Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Acid Reflux Induced Pulmonary Embolism

I've had trouble these last three weeks, waking up having inhaled stomach acid. Not spit it up, inhaled it. This morning around 630, my lungs closed. I couldn't get air and was trying to breathe. I ended up pulling the acid down into the actual lung beyond the bronchial tubes. This caused a pulmonary embolism which isn't such a big deal really. It just means that I went into respiratory distress, my left lung filled with this gross salty water, and (by God's grace because I was a little woozy and even though 911 crossed my mind, I couldn't really think straight enough to call for help) I somehow managed to empty my lung. So gross. There was water and weird white foam all over. So I think the embolism actually cleared a lot of the acid. I still couldn't breathe really but managed text DG at work and he came home. I saw the doctor ASAP. I was coughing up blood all the way to the city. But I was clearing up in the hour it took us to get to the clinic. Long story short, I had the pulmonary embolism, have the acid induced bronchitis (so my airways are swollen, not really news) but my lungs are clear and oxygen is back to normal. Vivi was fine. She didn't seem to be in any distress and her heartbeat was great. I'm taking a prescription now to essentially shut off my acid production in a different way than OTC meds like Zantac do. It will take four days to actually start working completely so I need to be careful. Essentially, we do not want another embolism because it was amazing gift from God that it emptied outside of the hospital. Most pulmonary embolisms are caused by the heart giving out, but an undrained embolism can collapse the lung and cause heart failure. I was blessed. Without a culture of the foamy stuff, an embolism can't be proven so really the only outcome was injury induced bronchitis and finally getting a prescription to get my acid under control.  I was trying not to before this incident because I thought the meds might hurt Vivi but the doctor says they are safe. 

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