Sometimes, with chemo, the pleural effusion will resolve itself. In my case, it didn't, so I was still highly dependent on oxygen.
The ward doc tried to reduce the volume of oxygen, but after checking on the fingertip pulse oximeter, he had to set it back to 5 ltrs again. He mentioned that we had to do a chest tap. Memories of Changi came flooding back. I asked if a syringe could be used to draw fluid instead, and, surprise, he said he would use a syringe.
There were certain things to watch out for in doing a chest tap, and that is that there could be bleeding or air could get sucked in.
I was to have the chest tap done on the hospital bed. I sat at the edge of one side of the bed, holding onto the trolley table. The doc sat on the bed behind me and used a syringe to tap the fluid from my chest. He had with him a junior doctor that he was also teaching and guiding and a nurse to give assistance. He said that they would be drawing the fluid until I started coughing. I didn't understand what he meant. I had stopped coughing ever since they gave me cough mixture to stop my cough after I had the chest pain so that my chest would not be stressed further.
Initially, when the tapping started, I felt fine. But as more and more fluid was tapped, I could feel the cough coming and tried to control myself. Then, suddenly, it felt as though the right side of my throat had a lot of air bubbling up. I was coughing like crazy by now and they had to stop tapping. They had managed to tap about 700 ml of fluid from my right chest. The doc said he had wanted to tap more if I hadn't started coughing.
The whole procedure lasted half an hour or less. After that, my breathing improved. It was a relief.
Slowly, I tried to wean myself from the oxygen as I was worried that I might be too dependent on it.
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