I am writing this after just coming back from spending about 24 hours in Vancouver General Hospital. I am doing ok, still very fragile and feeling slight heart burn type pains. I will go back on Tuesday morning for a check up and an x-ray.
So how did all this happen?
Well on Thursday morning (14th) I took a walk to an area locals call "The Drive" there are a lot of independent stores, cafés and grocers on this street. I sat in a familiar café and had a drink while writing a blog (this will follow). I spent a good two hours there writing and listening to a Pastor's speakers panel from a conference in America recently. Then I decided to move on, I started to feel hungry so I went to a vegetarian café and sat down with my food, almost immediately after sitting down my chest really started to hurt and it quickly spread to the right side, all over my right lung and shoulder. I knew this wasn't normal! I finished my food and did all that I knew what to do which was go home. This was about a 30 minute walk. During the walk the pain was agonising. I sent a text to Alexa and asked her to look up the symptoms of a collapsed lung. I finally made it home and sat down to rest. Very quickly the pain eased as I researched the symptoms. It did sound very much like a minor Pneumothorax, so I called up a BC health advise line and they told me to go to a walk-in clinic. I found the nearest one to be where I had just came from. So i walked the 30 minute walk back. The pain came back, but this time not as strong but still very noticeable. There I had to pay $120 before I could see a doctor. The doctor was worried about an irregular heartbeat and decided I should go to hospital. I was admitted into Accident & Emergency at about 8pm Thursday. There they did many tests; bloods, ECGs, vitals, x-rays and then even a CT scan to check for a blood clot. It came back that I did indeed have a Pneumothorax. The doctor said it was small but needed to be sorted so he inserted a tube into my side... not a pleasant experience... Then a couple more x-rays later and some time he said that the gas wasn't draining out as fast as he would like and I was to be admitted into a Lung specialist ward to be seen by consultants there. This was at 4am Friday morning.
Once in the ward I managed to get maybe 30mins to an hours sleep before being poked and prodded again. The consultant said that the x-rays looked better and that they were going to close the tube as see if my lung was leaking anymore gases. They did this and said wait 6 hours for another x-ray. Six hours later, about 3pm Friday, and I am having my final x-ray. The consultant came back and said that my lung was doing well and the gases had mostly gone so I was able to have the tube removed from my side and to go home, with a follow up on Tuesday 18th to see how I am doing.
So this was my eventful 24 hours in a Vancouver hospital. Please be praying for my health as I still don't feel right and also be praying that my travel insurance claim will go smoothly otherwise this could be a very expensive ordeal.
Many thanks for your prayers over the 24 hours, I really felt God's presence with me in that hospital.
Oh and if you see my mum, tell her I am ok!
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