William was life flighted to St Louis

Hi, my name is Carol Gandy. I am William’s wife of 23 years. William had a lung cancer diagnosis in December. He had radiation treatment and chemotherapy from February to April 3rd of this year. He was in the hospital in Joplin once in June came home for one day and went back with sepsis pneumonia that kept him on TCU for a week. This time Hospital stay we started in Joplin at Freeman. We were on CMU for 6 days starting on Sept 19th getting antibiotics and a thoracentisis was done and they drained off 400cc on the 21st of Sept. Then on Sept 26th they were going to do a bronchoscopy but something was very wrong. William was struggling for every breath, he was restless and in terrible pain. His lung was partially collapsed but the area that was collapsed was in a spot that the surgeons at Freeman wanted to send him to Barnes Jewish in St Louis. William was intubated on Sept 26. He was in a medically induced coma for a week. During that time they life flighted him to St Louis and they were able to place a small chest tube and wake him up slowly. Then this Tuesday they did a thoracotomy and placed 3 chest tubes. We have a long road ahead of us.