StoryTime: Spontaneous Pneumothorax

I've had everyone asking me what happened, so I figure it'll be easier to tell the story like this.

I was doing dishes Saturday, reached up to put a pot away and felt a muscle pain in my back. This wasn't surprising as I had been sore for a couple days from my Wed. ultimate game. A few minutes later, walking out the door to head to the first UT football game of the year, I felt the same strange pain but a little stronger. I told Melissa with a smiling cringe that something was wrong. We made it over to campus by the river and I called Dad and found out where he was. I decided I wanted a drink and made my way to Ray's Place for a vending machine. For those not familiar with UT campus, the elevation difference from the river to the Hill is a couple hundred feet. Heading up, I had to stop several times not only for the unbearable pain, but also because I couldn't seem to breathe. It felt to me like I had such a bad knot in my back muscles that every time I breathed, it somehow compressed the knot to make the pain worse. We made it down to “Salute to the Hill” and I got to show off the marching band that I was a member of so many years ago to Melissa. We found Dad and Janet after the crowd thinned out. First thing, I told Janet that I needed a nurse and how my back hurt badly and I couldn’t breathe. Nobody could figure it out so I went on thinking it would work itself out eventually. Running into Uncle Dusty, we found out Dad had an extra ticket. While trying to scalp the other half of a pair for me and Melissa, an elderly man came up to me and handed me a ticket. “How much?” I asked. He said, “free. You’ll be sitting with my family, so act straight.” I thanked him and shook hands before he walked off. I started the climb up the walkway where Melissa realized it was the uphills that were hurting me so badly. I made it through the game without the pain getting too much worse. Sometime, I was just barely in tears, others I was standing and yelling with the rest of the crowd. I jokingly told Janet that I had a collapsed lung, and she laughed saying that I wouldn’t be talking if that were the case.

Looking for the first ride out of there, we all left in the third quarter and walked for miles to Dad and Janet’s car. At this point, I was taking mouth sized breaths and wiping tears from my face. I could barely keep up, and Dad thought this was a good time to make fun of how I was walking trying to keep my right shoulder rigid, calling me Frankenstein. After I knew I couldn’t make it, we got a cab to bring me and Melissa back to my apartment. I just wanted to lie down so badly. When I finally did, I felt like a brick was rolling around in my right chest as I changed orientation. I decided I wanted to lay in the tub, and it did seem to help. I put pressure on the knotted muscles in my back, and felt a shot of pain go through my whole body followed by my lungs closing. After a few seconds of terror, I could clearly hear wheezing in my right lung. I got dressed and finally let Melissa take me to UT hospital.

Check in: 10min. Waiting on triage nurse: 10min. Examination:20 min. He asked me how I felt about pneumonia but also told me that I fit the profile for a pneumothorax: tall, thin, male, 20-30y/o. He seemed to doubt himself and sent me to billing. Waiting on billing 10min. Dealing with billing:20min while I was crying uncontrollably and Melissa had to take care of everything. WAITING AREA:20min sitting there dying. Finally they get me a room and I told the whole story three times to three different people. EKG showed nothing. Oxygen allowed me to stop gasping so much. The doctor was too focused on finding out what illicit drugs I was on to do anything for my pain. They sent me off to get a chest x-ray, parking me in the hallway alone and dying. Melissa had to stay in the room so the doctor could continue asking if I had done any drugs. I was so much happier when I got back to the room to not be alone. Later the doctor came in all smug, “We found out why you can’t breathe and what is causing all your pain. You have a pneumothorax and you will have to get surgery to have a chest tube put in.” I’m expecting to be wheeled off to a sterile room, instead about ten people pile into my room and start setting up. I was talking with the surgeon the whole time she was setting up then telling them they should move the blood pressure cuff to the other arm. I was given local anesthetic and something so that I “wouldn’t freak out”. I was fully conscious, aware, and on no pain meds when she cut into me. The really traumatic part of it was that she never let up for even a split second, so I was never able to catch even a little breath. The drowning sensation was worse that the pain that was causing my toes to almost pop as I was curling them like a fist. I have no memory of what happened after they all left and Melissa came back in. Next thing I remember, Dad and Janet were also there. I laid in the ER room for hours, crying in pain and very depressed.

