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So what does "intervention" mean? Giving me a shot of demerol, laying me on my side, using a scalpel to cut between two of my ribs, then sticking a chest tube into my chest cavity and pushing the tube far enough up to practically pierce my shoulder. Ouch. The chest tube works with negative pressure to re-expand the lung.
Once the chest tube was inserted, the doctor advised me to go through with a surgery to permanently fix the problem. With my history and frequency of collapses, he worried about even more severe attacks. I agreed in spite of the fact that I would miss my 2nd year of university.
The surgery (a thoracotomy) was performed maybe 4-5 days later (can't remember exactly). The surgery involves knocking you out with general anaesthesia, cutting between two of your ribs, using a rib spreader to (you guessed it!) spread your two ribs enough for someone to stick their hands in, and cutting away the defective part of the lung (i.e. the parts containing the blebs). The inner lining of the chest cavity is then roughed up and powder is applied to the scarred area. When the lung re-expands, the lung gets "stuck" to the scarred tissue of the lung lining by the powder and voila! No more collapses - even if the lung wants to. Figure 6 in the link above pretty well sums it all up.
Of course, the surgery itself didn't hurt, but the recovery was very painful. I was told that any surgery involving the chest cavity was painful, and they were right. The incision line was very sore and I was on morphine (and in and out of consciousness) for the first 2-3 days. After this period I was weaned off of morphine onto demerol, then onto Tylenol 3's.
Rehab consisted primarily of just walking or getting up from my hospital bed to sit in a chair (which was a chore holding the chest tube which was inserted after the surgery to drain any blood or fluid that built up in the chest cavity) and breathing into a small instrument (I forgot the name of it) designed to expand my lung capacity.
After a week or so of rehab and an uncountable number of x-rays, the chest tube was removed to see how my lung would respond without the aid of the negative pressure. It held. Thank goodness. After another few days of observation, I was released from hospital.
Although I have a pretty high pain threshold, I found recovering at home from the thoracotomy painful and long. It was months before I could lay on my left side or do anything even remotely related to working out. But in the end, I did recover. I have a nice scar under my left arm but I have been able to return to all my previous activities over time (running, cycling, etc.). I do not notice the reduced lung capacity, except perhaps during "full-out" or "threshold" intensity workouts. I have had a pain or two in the lung since the surgery, but no collapses. The doctor's theorize they are miniscule blebs popping. Oh well, I can live with that.
They also told me that since the left lung can no longer collapse, there was a reasonable possibility that the right one would start to collapse ...
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