Sunrise, Sunset

I guess somewhere in all this I forgot to mention that in the midst of all this hub-bub about Nick's lungs, the doctors kept insisting that much of the problem was related to Nick's "anxiety" about his breathing. I cannot tell you how angry this makes me. For the past two weeks or so, we (Nick, myself, the doctors, and Nurse Lovely, the psych nurse) have been going round and round over this issue. Nick & I have been adamant in believing that the "problem" is NOT Nick's anxiety, rather, it is now and has always been about his broken lungs. The doctors have been pushing this issue and in the process have had blinders on to any other symptoms. Nick was happy to talk with Nurse Lovely and so he did. Nurse Lovely agreed with us. Nick was not having any real symptoms of true anxiety and therefore, she was very hesitant to start any medication. Nick was going to think about his options and talk again with Laura early this week. Unfortunately, he can't talk to anyone right now and that is because THERE WAS AND IS SOMETHING GOING ON HIS LUNGS BIG TIME....i.e. - NICK & I HAVE BEEN RIGHT ALL ALONG. I had been asking about his breathing, his left chest looked slightly bigger than his right, the other day I had listened to his breath sounds and his left lung sounded terrible. I went out and asked Dr. Pulmonary about it. I told him it sounded a lot like when Nick had gotten the pneumomediastinum and whatever it was it did not bode well.

So anyway, today Nick went to get a CT scan of his chest. They found THREE HUGE pockets of air in his left lung. It is very unusual to have "pockets" of air like this. The air is called a pneumothorax, (different from a pneumomediastinum, although he has some air there too) and it's usually just a large collection of air. However, due to the scarring and adhesions from Nick having had two surgeries on this lung, the air is trapped in pockets with the adhesions acting like dividers. Normally, chest tubes would have to be placed to get this air of of the lung. In this case, this is not possible because all three of these pockets of air are inaccessible due to other anatomical structures in the area. Also, NONE of this air showed up on any chest x-ray that Nick has had in the past week or so! And to add a cherry on top...Nick has a new pneumonia starting in his right chest.

The thoracic surgeons who have mucked up his left lung and chest has already said they "can't do anything" for Nick. The interventional pulmonalogist has said that he can't do anything to fix this with 2D ultrasound guidance. That leaves the interventional radiology people. They will be letting us know what they think tomorrow. In the meanwhile, Nick remains heavily sedated and therefore, we hope is unaware of all that his going on for the time being. I am heartsick over this and I am so tired of having my hopes dashed to the ground on a daily basis. At first I was so relieved to hear that this might actually be something that could be fixed. It wasn't even thirty minutes later that Dr. Pulmonary came in and blew it all out of the water.

It has been another day of sadness and tears in imagining that our worst fears may come true here. I feel that we need a miracle to get Nick out of this. I don't know if they will be able to ever wake him up for the sedation. I don't know if I will ever get another smile, another hug, another kiss, another thought from this beautiful and generous young man. I don't know where I will find the strenght to continue on this journey, but, continue I must. I will keep everyone posted as best I can. Please keep praying for Nick.