I finally got a room and was put on a rotation of morphine and Percocet. Every morning at 6 the doctor would stop in. At about 8 I’d get an x-ray. The first day I was on suction, next it was kept sealed, and the third they removed the chest tube. I broke down when I found out my mom wasn’t coming. The morphine wasn’t working well so I asked to switch to a 2hr rotation of a lower dose of Percocet. To do so, they took me off of all my medicine from 1am to 8am the second night except for morphine at 6am. I literally stared at the clock with each loud click for hours crying just waiting for them to come bring me something. But, I had many great friends come visit, Dad and Janet were there every day, and Melissa stayed with me the entire 4 days. The cause completely unknown except that a bleb ruptured releasing air. I have a 40% chance of this happening again, meaning my life is going to be changing dramatically. Thanks again Melissa, Dad, and Janet.

Colorado Part 2

We came to quite a surprise heading up to the campground by Mt Bierstadt. After going through Georgetown, the road was completely closed for the night due to construction. With no better options, we set up our tent near the road block. At 5:30am the crew came up the mountain in their diesel trucks and construction equipment. We made our way up to Gnuella Pass and hit the trail at 8. The first half mile was through marshland then we gradually climbed. It steadily increased to a steep rocky trail with the last half mile as a boulder field. It was windy as heck but at the very top we were able to get to the other side for a rest. We had a great view of Mt Evans and debated about trying to head there. Looking down Sawtooth trail that connect the two, we decided we would definitely need to be roped up. Heading down, we chatted with our new friend Jenny and felt our knees crumble as we descended. We drove back to Denver to check out Great Divide Brewery which was closed Sunday. The environment we pretty sweet offering is a free sample of four of their beers. They were all pretty good, but their Oak Aged Jeti Imperial Stout was better than the rest. I had high expectations for the Wild Raspberry Ale, but it just didn't have much taste. We had our big planning session for which hikes to hit then headed back to the mountains.
First time ever, James got to throw his Jeep into 4wheel drive. Heading on up to Gray's Peak trailhead in the dark, we almost ran into some panicked elderly hikers heading down the road. Their car couldn't make it up so they caught a ride, hiked for the day, then came back way too late at night. There was no one left to ride down with, and with no flashlights, they were in pretty poor shape. Of course, we gave them a ride down. After reaching the end of the road, we set up our tent right beside the river. It got down to the thirties and my summer bag just wasn't cutting it. At about 6am all the other hikers showed up with their slamming doors echoing through the valley. After a hot breakfast, we hit the trail. It wasn't all that bad, but we were taking it pretty slow. We went straight for the saddle in between the two 14ers and chose the harder of the two to hit first. From Torrys Peak we had amazing views then headed back down to the saddle. The climb to Grays took a while with the altitude headaches. We were very fortunate with the gorgeous weather as it was sunny all the way down. We were pretty dang tired so we set up tent there by the river for a second night. This time we got far from the parking lot and bundled up as warm as we could. We slept right until the sun hit the tent. With the pitch of the valley sides, this wasn't until 9:30. A few minutes drive down the road we look back to see the tire completely flat. With no flat slots to change it, we had a wonderful time with the Jeep falling off the jack no mater how many blocks we pit in front of the tires. An hour later we're rolling down and head to the gas station with wifi. Giving James his internet fix, we got ourselves some greasy burgers. We went to Dillon Lake to check out the highest sail club in the states. After searching a owner seeking a crew with no success we headed to Dillon Dam Brewery. The Brown was amazing, kinda like a lighter chocolate stout. Asking the bartender, we found another brewery only a few blocks away, Pug Ryan's. James walked up to the bar and ordered the Kiltlifter. "Oh Jaka, you flatah meh" bartender. Oh and, "when I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race" HG Wells. Moving on, we walked off the alcohol with a wade in the alpine lake. Continuing the Tour de Brassiere, we arrived in Fresco for Backcountry Brewery. The Switchback Amber was a great marzen. The bar physics debate ensued; Jake +1. We found another sailboat marina here at the other end of the lake and are wondering how the other claims the highest when it obviously shares the title. We drove to Kite Lake saving the Breckenridge Brewery as a reward for the next hike.

