Month: August 2020

My ICU Experience Chapter 6:

The Chapters form is back, well at least for now. I’ve been stuck on it for so long. Hopefully you’ll see chapter 7 next week.

Of course, there is one thing I learned during this very chaotic time in my life: never make plans. If I make plans something will inevitably make this plans impossible to actualize. If I don’t make plans, I’ll have a good day in which I could do something.

At least that’s the way it seems to be going lately.

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If don’t know about my Chapters, I am writing my ICU experience in chapters, like a novel, because I have novel writing exprience. You can read chapters 1 to 5 by going to the heading “my experience in chapters at the top of this blog, and I encourage you to do so.

Everything that happens in the chapters, happened to me while I was in the ICU. Some of it was because of sedation, didn’t actually happen, but it happened to me, as real as anything else happened to me.

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My Experience in Chapters – Chapter 6:

I turned from the nurses, who were talking about urine feeds, and followed a empty hospital hallway. As I walked the hallway turned to sand, and the sand turned to desert.

A crowd of people, wandered through and sat at tables in the sand, at outdoor restaurant, entirely made of sand.

A little girl came up to me took my hand and said “Come with me”.

She lead me through buildings and a street made entirely of sand, until I came across my cousin, who greeted me and introduced me to his husband Avers, and his children: a three year old and a baby.

My cousin lead me through the sand, to a mansion made entirely of sand.

“Sand?” I said “You made a real sand castle?”

“Ya isn’t it great? When we get tired of part of it, all we do is tear it down, and build a new part of it. The sand is free. We can add as many additions on to it as we want. Come in.” He lead me to the door, but the idea of being in a sand castle, unnerved me a bit.

I stopped at the door, and asked “Won’t the sand collapse in on us?” I asked.

“No, no, this is a new way of building with sand. It won’t fall until we want it to.”

Still skeptical I followed him in. It was gorgeous. The kitchen, with sand counters, a sand table, sand chairs and sand appliances, lead into a patio that overlooked the beach. As I sat and visited, I watched the water lap into the shore.

“It’s nice for swimming.” I commented.

“Oh ya, the children love to take swimming lessons.”

“I can imagine” I said, as I recounted my own experiences with swimming lessons.

My cousin, and his husband told me about their children and their lives living in this land where everything was made of sand. I started becoming less and less involved, and more and more like I was watching it on a TV, but not apart of it.

I watched cousin take his 3 year old daughter, to a fashion company to design a new nail polish, that marbled as it went on the nails.

She enthusiastically designed the entire nail polish from the colours, how it would marble, and what the end product would be like. Although she was only 3 years old, she acted like a miniature CEO, making all the decisions with the aid of woman who worked for the fashion company.

Her face was put on all the ads and she was made the new “it” girl. This was famous three year old, who everybody wanted their child to be like, lead the fashion industry, and made all the money for the family.

As my cousin was pouring all his attention into his 3 year old, this nail polish (that the fashion company was backing), a famous billionaire (who I won’t name because he really exists), stole the land my cousin and Avers bought, as well as the sand castle on it, and the baby in it.

My cousin took his 3 year old, left the fashion house, and tried to get his baby back. The famous billionaire refused to give the baby back, or to let anybody go and get him.

Just as my cousin’s baby was crawling through sand, perliously close to the ocean with the tide coming it, I was screaming “he’s going to die”, as my cousin hired a helicopter, parachuted on to the beach, grabbed the baby, and ran away.

When my cousin and his daughter returned to the fashion company, they had already moved on to the new “it” child who was even younger and cuter.

Having spent all of their money, my cousin and his husband, tried to make their baby the new “it” child, but were told there the baby was too old and there was a 10 year waiting list for “it” children. They would have to audition a baby that wasn’t born yet, time the babies birth for just the right time, and then go through the process again, if they wanted another “it” child.

Deciding they couldn’t wait 10 years they, found another way to make money and rebuild their lives.

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Note: Although this particular cousin doesn’t have a husband or children, it didn’t register as odd that he did at the time.

Note #2: I shortened this storey. As you can see it’s not in novel form. I stuck trying to decided if should even include this storey, because it is so odd and unlike the rest of my ICU experience. I wonder if it was a dream. Why did I fade from my own storey, and become like I was watching it on a tv? Why did it include people who didn’t exist? Why was it so detailed? If I’d written it with dialog it could have become fantasy novella.

In the end, I need to unstuck myself and because it happened in my sedation and is apart of my ICU experience I will include it, even though it is very weird.

Note#3: As always please share this blog post with others.

Thank you for reading and thank you in advance for sharing it.

Ten Reasons You Need Visitors to help with your Workload during Covid.

1.) It helps the already overworked staff.

Visitors can get ice water, ice chips, warm blankets, toast, snacks and other things.

I know that hospital staff are overworked during Covid. Work loads are reduced when visitors get these things.

I know that some visitors are more work than any thing else.

