Ahhhhhhh, so it's been a long while. Obviously a lot has happened since last October and I can't hope to say all of it...but here's what's going on now.

On Monday morning I woke up with the right side of my chest hurting. If I would inhale deeply my chest would hurt more, and I would cough. Also, if I would would do anything even slightly strenuous, like walking a block, I would start to get out of breath.

I figured it was the start of a cough or something, and since The Polar Express was starting again on Wednesday I figured I should see a doctor about it, so I made an appointment for Tuesday.

I show up on Tuesday, and my doctor told me to go the the hospital to get some chest x-rays, which I did. Turns out my right lung was 70% collapsed.

The doctor said it's totally spontaneous. It happens to skinny 25-35 year olds (me) and 75 year olds who smoked their whole life (not me.) It just happened...

At first they thought I was going to have to spend a couple days in the hospital, but once the specialist met me he said that since I was in good shape (which surprised me) they would be able to give me the same procedure I would get in the hospital but a portable version of it.

Here is it.

As far as my understanding goes what happened was basically my lung had something on it, sort of like a little balloon, and it popped. So I had a hole in my lung. That allows the air in my lung to escape and enter my chest cavity. When air is in the chest cavity it then puts pressure on the lung which made it collapse. So the tube in my chest is going into my chest cavity, and there's a one way valve on it that allows air to exit, but not enter.

It doesn't really hurt a lot anymore, but it is comfortable. I have a tube sticking like 4 inches into my chest, but I'm actually getting used to it. I'm just really afraid of it getting snagged on something.

My doctor gave me a whole lot of pain killers, which I used the first couple days but I've been easing off of. Actually today is the first day that I haven't taken any. I don't have any bad reactions to the pain pills, but they do make me be a bit out of it, and not in a good way. Also, they give me really weird dreams, which I think is actually kind of cool.

So 75% of the time the lung heals up, and it never happens again...but if it does happen again that means that this will be a reoccurring problem...that would really suck.

I feel really good now, and I can take full breaths.

I went to the doctors today to get the tube removed though, and he did a test (placing the tube in water and having me cough to see if air escapes) and unfortunately my lung isn't fully healed yet, so the tube will be staying for a few more days, which I'm obviously pretty bummed about. I really can't wait to get the tubes out. I really do want to just rip them out.

It's so weird to have have something actually attached to your body. My life has basically been centered around this for the past few days. I'm feeling fine but I really just don't feel like going out much with this thing in me..

Tomorrow we start the pickups for The Polar Express, that should last a week, and I'm really glad that I'm able to do that.

So, other news....The Gleib Show season ended. That was a lot of fun, we don't know yet if there's going to be another season or not.

A couple weeks ago I met a really great girl, we went out one day and just had the most amazing day. She had to go out of town for like 2.5 weeks, and when she got back we had 2 great days together, and then she broke up with me. She's not ready for a relationship. So that happened....it really sucked. I liked her a lot.

I'm still going to the Laugh Factory every Tuesday. I'm friends with a lot of the comedians now and a lot of them let me tape their performance so I'm starting to get a pretty good library of standup which is a really fun thing to have.

FUCK!!!!! Right after I wrote that paragraph I walked into the next room, and snagged my tubes on the doorknob (first time it happened), and yeah....it does hurt. Looks like it's still in fine though.....hopefully that'll teach me.

I bought a camera a little bit ago, a Panasonic DVX100. It's really nice, and it's the first video camera I've owned....it's nice to have one finally.

Ok, so now actually part of the tube just got unattached, that can't be good. I just called the doctor to let him know. It's the part that attaches to tube to the tube going into me, it's a screw on connector, so I just screwed it back on. The doctor just called, he said it's fine. That's good, but it is hurting more again.

Anyway