LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) — One cough, a copious quantity of phlegm and blood, and immediately I used to be in a life-threatening scenario.
The heartbeat oximeter mentioned the oxygen stage in my blood was 30%. I referred to as a pal, who in flip referred to as 911.
The Delhi Township Fireplace Division was dispatched to my residence on the very southern fringe of town of Lansing. Paramedic Sam Szypula was a part of the crew that responded.
Pulse oximeter readings are an estimate of blood oxygen. Due to this, altering or trending ranges are sometimes extra necessary than single readings. When utilizing a pulse oximeter, pay specific consideration as to whether oxygen ranges are decrease than earlier readings.
“91 to 100% is where, kind of, you’d want someone to be, to be at a normal level of oxygen,” Szypula says.
When he and his crew discovered me on my couch, my pulse oximeter nonetheless measured 30%.
“Whoa, this was undoubtedly an indication this individual wants oxygen now, and we have to be sure that oxygen is moving into their lungs,” he says of his response.
Simply ten days earlier than, I’d undergone a robotic-assisted surgical procedure to take away my proper decrease lung lobe to take away adenocarcinoma, a kind of lung most cancers. Our lungs are composed of a complete of 5 lobes—two on the left facet and three on the correct facet. Removing of one in every of these lobes is known as a lobectomy.
The aim of this surgical procedure is to take away all of the most cancers from the physique, and is taken into account “curative.”
This can be a CT Scan of Todd Heywood’s lungs taken Could 11. It exhibits Heywood’s lacking proper decrease lung lobe, which was eliminated to take away a cancerous tumor. (Courtesy Todd Heywood/WLNS)
Some individuals, like me, will face a brief course of chemotherapy after the primary tumor’s removing.
A uncommon complication of this surgical procedure leads to a gap on the backside of the lung the place the connections between the decrease and center lobes have been sewn shut after the decrease lobe removing. This complication is known as a fistula. It’s a life-threatening occasion.
Research present that of people that have this complication, between 2% and three% survive.
When Szypula and the Delhi crew arrived within the early afternoon of Jan. 13, nobody knew there was a gap within the backside of my lung and it was collapsing. The collapse resulted in a “rend”, a tear alongside your entire left facet of the lung.
(FILE/WLNS)
I used to be rapidly trundled onto a stretcher and into the again of an ambulance.
Szypula says that whereas he was listening to my lungs behind the ambulance, he might hear fluid in my lungs. He decided it was probably blood. He and different medical personnel tried to get my oxygen stage up by placing a CPAP masks over my face. The masks forces oxygen deep into the lungs utilizing additional stress.
I vaguely recall the expertise besides that the masks terrified me, and I tried to tear it off my face. I’ve no different reminiscences from this level till days later, as I used to be being moved from the McLaren Vital Care Unit to an everyday hospital mattress – roughly 5 days later.
Whereas the final reminiscence was of ripping the masks off, Szypula says that they have been in a position to coax me into placing the masks on. After that, I used to be in a position to present a full medical historical past because the ambulance rushed to McLaren, lights and sirens blaring.
When an emergency car is dashing by means of site visitors with lights and sirens on, Szypula says it’s a request to different drivers to yield and transfer to the facet of the street.
“Obviously we don’t want to seem, you know, pushy or abusive of that power,” he says. “But yes, I’d say for the most part, people are good and do their best to get out of the way.”
Szypula says, on the finish of the day, the lesson from my ambulance trip is easy – however necessary.
‘The important thing is to not be too proud to call 911, because it’s what we’re right here for,” he says. “We’re here to help, and kind of delaying that care could be the difference between life and death.”
