Wednesday update

Still here. Not a whole lot has changed. I think overall I'm feeling a bit better, though it's still very painful to breathe deeply. Dr. Dunn came in and asked me how I felt. I told her and she said, "Oh. Because your rays today look much worse." Fantastic. She pulled up the xrays and showed me how everything looked. In her opinion, the fluid at the bottom of my lungs wasn't visible because the effusion covered it up. Now that the effusion has been drained, she can see the fluid in my lung. So, she wants me to continue with the spirometer (this tube thing I breathe into that measures how much air I'm moving), and also try to keep coughing up whatever's in my lungs. She also referred me to a respiratory doctor to see if they had any more ideas on how to get the gunk out of my lungs. So then the respiratory Dr came over to see me. He said that he read the report on when they drained my lung, and was surprised that they only drained 375 mL of fluid because I clearly had 1.5-2 L of fluid in that lung. (Dr. Dunn had said this before as well.) So he thinks that there is still a significant amount of fluid in that sac around my lung
and doesn't understand why they only drained 375 mL of fluid out of that lung. That actually makes more sense to me, because I haven't been able to cough up anything at all.

So, where does that leave me? I have no idea. Before the xray this morning, the drs were talking about discharging me tomorrow (Thurs),  but I don't know if they can let me go with all this pleural effusion. My guess is that the respiratory team will recommend another drain so they can get ALL the fluid AROUND my lung. I know Dr. Dunn  will want it clear before discharging me, or at least significant forward progress.