Spontaneous Pneumothorax at 53
I had my first ever spontaneous pneumothorax on April 25th while out on a casual bike ride. I’m a 53 year-old, very active and fit male. I’m six feet tall and weight 160 pounds. After reading about the fairly high recurrence rate, I opted for the blebectomy and pleurodesis procedure on April 27th. I am lucky to be in Nashville with good insurance so that sort of thing is readily available to me.
I’m six weeks out now. Everything is healing well. X-rays look good and I’m able to be fairly active, although I clearly have a ways to go to return to my previous level of endurance.
My primary issue at the moment is mostly anxiety. For the past few weeks I’ve been obsessively worrying that something isn’t right and that I’m somehow going to further injure myself. Even the headline about Kyle Busch dying of sepsis managed to work its way into the anxiety soup. My chest has felt tight and when I focus on it, I can easily become lightheaded and on the verge of all out panic. But I’ve been checked out and there is absolutely not a thing physically wrong with me.
I found another thread from six years ago that was all about the lingering anxiety brought on by this. Maybe this is common for any serious medical emergency, or maybe it’s somehow heightened by the location of the injury in the chest and the random and spontaneous nature of it all.
I’m curious to hear from others who have been through it and to get some perspective on how the recovery went for you. Particularly if you are an older athlete.