Landed back at the hospital this week, love. On the first day of my menstrual cycle, woke up for Lakan’s 8am basketball game, got mad at him for leaving his wet laundry in the machine overnight, made myself a cup of coffee, drove to the Y for the game, and had a lung collapse after just a few sips of coffee. I know better than to drink coffee on the first day of period. That has happened before. But I got comfortable, thinking that the surgery had fixed it. It didn’t. And I don’t plan to test it again. That was 6 days ago—and I’ve been in the hospital with a chest tube since.
While I will likely get released today, my surgeon is recommending I get a talc pleurodesis, because the mechanical one I got in September failed. They are also recommending I get on birth control to stabilize my hormones.
If you’ve been following my story, you know that I have had multiple lung collapses over the last 5 years. After this last episode, my doctors agree that I have catamenial pneumothoraces. I don’t have endometriosis, but it’s clear that there is some hormonal imbalance that is creating this awful condition.
For now, I will be drastically reducing:
stressors (cortisol has had a huge impact on my hormone levels)
caffeine
sugar
red meat
dairy
gluten
I’ve been reading about this condition and learning that while it’s considered rare, it’s causing a lot of women a lot of grief and recurrent visits to the hospital for chest tubes and repeat surgeries. Everyone’s experiences are different—some have endometriosis, some don’t, some are resolved with hormones, some with surgeries, some are still searching for the right solutions. I’m sharing this in the hopes that other women might learn from my experience and with the understanding that this is the result of environmental stress—oestregens in products, the demands of surviving in the Bay Area as a single parent, and systemic traumas related to race, gender, income, divorce…
My goal for the next 3 months…is to SIMPLIFY. Wish me luck as I am finding it really really hard to change my lifelong habits.
