I was born in August 1991. A healthy baby weighing 7pound 7. I had a pretty normal childhood despite having epilepsy and dyslexia. I was bright and enjoyed school and playing outside. Growing up I didn't really have any signs of being particularly poorly. I had my first operation when I was 12 to have my tonsils taken out but that was the extent of medical interventions.
Through out my child hood I was a very active child taking part in dance, netball, taekwondo, ice dancing and enjoyed going to the local swimming pool. At the age of 16 I found my love for ballroom dancing and competed at regional and national level.
At the age of 18 (2010) I was enjoying my summer break after a long first year of university studying for a degree in social work. A degree which i did not finish. I had booked a holiday with my dancing friends and was very excited. 2 days before this holiday I agreed to meet an old friend from way back in London.
It was up on arriving in London that I realised something was wrong. I was in so much pain I could hardly concentrate. Pains in my chest so bad I thought I was going to die. I stopped in a hotel to catch my breath but they quickly saw I needed more then a sit down and phoned 999. I was blue lighted to the local hospital where after 4 hours I was diagnosed with air outside my lung on the left side. This was aspirated to relief the pressure. For those you who don't know that this, I had a local anesthetic and a needle was passed between my ribs to syringe the air out. The doctors said that this kind of injury can occur in active people so a fall while Ice skating or a lift while dancing could be the source of my problem and Itwas unlikely to ever happen again.
However 9 days later it did happen again, I had been resting as advised by the doctor and was actually asleep on the sofa when the pain struck. This time I was blue lighted to my local hospital where they found my right lung was barely visible on the X-ray and my left lung had a small collection of air outside it. Despite this my oxygen was 99%. After a 6 hour precedure a chest drain was put into my right side to slowly ( over 5 days) release the air in my chest allowing my lung to reinflate. This is an uncomfortable process.
A specialist for the heart and lung research centre heard about me and felt there something more to this story then dancer damage and insisted I was sent for a CT scan. This found major irregularities in my lung wall structure and part of my lung was completely exposed. So after 6 weeks healing time, feeling very poorly and sleepy I was sent to Oxford from my home town of Basingstoke to have pironeering surgery to join my lung to the pulural lining (I will leave out the details in case your reading this eating your dinner) to protect the lungs fragile surface. Following this i was told in 6 months it would be like it never happened,
But this wasn't the case. I never returned to normality and in 2012 I began to notice that things were not how they should be, I was struggling a bit and found myself prone to infection. This was passed off as post operation scarring pain and I would improve. I finally got the attention of my GP in sept 2013 when I report coughing up blood and now finding walking and going upstairs very difficult. I Was referred to a local consultant and Lung function tests showed this was because I had lung disease which was impacting on my small airways.
I am currently waiting for a scan of heart to check for damage. I take an inhaler everyday and have been using my blue badge more. I am learning to listen to my body and learn my limits. I'm not perfect but I'm getting there
Xxx
