Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Hi, it’s Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com with another quick tip for families in intensive care.
So on the weekend, we were talking to a client who’s had their dad in ICU with a pneumonia and the chest was filling up with secretions and the ICU wanted to do a bronchoscopy to clear out secretions.
Now it turned out that the ICU doctors were trying to reassure our client that the extubation or the removal of the breathing tube after the bronchoscopy would take place within 24 hours and the ICU team was very certain that this would be the case, because as you might know by now, it’s very risky of having a patient on a ventilator in an induced coma with a breathing tube. And that is basically considered life support.
So my client’s father, few days before was in septic shock, and one of the side effects of septic shock often is kidney failure.
Now on Saturday, there was no indication of kidney failure, but then after the client had the bronchoscopy, ended up on a ventilator in an induced coma, they couldn’t get him off the ventilator in the next 24 hours as was promised by the ICU team.
Basically, what happened overnight, the client went into kidney failure and he developed fluids on the lungs because he didn’t produce enough urine.
So the tip today really is about, again, asking all the right questions you could ask, why has the ICU team not considered kidney failure coming up, especially after septic shock. And sometimes when somebody is in septic shock, kidney failure doesn’t necessarily happen straight away. There is often a delay until it gets diagnosed and until it develops, but it really developed into a very unfortunate situation for our client. He’s now stuck on a ventilator, on dialysis, and it doesn’t look like he’s getting off the ventilator anytime soon.
So my tip for today is really, you need to keep asking the right questions, again, it keeps coming back to “Your biggest challenge is that you don’t know what you don’t know”, and you really need to challenge the intensive care team on all levels at all times because it could be the difference between life or death.
So that’s my tip for today. Go and like the video, comment down below what questions that you have and like my YouTube channel.
If you have a family member in intensive care, go and check out the intensivecarehotline.com and send me an email either to [email protected] with your questions, or give me a call on one of the numbers on the top of the website or underneath this video.
This is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com. And I’ll talk to you in a few days.