Last wednesday, I got a sudden pain in my back, and then in my chest, and I was incredibely short of breath, and more than a little scared, so I dragged myself up to the University Health Centre. On foot. Which wasn't a very good idea. It took me three times as long as normal, and I had to keep stopping to get my breath back.

I managed to get myself an emergency appointment, and the doctor had a listen to my chest, and sent me up to the hospital with a suspected pnuemothorax. Which is a hole. In my lung.

I got to A&E, and had an X-Ray which confirmed that my lung had collapsed, because air was coming out of the hole in my lung, into the cavity between the lungs and the ribs, and forcing the lung down.

The hole was spontaneous. There was no reason for it at all. Apparently, tall, young, very thin men are susceptible to it, and I guess two out of three was good enough for me! A blister forms on the lung, pops, and makes the hole.

So the first stage of treatment was to place a needle through the intercostal space between my ribs, into the cavity, and draw the excess air out with a syringe. They took out just short of two litres, I had another X-Ray, and the lung was back up, so they dispatched me home.

Later in the evening, I felt breathless again, so we went back, and the next step was to put in a chest drain. This was a tube that went through the ribs into the cavity, which was connected to a bucket thing filled with water. As I breathed out, the air went into my lung, out through the hole, and down the tube into the bucket, where you could see it bubbling through the water. The first tube didn't go into the right place, so they had to it again. I should have been in the hospital for 24 hours with this drain, and then I'd be dispatched.

Of course, that wasn't the case. On friday, the doctor came round, and the drain wasn't bubbling, so they sent me for another X-Ray, and the tube had moved in my chest, so they had to put in drain number 3. This gave me the most intense pain I've ever experienced in my life. I just sat on my bed, tears pouring down my face, and inable to breathe, because the oxygen line in my nose didn't work because my tears had made my nose blocked.

So I had this drain in for another four days, with X-Rays and line flushings galore, till eventually they told me it was back up, and removed it, and sent me for two more X-Rays. One at night, and another in the morning.

And then they told me that the last X-Ray looked blurry, and the lung either wasn't up, or my blood vessels weren't reaching the outer limits of my lungs. So they booked me in for a cat scan, which I had this morning. Thank fully, this showed that the hole had healed, and that the lung was mostly fine, and so I was dispatched home, where I enjoyed Pizza Hut, as a coming home treat.

The End.