After coming home and relaxing for a month after Ironman Austria, I decided it was time to get back in the flow of training for Ironman USA 2002. My first bicycle ride was to be from my old house in Richmond Hill to a friend's place near Pape and Danforth in downtown Toronto. Maybe 20kms - a very short ride considering my 160km+ rides from only a month before.

I got about 4 or 5km into the ride when I felt the all too familiar pain in my back - but this time on my right side. Stupidly, I continued the ride to my friend's house but no further damage was done. The next day I went to my family doctor who immediately sent me to a thoracic surgeon. He sent me for an x-ray which confirmed a small collapse. He suggested surgery almost immediately. I was shocked. He said that because of my previous surgery, he was worried about a serious collapse of my right lung which could lead to a tension pneumothorax. To summarize, a tension pneumothorax is a life-threatening condition caused by air within the pleural space that is under pressure. Because air can't escape to the other side of my chest (as my lung is "glued" in from my previous surgery), a collapse can cause a displacement of my heart which can lead to shock and death. Not a very good outlook. When he put it like that, I decided to not play with fire and booked the surgery.

My surgery was scheduled for September 11, 2001. No kidding.

So after absorbing myself in the WTC disaster in the morning, I was wheeled into surgery in the afternoon. It appears that medical science has advanced alot since my last surgery and hospitals no longer perform thoracotomies to resolve pneumothoraces. I had a thorascopy performed (Video Assisted Thoracic Surgery or VATS) to fix my pneumothorax this time. This is a much less invasive procedure in which the removal of the blebs (a "blebectomy") is done through the use of 3 small incisions and a mini video camera. Pretty amazing. I requested an epidural upon advice of a doctor friend on the Big Bowls triathlon team mailing list. Good call. The residual effects of the epidural lasted for days after the surgery effectively numbing my entire chest (which was good).

Upon waking up from the surgery, I knew that this surgery was much easier on my body and that my recovery would be faster. I was immediately able to take full deep breaths with only a brief amount of discomfort. Big relief. My smiling face in the recovery room (I think) brought alot of relief to my family.

My recovery was very fast and was only complicated by two small incidents -

• the chest tube was inserted such that it touched a nerve that ran along my ribcage - VERY painful;
• when the chest tube was first removed my lung collapsed - guess the suture line hadn't healed properly yet - so they reinserted it and after a few days more it held upon removal

Nine days after the surgery I was sent home. I took it very slowly on the athletic comeback trail, but I've made a full recovery. You can see what I've done since the surgery by visiting my post-surgery report.

• Left Lung
• Post-surgery report
• Back to My Pneumothorax