this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
10 points (85.7% liked)

Asklemmy

43939 readers
415 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

How close was it?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] krayj@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

On April Fools Day 2006, I woke up to what I later found out was a spontaneously collapsed lung.

Anyone who's experienced a collapsed lung can assure you the treatment is brutal. They basically cut open your chest between two of your ribs (on the affected side), insert a tube and sew it in place, then apply a light vacuum on that tube to suck out the air and fluid between your chest cavity and lung, causing your lung to re-inflate. You also go through a powerful round of antibiotics and are put on oxygen to make up for your 50% reduced lung function. The suction process takes about a week, and the pain is excruciating and immune to powerful pain killers.

I would have died from this without the emergency surgery and treatment, and if it had been just 60 years earlier, a collapsed lung would have been a death sentence.