A couple of weeks after returning from Dublin I started getting a bit short of breath which became progressively worse quite quickly. Within 2 weeks I was struggling to walk up a flight of stairs without having to sit down for 5 mins afterwards. I have to admit that this frightened the life out me as I was a reasonably fit and healthy guy who exercised and was not over weight. To suddenly not be able to do anything I wanted made me feel about 90 years old. A visit to the Dr's and one chest x-ray later I was diagnosed with Pleurisy (fluid on my right lung) and an appointment was set up with a chest consultant for the 6th March.

I attended hospital and underwent a barrage of tests and a lot of poking and prodding which concluded with the fitting/insertion of a chest drain. If you haven't seen a chest drain imagine a hosepipe attached to a sealed bucket with a tap in the pipe and you wouldn't be far wrong.

The fitting of the drain wasn't too uncomfortable I suppose, the local anaesthetic which was administered via injection which was actually worse. Even the biopsy wasn?t too bad despite the odd sensation of feeling someone take a chunk out of your lung without the pain. All of this however, pales into insignificance compared to the pain and discomfort I felt when they started to drain the fluid by opening the tap. The effect of fluid on the lung is to crush the organ thereby removing all the air. Unfortunately, there was so much fluid that opening the tap for only a few second drained nearly a litre of fluid. The net effect of this is to re-inflate the lung, the side effects of this are coughing, pain and nausea like I have never experienced. As the air rushes back in all you want to do is breath out, which you cant, this is interspersed with a coughing fit and the feeling that you are about to empty the contents of your stomach over the Dr standing next to you. All the while a pain kept shooting through my shoulder which felt like the Dr's assistant was stabbing me with the syringe used to administer the local (she wasnt but you get the idea). After a few seconds the Dr shut off the tap at my behest and everything bar the cough and the pain slowly dispersed.

Looking back I suspect that from a fly on the wall perspective it probably looked quite commical. At the time, however, I didnt know whether to laugh, cry, throw up, cough or lamp the Dr!

I was ultimately admitted and spent the next 6 days in hospital.

Lessons learnt #1. If they tell you it wont hurt and you should'nt feel much, you should ask them how they know as they are probably wrong.
Lessons learnt #2. Morphine? the drugs DO work.

Items removed from me - 4.5 litres of plural fluid
Substances administered - Copious amounts of morphine, antibiotics and a couple of bags of saline for good measure.