When Mom was in the Rehab hospital, there was a family who was told they couldn’t visit, because too many things went missing (including medication) when they were there.

But… the trustworthy visitors can save you time, and energy, by getting things when the patient needs them.

I still remember the passcode to the door of the kitchenette when Mom was in the main hospital, before she went to rehab. I didn’t give it to other families, but I did get things like toast, boost, and puddings for Mom. Because she wasn’t eating, we were encouraged to offer her food several times a day.

My getting her things made their workload lighter several times a day.

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2.) Happier patients are healthier patients.

A hospital room can end up feeling like a prison, especially during days without visitors.

Mood and attitude affects health. I know this from experience, because I’ve been sick all my life.

I clearly remember as a young child figuring out that focusing on my pain and illness only made it worse, and ignoring it, allowed me to play with my brother for longer periods of time. (You can read the blog post “The Week Before I Went to the ICU” for more information).

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3.) Happier patients can decrease the length of the hospital stay.

When I had surgery as a child, they expected me to stay in the hospital much longer than the 28 days I did, after surgery. I believe the difference, is my mother, although pregnant with my brother at the time, had only one child outside the whom. She was able to stay at the hospital 24 hours a day, sleeping in the bed beside mine.

Originally she slept on an air mattress beside my hospital bed, but during the first night, when my mother was pumping up her air mattress for the 2nd time, a nurse offered her a hospital bed, and tied the two beds together. (If you are that nurse, and are reading this – thank you).

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4.) A positive mood, makes a more compliant patient and a less grumpy patient.

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5.) A visitor can sometimes give a more complete story, than a very sick and confused patient. This aids in diagnosis, treatment and compliance.

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6.) Staff can not be with patients 24 hours a day. Visitors can.

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7.) When the patient is discharged, the family will need to know what happened in the hospital, and how to take care of the patient when they are at home. They can not do that if they were not there and do not know what happened.

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8.) When the patient goes to their family doctor, a specialist appointment or returns for another hospital stay, the visitor can tell the story of the hospital stay.

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My mother does not remember what happened when she was in the hospital. She has no memory of that entire year, of many of the acquaintances she had before, of many family events and many other things. Her normal pressure hydrocephalus took a lot of those memories away.

I remember, because I’m was her caregiver.

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9.) Adequate treatment partly depends of an accurate storey.

When I take Mom to emergency and hospital appointments now I am not allowed to go in. She gets inadequate treatment, because she doesn’t remember her own medical storey, and I’m left trying to explain it to the triage nurse before she she even sees the doctor. I can’t anticipate every question the doctor will have and there isn’t any privacy outside emergency room doors.

Depending on how she’s feeling that day, she doesn’t always tell what she does know accurately.

It is not fair to deprive her of a full and complete medical exam.

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10.) Recovery depends on a will to live.

I know when I was in the ICU, the hospital staff worked hard to make me live, including putting me on a ventilator, and countless other machines, as well as using the crash cart, jumping on top of me and doing stuff to save my life when I crashed on Christmas day. (My mother was surprised at how quickly “30 people where there” and how “that one man jumped on your chest”).

I also know I was fighting to live with all of my being. I fought so hard to wake up, to live, and get healthy again. I knew I was dying. It’s so hard to explain, but I know if I had wanted to choose to die, I could have.

If when faced with the choice to keep fighting or just let death take over, the patient is wondering where they’re family is, death would be an easier choice to make. Certainly it would be much less work.

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Note #1:

If you are confused: I was Mom’s caregiver when she had Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus, and a few years later when she recovered enough to take care of herself, I got sick and went to the ICU for an allergy I didn’t know I had. When I was discharged she became my caregiver. When I recovered enough to take care of myself, my father was diagnosed with a terminal illness, and my mother and I are his caregivers now. The lives of caregivers and patients can overlap, and roles can dramatically switch.

My mother and I both might be able to take care of ourselves and are currently caregivers for Dad, but neither of us are fully recovered. Hopefully we will be in the future.

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Note #2:

I know that having visitors during Covid is complicated, but it’s very important, and I implore you to find a way to allow at least one visitor per patient during this pandemic.

It will help your patients and your staff in so many ways, especially, chidlren, teens, seniors, the critically ill, and those with cognitive issues.

I know you will have to screen visitors, because bad visitors can make things worse for everybody.

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Thank you for reading this. Please share it however you want. You can retweet, or like the tweet you read this in, share it on your other social media platforms, or follow this blog.

I will try to post something written by me or a guest blogger every Friday (which I have no realized that for some of you is Saturday, because my Friday night is some people’s Saturday mornings).

On a personal note, my life has become very stressful, and small things like getting dressed (when during covid I have nowhere to go), and doing anything more than watching streaming services when somebody doesn’t need me, is becoming harder and harder.

If you are reading this an are helped by this, please let me know, by commenting, retweeting or sharing this. I need the encouragement. If you have any idea how to get out of this sadness, let me know, even if it’s just a cute video, or useful advice.

Thank you.