Part I - The objective is to remove the air from around the lungs
I was eighteen the first time my lung collapsed. The ER doctor called it a “spontaneous pneumothorax.”
He said "Pneumothorax" is Latin for "lung collapse." Then "spontaneous" must be Latin for "spontaneous." I was surprised to learn that the word "spontaneous" is actually in the medical description. It's sort of the official medical way of saying, “We have no official idea what the official medical cause of this lung collapse is."
He said it happens to tall slender people. Guilty as charged. Apparently we skinny-folk have long, tapered lungs that thin at the top, allowing little blebs of flesh to occasionally (and spontaneously) burst, releasing air, and compromising the vacuum between your lung and lung wall. Most people don't realize it is this vacuum pressure in your lung cavity that keeps your lungs inflated. It's as if your lungs have been sucked into the lung wall from the outside, like a big bubble-gum bubble is sucked into your mouth after you pop it, or rather than being "held up" by air pushing from the inside, like a balloon.
I was sitting with my dad in his hotel room when it happened. At first it felt like a cramp in the muscle between my shoulder blade and spine. I tried to stretch the muscle or massage it to relieve the cramp, but I couldn’t seem to find which exact muscle was causing the discomfort. The painful sensation started as a pinpoint between my shoulder blades, then spread to the whole left side of my back. I later learned that this is what it feels like to have your lung tear away from the lung wall.
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