two liters

ellen woke me at about 1:15 am, friday morning. she said that she was having trouble breathing and couldn't sleep. we were checked out of the hotel and on the road by 1:45.

we got to the emergency room at duke by 4:00 am. there were about 10 people waiting but ellen was taken back within 5 minutes. they got her to her room in the e.r. and did some blood work and did a chest x-ray. after seeing the 'impressive' (the doctor's word) amount of fluid on her right lung they decided to admit her.

we were taken to a private room on the 9th floor and waited a while to see someone (this was good because we were both able to take a nap for a little bit). later in the afternoon two doctors came in and gave us the options. she could have a chest tube inserted to remove all of the fluid or she could have most of the fluid drawn off from a needle through her back. the first option would have required her to stay, at least, overnight. the second option, though most likely not permanent, would give her relief until she checked into the hospital on monday. the second option seemed more reasonable because if she has to have the chest tube later, she'd already be in the hospital.

the two doctors came in to do the procedure at her bedside. they opened up a kit and filled her back full of lidocaine but made one crucial mistake: they told ellen everything that they were doing. "you'll feel some pressure from the needle" and "now i'm insering the tap to draw the fluid" were not things that ellen wanted to hear. they were able to pull out 3 small specimen tubes before ellen called it quits and decided that she wanted to throw up.

after some time ellen and the doctors decided that they would give it another try with one major change: they weren't allowed to tell her anything. this time we all chatted about where we were all from, schools attended, etc. after 20 minutes or so they had pulled two liters of fluid from her lung. it was astonishing. she had been trying to breath with all of that fluid pulling down on her lung.

they discharged her and said she should feel better for the next few days. fortunately we were able to get into the apartment a few days early so we are taking it easy and trying to rest for the upcoming week.

two liters.