Tall skinny is good for lattes...

.. but tall skinny Lukey is not so good.

About 8 weeks ago, after several weeks of having sharp pains in his chest Luke, our 19 year-old, succumbed to a pneumothorax - his right lung partially collapsed. Air escapes from the lung into the chest cavity and the pressure outside the lung forces the lung to collapse. Painful as well as life-threatening. Apparently, this is fairly common is tall skinny young men and though a medical emergency, easily fixed. A simple chest X-ray showed the air in the chest cavity and then a quick emergency room procedure let the air out.

Experienced readers of this blog are expert readers of CT scans and can see the two bullae at the top of the lung (red circles added).

The follow up was a CT scan and an appointment with a cardiothoracic surgeon who straight out announced that Luke had bilateral bullous lung disease and would be operated on the next week! Bilateral meaning that his left lung had signs of the same thing so it, too, could collapse. So on Monday he had an operation to remove the blisters at the top of his right lung and have the lung "stuck" to the top of his chest lining to prevent any future collapse. Once this is done, he should be right, as the stuck lungs won't be able to collapse again.

It hasn't been as straightforward as they said and Luke has suffered post-operation with pain, sickness and draining a lot of fluid. We're pleased to say he seems to have turned the corner on Wednesday and is no longer a uniform insipid grey colour, but has a little pink in his lips and cheeks. Hopefully, he'll be weaned off the morphine / tramadol / codeine / paracetomol diet in the next day and be able to come home.

As if that weren't enough, the surgeon said his left lung definitely could use fixing too, so he'll have to go through it all again after a six week recovery.

Luke was due to do his fitness test for the paramedic course at university he is due to start in September, but obviously has had to defer that test. We all trust that the Uni will wait for him to be well and he will get to the course in September. The surgeon says there no reason he can't pursue the profession he has set his heart on but Luke has to take it easy this summer, scuppering plans to earn some money - and travel by plane.

Through it all, Luke remains charming, polite, apologetic (though there's no reason to be) and grateful. Amply demonstrating how easy it is to cherish him and be proud of him.