Sunday, November 11, 2018

Oboz, Family, and the Hospital



Our Oboz Adventures are about traveling and the outdoors.  But they’re also about friends and family. So our latest adventure began on November 1st, when our son called us from college in Fayetteville, Arkansas to say he was headed to the hospital with a probable collapsing right  lung. As scary as it sounds, we knew that it wasn’t a life-threatening emergency as long as he got medical attention. We’ve been through this before with his left lung. He’s tall and skinny, and young males with his build are sometimes susceptible to a “spontaneous pneumo-thorax”, or, in more normal-people-speak, a lung that decides to collapse all of a sudden.  All that being said, we answered the question Donna had asked just a half-hour earlier: What are we going to do with Grandma and Grandpa today? Her folks were still visiting after Robin’s wedding on October 28. So, we packed all their stuff, threw some clothes and supplies in a suitcase of our own, and hit the road for the 430 mile drive from Spring, Texas to Fayetteville, Arkansas.


Fayetteville is beautiful this time of year.  We'd all rather be hiking!
Two chest tubes this time.  Each little box keeps a slight vacuum to remove air from his chest  cavity.

Friends always brighten up the day!

The doctor removes the chest tube while the nurse (Blue) and student nurses (red) look on.

With complete disregard to all HIPAA laws, I took a photo of Kevin's  X-ray after they removed the first tube.  You can see the remaining tube running up the middle of his lung.


Nap time for Dad.  Kevin liked to keep the room cool...
Nap time for Kevin and Mom!
Large tube removed and small tube inserted to remove the last of the air in his chest. They're giving him a small "Pleur-Evac" to carry for a few days.  Just waiting until for a last X-ray and to be released!





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