On the matter of pneumothorax

So I learnt what a pneumothorax was today, and studied the clinical features of pneumothorax. Basically what happens is the pleural space that lies between lungs and chest wall fills up with fluid or air and the pressure causes the lungs to collapse- which is not very useful for anyone trying to stay alive. I found the whole learning process extremely tiring and when I got home I thought I'd relax by wasting time on the internet.

After waiting for my currently slow as hell laptop to boot, I jumped on reddit, and right there in the headlines was news about how my favourite LoL player from my favourite LoL team is in hospital for a collapsed lung. You look at the guy and he's like the stereotypical candidate for spontaneous pneumothorax- tall, skinny, young and male. He's currently stable and even tweeted a photo of himself in hospital, but what really upset me is how he wouldn't be able to play in the upcoming international LoL tournament in Paris. He and his team worked so hard to earn a spot into the tournament, and he said, on multiple occasions, how excited he was to see Paris and go on dates with other pro players. I just felt so cut on his behalf, because all that time spent getting to the tournament, and all that time spent preparing for the tournament is now basically wasted because BAM spontaneous lung collapse out of nowhere.

I get that it could've been something much, much worse than pneumothorax, but I'm not the kind of person who thinks with the "at least it wasn't x" mentality. I can just imagine how pissed I would be if I worked really hard and was about to go to Paris, and I had everything planned out, and then next second I'm in hospital and I probably can't travel by plane for at least the next month. That would suck so much...

Studying medicine really sucks in that sense- because when someone falls ill you're all "oh I've heard of that condition, I learnt a lot about it", and then your realize the treatment options don't sound all that great, and just saying "you can fix that with surgery" isn't even reassuring. When a model for disease is superimposed onto a real person- particularly someone you know or care about, it becomes THAT much harder to bear. Sometimes I feel like it's better to not know so much about the disease because in a sense ignorance is bliss- but when you do know about it you can't help but thinking about how most patients respond post-treatment, and run through the list of possible complications in your head.

Anyway this is just a super long rant about how someone I really liked ended up in hospital and how I'm really disappointed that my favourite team will be one man short in the upcoming major tournament.

God this day sucks.