Lung biopsy

[Guest guest]

Hi all,

Well, I am back home yesterday from my lung biopsy. Diagnosis:

UIP. I have had the worst week!! I will definitely be one of the

ones who had the horrible lung biopsy experience!! They had me on a

morphine pump and I started getting a migraine Monday night at 10P.

They came in and gave me a Toradol injection. I have not had a

migraine in over a year. By Tuesday evening the migraine was totally

unbearable, plus with the chest tube in, I could barely move and

every time I coughed I felt like I was being stabbed in the side!!

Around midnight Tuesday, they gave me another Toradol injection

(which was my third cuz they gave me one at 6P). They had told me

you could hit the morphine pump every 10 minutes, if needed, so I did

cuz I could not even bear the light in my eyes. I was lying on the

bed with a cold compress on my eyes. Then the nausea hit. They gave

me Zofran and it was minimal help. An hour later, still nothing --

still nauseous. I threw up so many times it was unreal. It was like

20 times within 30 minutes. Nothing but blood. So I panicked, which

only made it worse. I tried to cry and then I couldn't breathe at

all. (I was on oxygen the whole time I was in there. Oh, and

speaking of, does oxygen normally burn and make your nose bleed a

lot?) Anyhoo -- They gave me yet another injection of Toradol and an

injection of Phenergan in my thigh and I don't remember much after

that until waking up at 6 a.m. the next morning. At least I FINALLY

went to sleep. Take note, NEVER GO TO A HOSPITAL IF YOU WANT TO GET

SOME REST!!! LOL!!! My BP dropped to 89/40 and my temp went up to

99.9. I am one of those weird people whose normal temp is 95 to 96,

so when mine is 99, it is like a normal person's temp being 101 to

102. I was burning up!! At 6 a.m. they came in with yet ANOTHER

shot of Toradol, my Nexium, Celexa, Rhinocort Aqua (which made me

cough even more), Singulair, and Advair Diskus. I am thinking, ok,

now I can sleep some more. Oh, how was I wrong!! Here comes

Respiratory with this Air Lite thingy that I have to breathe into 10

times and try to make it hit 1000 which would be 1 liter of oxygen.

I hit 1000 two times, the rest of the time it was under 500. They

sent that home with me and told me to do 10 reps every 2 hours to

prevent pneumonia. They sent me home with Lorcet Plus and so far

since being home yesterday at 3PM, I have only taken 2, which I think

is pretty darn good!! However, I weighed this morning and scales say

I actually GAINED 6 pounds this week!! I hardly ate anything while I

was in the hospital and what I did eat, came right back up. So, I am

thinking the meds are making me gain weight. The only new med I got

since being home was Lorcet Plus, so hopefully I will not need that

long cuz I tried so hard to lose 20 pounds last year and so far I

have kept it off until this week. I am only 4'11 " and stayed from

128 to 132 all through the Holidays (which I thought was great). Got

up this morning at nearly 138 and totally freaked out!!! That is

nearly 10 pounds from my norm. Well, I am back home in my territory

now, so I am going to get this weight back off. I bought nothing but

healthy foods before I went to surgery, so that should help a lot. I

live in an apartment on the second floor, so I tried to get

everything I could before I left for surgery, so as to not have to

carry anything up the stairs for at least a couple of weeks.

I am feeling much better today, though, and have a return appointment

for recheck with the surgeon on February 5 and have my regularly

scheduled appointment with my pulmo doc on January 31. Guess he will

tell me from there where we can go next.

I actually feel good overall now, except if I have to take a really

deep breath, i.e, when I sigh, yawn, laugh, or cough, it still feels

like someone is stabbing me in the right side. Other than that, I

guess I am on the road to recovery.

Oh yea, what really flipped me out through all this was the first day

my surgeon made his rounds, he came by and said " the path report from

that right lung was really bad. " And that was it!! He turned around

and walked out. My mom, bless her heart, stayed with me the whole

time and I would not have made it without her. She tried to catch

him down the hall to get more info, but he was out of sight.

I caught him the next morning, though, and had him explain further

and that is when he said the diagnosis was UIP.

There was one other incident that happened while I was there. One of

the nurses came in to give me my meds for the day and she dropped my

Singulair on the floor, turned out and picked it up and said, Oh,

well, we can wipe it off. Put it in the cup and gave it to me. Can

you believe it? A hospital, no less?? LOL!!!

Well, sorry to be so long, but I really needed to vent!!! Thank you

all so much for the support. All of your information before this

really helped me a lot in getting through it. I am so glad it is

over. Now just to try and move on through the rest of the process of

this horrible disease. Having you all is making it so much easier!!

Thank you all for being there and if I can do anything for anyone

having this procedure from my experience, please let me know. I will

be more than happy to help!!

Caro