Biggest Scare of my Life

 Jason right after his surgery Aug. 2011

Back in August of 2011, I had one of the biggest scares of my life. It started off like a normal day. We were just laying around the house, watching TV or sitting on computers when my husband went downstairs to go to the restroom. Nothing weird about it. Then my life changed forever.

Our roommate, Brad, yelled up the stairs that I needed to get down there and call 911. I, of course, ran downstairs and then I saw him. My husband was laying on the floor, outside the bathroom gasping for breath. The ambulance took him to the hospital where they could not find anything wrong with him other then low oxygen levels. They thought it was his heart as he was having pain on his left side of his chest. They sent him to a hospital that had a heart center where he stayed stable overnight. They did several tests and found that his left lung had collapsed and his chest cavity was filling with air. That was causing his lung to be crushed and put his other internal organs at risk of displacement.

To fix this, they had to put in a chest tube. This procedure still haunts my dreams today. My husband was scared to death as was I. They were going to cut him open and stick a tube in between his ribs while he was AWAKE! To say "I lost it" is not really an accurate description of how I felt and behaved. They made me leave the room to put this tube in. I fell to the floor outside of his room and bawled. Not only were they doing this horrible procedure, but I couldn't even comfort him while they did it. What seemed like hours passed. Finally, I walked back to his room where he was resting quietly in his bed with his new tube. They had him on pain killers and he was pretty sleepy.

For the next week, I spent my life in the hospital by his side only leaving to shower at home and sleep a hour or two here and there. Brad watched the kids so I could focus on my husband. When I was at home, I was useless. I cried and bawled my eyes out and just could not think straight. Jason was in good condition, but the hole in his lung was not healing up. They said he had a spontaneous numothorax. There were sores, known as blebs, on his lungs caused by smoking and these blebs were very thin spots. One bleb had busted and caused this hole in his lung. Since it would not heal, they would have to do surgery to fix it.

Jason went into surgery and did great. They had to remove part of his lung because the sore caused too much damage to repair, but he was going to be okay and relatively healthy once more. We were notified that he has several other blebs on his other lung that would have to heal over time. When Jason awoke from surgery, he was in a LOT of pain. The new chest tube was metal and was rubbing on the back of his chest cavity, causing a lot of pain. It took them several hours to find a drug that would curb the pain. In the meantime, I was sitting by his bedside rubbing his hair in a soothing motion trying to calm my crying husband. It was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do in my life. To watch a loved one in pain, and not be able to fix it, is pure torture. Later that evening, they were able to get Jason calm and comfortable and he finally slept. I spent a lot of time sitting next to my husband while he was asleep, just watching him.

I learned through all this that he is my world. I am not a believer in God, but I can see how people get swept up in his idea. I thought "if he only makes it through this, I'll...." and all those other things you promise yourself when someone is in trouble and you feel helpless. Two days after his surgery, Jason was cleared to come home. It was a long recovery, even at home, but he was determined to get better and I was determined to make him better. Today, Jason is as healthy as he can be expected to be and we have stopped smoking for good. I have gone to get help for the nightmares and I think I am over it. It is a time in my life that I will never forget, but just being able to share this story with you and not bust out bawling is an accomplishment in itself. I will always be protective of my husband, but I can now let him live his life without restraints and fears. I don't think that I will ever look at life the same way because of going through this, but I do look at it in a better light then what I did before my husband got sick.

I am sure a lot of you don't see a point to this story, but for me it helps. It helps to get all the feelings out, to move on, and put this part of my life behind me. To look forward to the rest of my days with my husband. It was a VERY hard time in both our lives, but we made it through and we are happy, healthy and in love more than we have ever been in our lives.

 Jason and Courtney Shepard 2011

This post is for my wonderful husband of 5 years. Here is to the us...our love....and growing old together.