month. So now my taxes paid for the garbage public healthcare system that I didn’t want, and then I had to pay for the private insurance. Unfortunately most people aren’t that fortunate to be able to easily justify spending extra £300 a month on health insurance so they just cope with the NHS.

Yes, mate, you might complain about the NHS and you might wait and you might curse it, but you'd not entertain the idea of going bankrupt because you needed medical care.

Re: In-flight surgery with a coat-hanger and silverware

#180

Post by jahewson »

geophile wrote: post #177
marcodiego wrote: post #14

I've had an spontaneous pneumothorax when I was a teenager. Had to undergo emergency surgery with only local anesthesia. The surgeon while cutting my chest asked: "You're sure it is this side, right?", which I confirmed. He then said: "Ok, if you're wrong I'm not going to jail alone."

Like a few people here, I also had spontaneous pneumothorax as a teenager, a few times. Never severe, no medical intervention required (beyond diagnosis), which I'm finding a bit strange, based on what others here are writing. This was in 1975, so maybe procedures are different now? Anyway, I want to discuss two specific things. 1) At the time, being a young college student, I pigged out on junk food, often popcorn t…

Perhaps insufficient protein in your diet could have contributed? It can cause connective tissue problems in adolescent athletes, so it’s not implausibly linked.
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