Colorado Part 1

After waiting a whole summer, James and I found time to pull of our Colorado trip. The 20 hour drive was long, but I didn't expect Kansas to be so incredibly boring. Pulling into Colorado, we were exhausted. We decided no hiking for that day so looked into some leisurely activities. After a quick look, it was a no-brainer that we needed to head to Golden to visit the Coors Brewery. We walked to stretch our legs, checking out the little shops and playing in Clear Creek, the one that's pictured on every can of Coors (remember Rocky Mountain spring water). The line for the brewery tour was wrapped out and around the parking lot, all in the hot sun. After a half an hour, I couldn't take it anymore and headed to buy a couple tallboys and joined James back in line. I've never been to a large-scale beer production facility (Sam Adams doesn't actually make much in Boston) and this was completely different. The kettle room held at least a hundred huge copper kettles and smelled absolutely amazing. We learned about all the grains and filtration elements that I wasn't familiar with. Another thing I didn't know is that Coors makes Killians and Blue Moon. The best part of the tour was the free beer at the end in their lounge. We ran into a couple of people playing cards and had to join in the game. After several rounds of fresh beer and good rummy games, the four of us hit the bars and live music there in Golden. Four pitchers later, we found ourselves admiring the mesa formation up above Coors. We asked the bartender if there was a way to get up top. In sandles and flipflops, the four of us hit the trail only a couple blocks away. We reached the top of the cliffs right as the sky was beginning to blaze in orange and red above the town in the valley below. Of course the sunset was amazing and relaxing with our legs hanging over the cliffs was just perfect. We made it back with just enough light thanks to the full moon and went back to the bar for more live music. With plenty of fresh beer in our hands and great new friends at our sides, we danced the night away. The second morning after eggs and toast for breakfast, James and I drove up to the mountains to hike up Longs Peak. The idea was that we would probably have a hard time doing a 14er without being acclimated to the altitude. Unfortunately it was a bit worse than I thought. I was out of breath just bending over to lace my hiking boots. After a couple miles we ascended above treeline and had amazing views all around us. A mile later we came to the trail turn-off for the lake at the bottom of the cliff straight to the peak. It was absolutely gorgeous looking to the cliff in front with the valley and another mountain behind us. Moving on we started climbing a bit more but it was never actually steep until we hit the boulderfield. Here was the basecamp where about ten tents were set up in rock windbreaks with ammo boxes to store the food in. At 4 we headed up the boulderfield with no trail to the appropriately named Keyhole. At 5 we went through and the view from the other side was ridiculous. The mountains seemed too steep to actually be standing and the lakes at the bottom were reflecting the sunlight straight at us. It was pretty scary because if we made one slip we were tumbling several thousand feet. The only bad part of the view were the thunderclouds staring us in the face and moving right for us. The peak was completely shrouded in clouds. We knew we only had a mile to go, but realized that we had to turn around. Being caught on these rocks in a storm would have meant death for us. We turned around and scrambled down the boulderfield, and my worse fear came true. Jumping down to a rock, I felt the tear in my left knee and the pain shoot down to my toes and up to my back. I limped six miles back down, watching the lightning overhead just waiting for my hairs to stand on end. We ended up in the dark because we were going so slow, but the stars were totally worth it. Once back to the car, we decided call James's cousin living in Denver to have a place to crash. Sleeping in, I woke to the planning session for the next few days. We decided that we needed a day off of hard hiking to let the joints rest. So if not hiking, then? Microbrews. We drove to Boulder to go on Avery's tour. It was a much smaller brewery than I've experienced, but they had a large selection and a great laid-back atmosphere. Their beers were hoppier than most and some had more than twice the alcohol content of normal beer. From there we drove to Left Hand Brewery in Longmount to enjoy a sampler of more amazing beers and great conversation with some locals. Heading back to Boulder we climbed to the top of the Flatirons. It was nothing compared to the previous day, but gave me a chance to see how my knee will do using treking poles. The view over the town was great because from over a thousand feet up, it was perfectly flat as far as you could see. It was just getting dark as we got back to the car. We grabbed a pizza and drove up to camp for the night. Pictures and video will be added when I get to a computer.

