Tanya's Lung Transplant 10: 8/21/09

Tanya's in a lot of pain right now, her doctor changed a lot of her medications and says that her body is "getting used to it." He says he wants to gradually introduce the meds back into her system so they can avoid another fever episode, which was a nightmare. Unfortunately one of the meds they discontinued was her effexor which is an antidepressant, so on top of the pain, her mind and emotions are haywire as well. It doesn't help at all that she suffered a very traumatic experience while on the vent, which caused her to pull the tube out herself, which is not the best thing to do, because you can damage your vocal cords. She woke up with the vent in her throat, which is horrifying to experience, because it feels like you're suffocating, and she laid in bed for three hours trying to gesture and communicate to the nurses that she couldn't breathe, but they didn't understand. They kept telling her to wait and be still, but they wouldn't remove the vent. Maybe her doctor wanted them to wait until he got to the room before they pulled the vent out. He happened to show up almost immediately after she "self-extubated." There are many more details to this horrible experience that I feel are not my place to disclose, so I'll let her tell the story when she's able. I can't imagine how that must have felt. I hope this pain she's having gets better soon. It helps to try to think of all the people who have gone through this and say that yes the pain is awful, the worst pain ever imaginable, but it gets better, and the benefits are worth it ten times over.