Support for Arvanh and his Collapsed Lung

*** For the long and short versions of what happened to Arvanh, please see the bottom of this GoFundMe description.

*** Arvanh is reachable by phone but may not be available while resting.

*** The goal is currently set to $2000, the deductible for Arvanh's health insurance. We are expecting the final out-of-pocket bill to be MUCH higher than this. Once we receive the final hospital bill in 2-4 weeks and go through insurance, we will update this GoFundMe with the final dollar amount he needs to pay.

Thank you for checking out this GoFundMe page for Arvanh! My name is Theresa -- you may or may not know me as one of Arvanh's friends from UT Austin who is currently one of his housemates.

It's safe to say that Arvanh is one of the sweetest and most caring people that I know who highly values physical/mental health and self-care. He has always been admired by his peers and seeks to help several others as a personal trainer. Most of all, he's a dependent friend who never lets you down when you need him.

Given all of the above, he's probably the last person I would ever expect to have a collapsed lung. Having been there with him in the emergency room, it's clear that he's going through a lot of physical pain and taking multiple rounds on the emotional rollercoaster. This unexpected and life-threatening health emergency is ongoing and will take a toll on his long-term lifestyle.

Arvanh shouldn't have to put his goals and ambitions on pause due to these unforeseen circumstances, especially when so many of them are to benefit those around him (whether they be strangers or loved ones). We know that he'll make a strong recovery soon, but the financial burden of his extensive treatment could significantly impact his ability to pursue his dreams.

The goals of this GoFundMe are to:

The funds raised from this GoFundMe will be used to cover costs for:

All updates are in Pacific Time (California / West Coast).

Important Information:

Highland Hospital - Alameda Health System

https://www.alamedahealthsystem.org/locations/highland-hospital/

What is a Spontaneous Pneumothorax?

https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/condition/primary-spontaneous-pneumothorax/

Visitation Policy

Arvanh would love for you to visit him! If you'd like to bring him food (because hospital food sucks), please get in touch with him to see if he's hungry or in the mood for anything specific. He should be eating foods that are easy to eat (nothing heavy, greasy, or fried).

The Short Story:

Arvanh's left lung spontaneously collapsed on July 21st, 2022 when he was getting ready for work. ER staff discovered that his left lung had completely collapsed and was staying that way due to unwanted air in his chest/pleural cavity. As long as there's excess air leaking from his lung into the chest cavity, his lung won't be able to fully expand. The hospital is doing their best to remove the excess air from his chest cavity, but his lung is continuing to leak air. The latest X-rays and CT scan do not show any leaks in his lung that will require immediate attention, so his lung should be able eventually heal on its own and no longer leak air into the chest cavity. As his collapsed lung is expanding over time, Arvanh is experiencing a lot of pain in his chest.

The Long Story:

July 21st, 2022 was just like any other ordinary day for Arvanh. As he was putting on his backpack in the morning, he had a sudden stabbing pain in the center of his chest. Within the span of 5 minutes, he was having increased difficulty breathing and standing upright. I drove him to the nearest ER that will take his insurance -- Highland Hospital, which is 10 minutes from our home in Oakland.

After taking his vitals and an initial X-ray, the doctors confirmed that his left lung had completely collapsed. This is medically-referred to as a Spontaneous Pneumothorax. Considering the fact that he had been completely supporting himself with only one lung, the ER staff was stunned that he was able to walk at all when we first arrived at the ER. In the X-ray below, you can see that:

The attending doctors installed a device called a Thora-Vent in his chest, which is comprised of a small tube that penetrates his chest into his pleural cavity and a box on the outside that helps to slowly release excess air from within over time. Once the Thora-Vent was in place, his doctor periodically removed excess air via a large syringe attached to the Thora-Vent . After three manual removals of air and a few X-rays, the ER staff gave him the green light for discharge.

However, Arvanh noticed unusual pain in his left side while getting dressed. An additional CT scan revealed that despite the multiple manual removals of air, there was still more air in Arvanh's chest cavity that was preventing his lung from fully expanding.

Most patients who experience Spontaneous Pneumothorax are able to be discharged within 24 hours as excess air is removed from the chest cavity to allow lung expansion and the leak in the lung heals on its own. For Arvanh's case, it seems that it's taking longer than expected for his left lung to heal and not leak air into his chest cavity. Taking into account that Arvanh is the youngest and most-previously-healthy person to come into this ER with a collapsed lung, many doctors and research assistants came in (probably close to 20-25) to take his medical history. No one could figure out why this happened to him, even after the several X-rays that were taken.

The pulmonary/lung specialist determined that instead of periodic manual removals of air, Arvanh needed to be hooked up to a continuous suction via a wall-mounted machine and stay overnight. An X-ray was taken this Thursday night as a baseline for the next day's X-ray. Due to the hospital being at full capacity, Arvanh spent the night in his small ER room and got little sleep due to the ongoing commotion just outside his door.

On the morning of Friday, another X-ray was taken of Arvanh's chest. His lung was at 90% expansion, which was great! However, the pulmonary specialist cautioned that we should be conservative with the decision on whether Arvanh can be discharged or not. After the morning X-ray, the continuous suction was turned off. After 4 hours off of suction, an additional X-ray showed that Arvanh's lung unfortunately collapsed further. This means that without the continuous suction from his chest, his lung will continue to leak air and collapse. By the end of Friday evening, the continuous suction was turned back on and another X-ray was taken to confirm that his lung expanded to a more agreeable state. Thankfully, Arvanh was transferred from the ER to the main hospital floor with a more comfortable bed and additional privacy.

The pulmonary specialist informed us that they would not be physically available over the weekend (Saturday & Sunday), but would be reachable via phone. Arvanh's Saturday morning X-ray showed that his left lung was once again at 90% expansion. Instead of completely turning off the continuous suction, the hospital staff reduced it to 50% pressure. Later in the afternoon, an additional X-ray showed that Arvanh's lung was still collapsing without the continuous suction at 100% pressure. All of this information provided over the weeked came from the pulmonary specialist -- we were super grateful that they were willing to speak with Arvanh outside of their working hours.

Moving forward, Arvanh may or may not need surgery on Monday to remove the Thora-Vent from his chest and insert a larger "garden hose" for more powerful air removal. It's possible that the Thora-Vent that is currently in place isn't removing air fast enough (even with continuous suction) for his collapsed lung to heal properly.