Pics!

Day 6

Mon July 27 8mi After it rained all night long, I woke to a clear sunrise. I made my oatmeal while still bundled in my sleeping bag (cooking in the shelter is a big no-no.) I got to hiking and soon knew that it just wasn't going to work. Every step my left knee felt like it was tearing apart. I climbed 1700ft to an amazing view at Kelly Knob where I fortunately had cell reception. I came to the decision that since I'll probably be leaving for a big hiking trip to Colorado this weekend, it's a good idea to get home and let this knee heal up. I hiked (limped) to the first paved road crossing and hitch-hiked down to VA-Tech. Sad to leave, but feels good knowing I knocked another 75miles off.

Day 5

Sun July 26
12mi
Come to find out my tarp is not exactly waterproof. However, it did keep me plenty comfortable through the rainy night. I woke to drizzle and decided to go ahead and pack up my stuff. As soon as I took down my tarp, it started raining hard, getting my gear pretty wet. I relaxed there at The Captain's place waiting for it to stop raining, and when they offered breakfast, I couldn't refuse. Again, I jumped to do dishes before anyone could say differently. I then took the opportunity to take a shower and got my gear ready to go. I was really hoping my knee was healed, but the 1000ft ascent at the second mile told me differently. So much for trying some big miles today. I did pass Mtn Lake Resort where supposedly "Dirty Dancing" was filmed. I'm staying at War Spur Shelter tonight because of the rain. Of course I have it to myself as I've yet to see any other hikers. Talk about solitude.

Day 4

Sat July 25 12mi This morning started out perfect. There was no rain last night thankfully. I grabbed a quick breakfast and got all my gear bundled. My blisters have all but disappeared and my muscles are feeling pretty good. My left knee however was still hurting pretty bad. I was forced to start using a hiking stick and take the downhills very slow. To ease the pain I wanted to keep my pack as light as possible. I decided to carry only enough water to make it to the next water source. Little did I know that this source wasn't flowing at all. It was little better than pond water. I had no choice because the next source was at least 7.5mi away and I was traveling much slower than normal with the bum knee. After filtering it through a bandanna and giving it a double dose of the UV, it still tasted like swamp. The next 7.5 miles took me 5hours, quite a bit slower than my usual 2.5mph pace. I was forced to keep my left leg straight as if I was in a cast. No pain at all when I did this. Unfortunately, that's impossible while you're hiking up and down mountains with your house on your back. But, I did see a bear cub. I wanted to keep it, but it ran away to quick. I made it to the next shelter in perfect time for a rain shower. I cooked a big bowl of rice, unable to decide if I should be cooking dinner or just grabbing a snack. I had plenty of daylight and needed more miles so I decided to continue on. I had read about "The Captain's House" and was pretty curious. The Captain has a house just across the river from the trail and lets people camp out on his lawn. My knees were killing me and I really wasn't looking forward to climbing the mountain to the next shelter. As I got close, I heard a stereo blasting. I saw about 6 tents pitched and a big group of people huddled around the picnic table. Of course I had to go check it out. The coolest part was taking a zip-line over the river to get there. When I pull up and introduce myself, I find out that this was a family reunion of sorts. The immediately tell me to have a seat and put a beer in my hand. I thought I was in heaven. They loved telling me their lives' stories and I told them all about mine. Before too long, I was shucking corn and getting the grill ready for steaks. I insisted for them not to cook anything for me; I'd be happy with leftovers. Of course they cooked plenty and I stuffed myself on an amazing steak dinner. I spent the rest of the time doing the dishes and offered repeatedly to help out with anything else. Definitely a great night. If only my knee can heal up for tomorrow, I'll be doing pretty good.