The day my lung collapsed (long read)

As I got on the bus heading into Sydney I thought to myself: "2 and a half hours and I'm home". It's a long way, but I need to take 2 buses and a train. Having spent the weekend at my mates place in Manly, no one was willing to pick me up and drop me off, so public transport was the way. As I search through my bag of clothes and assorted items looking for my MP3 player, I find it, and notice in the packing I seem to have gotten the earphones caught, as both heads have been pulled clear off the wiring. Oh great, it's going to be a boring trip home.

I reach into my pocket to pull out my phone, to ring my parents to let them know I'm on the way home, only to find it's not there. I search my bag 3 times, but I know where it is: back at my mates place, now about 10 minutes in the other direction. "Screw it" I think, she'll send it to me later in the mail. I turn to look out the window for the 1/2 hour trip into the city.

I'll leave out the rest of the trip as nothing of importance happens, other than being bored out of my mind. You learn to accept the views of Sydney as nothing that great after living there all your life.

As I get off the bus at Wynyard station, just south of the Sydney Harbour bridge, I sling my bag over my shoulder and walk down the steps into the station. I purchase my train ticket for $3.00 and wait a few minutes for my train to appear. By this point, the train is beginning to get congested with people leaving the city to go home. I sit down on a seat on the top and that's when it happens. Something that felt similar to cramping in the upper-left section of my back. Immediately I brace myself against the back of the chair, I've been having these pains all year so far. Except this time it wasn't working. The cramping sensation begun to spread all over the upper-left section of my back, and begun to spread to my left chest and left arm too.
I thought to myself "well this is new", and I begun to try and ingore the growing pain across my body. I thought at this time I'd better ring an ambulance, or at least my parents, thinking I was having a heart attack of some kind. I reach into my pocket only to remember I have forgotten my phone back in Manly. I swear outloud.
Much of the rest of the trip is forgotten by me. I had set my mind to ignoring the pain and I was only half aware of my surroundings.My one clear memory is suddenly hearing a guy opposite me say "this kid is staring at me really strangely" to whoever he was speaking to on the phone. and I look up to realise I've probably been staring at this poor guy since the trip began. I mutter sorry to him and look away.

Finally when we get to Blacktown station, I pick up my bag and sling it over my shoulder. Excruciating pain, I fall to my knees. Someone laughs, probably cause I've just collapsed under the weight of a bag. Standing up I grit my teeth and sling my bag over my shoudler again, ignoring the pain and begin to walk to the bus depot on the other side of the station.

Reaching the top of the stairs, the pain is too much to bear and I put the bag down. As I rest, no one seems to notice that I'm not well and everyone walks on by. A flitter of annoyance at the human race goes by me, as I pick up my bag and continue walking. Half way there, I put the bag down again. I contemplate with just passing out on the floor of the station and hoping someone would help me, but decided not to. I'm not one to cause a fuss, and the pain will probably go away after a while like all the others did.

Finally I reach my bus stand, put my bag down and sit down gratefully. The pain is a constant now, almost making me blind. I see my uncle who is a bus driver, he drives past and didn't see me. That was my only hope of being helped before I get home. It is also my last memory of that afternoon before getting home, I know I caught the bus I just don't remember it.

Anyways, as I get home my parents demand to know why I didn't call them. I ignore them and collapse on the couch. My mum comes over and asks what's wrong, I say "I hurt" and when she asked where I said "here" and waved my hand all over my chest. After about 10-15 minutes of convincing me, she drives me down to the hospital. After waiting 10 minutes in line, the triage nurse calls me in, and we tell her about my pains. We also tell her about my susspected Marfans Syndrome (for more information on that, see my first blog). I left the triage nurse to go sit down and before I got to my seat, I was called in to see a doctor. They ran an ECG not once, but 3 times. They took my blood. They took me down to X-RAY. But this is where I was saved. I have had X-RAY's before this, but they never knew to look for Marfan's related stuff, and it was here they saw my problem. They took me to a bed in Emergency where a doctor told me that my lung was collapsing, and had already collapsed 40%. I wasn't even meant to be walking. They called in my parents and done a quick operation in the Emergency bed where they sliced open my side and put in a tube that would draw out all the air that was escaping my lung and this is what that was causing the pain. As they took me to a ward (by this point is was about 11 at night), the anaesethic from the OP wore off and the pain set it. It was going to be a long and painful night.

This occured to me to write as I'm going back to my friend's house in a few weeks and I remembered that this happened straight afterwards. Sorry if it's too long, but I figured it would make a good story.