The day a black man cut me...

In 1978 I was in South Dallas when this black man got me down and sliced open my chest from my sternum to just under my armpit.

Why on Earth would anyone want to do that to another human being?

Well, I'll tell you why. It was to save my life.

Days earlier I woke up gasping for air. I couldn't breath. I had never felt congestion like that before. I didn't feel feverish or achy. I didn't have a sore throat or a cough but I couldn't breath unless I laid on my left side. I was fine when I went to bed but I awoke not knowing what in the hell was going on. I went to work at my job as a "quick turn expediter" for Mostek Corporation as usual but immediately went to my supervisor and told him I needed to see the nurse to see if she had any idea why I couldn't get any air.

She checked my lungs with a stethoscope and of course detected the congestion and suggested that I go to the emergency room immediately.

I didn't.

Instead I went home and went back to bed thinking it might clear itself up.

It didn't.

So I went to the emergency room at the nearest hospital to me, namely Charlton Methodist in Duncanville, TX just over the line from Dallas.

I walked in and went through all the usual bullshit of filling out forms and producing insurance info all the while gasping for air. When they finally figured out I had a good job and enough insurance they took me into X-Ray.

I few minutes later a doctor came into the little room I was waiting in and told me I had a collapsed lung and I needed immediate emergency surgery.

A Collapsed lung? How in the hell did that happen. I was asleep for christ sake.

When they said immediate they weren't kidding. Without removing me from the room the gave me a shot of something and a local anesthetic and proceeded to shove a plastic tube in to a hole they made in my upper chest. I was awake the whole time but groggy. They hooked the tube up to a vacuum pump and turned it on. A great wave of relief came to me when all of a sudden a could breath again.

They had found there was air between my lung and my chest wall and they merely pumped it out which allowed my lung to reinflate.

But why did it collapse in the first place? I didn't know exactly but we did know there was a hole in my lung! A hole!

I stayed in the hospital a couple of days with this tube sticking out of my chest. The idea was to keep the lung inflated so that the hole might heal itself.

It didn't.

One afternoon I again felt congested so I rang for the nurse. Less than a minute later a doctor and nurse showed up and began manipulating the tube. It worked and my lung again reinflated and I could breathe normally.

The next day it happened again and they successfully reestablished airflow. However, it was decided that it needed a more permanent solution and the decision was made for surgery.

Since I was breathing ok for the moment there was no rush to get me in to the operating room. Besides they had to select a surgeon for the procedure.

The next day a doctor came in and informed me of the surgery and then asked a most peculiar question. He asked me how I felt about a black man performing the surgery. I was a little taken aback by the question but I guess they wanted to know so I asked them "Well, is he good?". They said "He's the best" so I said "Then what's the problem?".

Later that evening a very statuesque gentleman walked in looking like Paul Robeson in Othello. He said "I'm Doctor Sweatt and I'll be performing your surgery" I remember his eyes seemed a little jaundiced but knowledgeable. I guess he just wanted to make sure that it was alright that I would let him perform the surgery. It's very sad that a man's skin color is still questioned in this age of "enlightenment", even by the man himself. He told me I had an Acute Pneumothorax. I guess that's the fancy word for collapsed lung.

I went in to surgery the next day and I assume everything went well cause I'm still here and breathing fine almost 30 years later. The male nurse the night before explained that when you go in to surgery you are put under, and I mean under. The only level below anesthesia is death. It is actually lower than comatose. In the words of the late Johnny Carson "I did not know that".

I woke up in the recovery room and immediately afterwards the nurse induced me to cough up this awful black gunk. It hurt like hell but it had to be done to prevent pneumonia from setting in.

Pneumonia is the "operative" word here. On his next visit Dr. Sweatt explained what he had done in surgery and what caused the collapse in the first place. We already knew there was a hole in my lung but how did it get there.

Pneumonia.. It seems I had had pneumonia before (A whole other story). Scar tissue left over had become infected and literally infected a hole through my lung. This allowed air to escape the lungs and spread between the lung and chest wall causing the collapse.

What's stranger is what he told me next. He kept my lung inflated by gluing it to my chest wall, with talcum powder.

Well it worked. I haven't had a problem yet except that since talc is nothing but powdered glass, to this day little bits of it are continually working their way up and out of my skin as tiny white pimples.

Anyway I owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. James Sweatt. I could not have been in better hands. I have the scars to prove it.