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Hi, it’s Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com with another quick tip for families in intensive care.

So currently, we are working with a client who has their 80-year-old dad in ICU, after a couple of heart attacks and is on dialysis in kidney failure, is also in liver failure, the brain is working, sedation is off.

And a couple of days ago, the intensive care team was all doom and gloom and saying, because he’s got kidney failure, he’s got liver failure, he’s got lung failure, he had a heart attack that it’s, “in the best interest” for our client’s father to pass away and stop life support.

Now with our intervention and arming the family with the right questions and asking questions ourselves in a family meeting, we believe we’ve turned this situation around once again. 

So that now, there is talk about doing a tracheostomy for this man if he can’t come off the ventilator. But there are also signs that he is slowly recovering. He’s now breathing in a spontaneous ventilation mode. He’s still on dialysis. He’s on amiodarone for atrial fibrillation, but his heart rate seems to stabilize, and his inotrope requirements such as noradrenaline or norepinephrine are coming down slowly. And hopefully, this man can turn the corner and give a second chance at life.

The quick tip here is, really you need to question everything. If you are not getting professional help or a second opinion, the intensive care team will only tell you half of the story and the intensive care team will only share with you what they want to share with you.

Intensive care is such a highly specialized area that if you don’t have anyone that can ask the right questions, you’ll be losing a fighting battle and you’ll be definitely drawing the short straw.

The biggest challenge for families in intensive care is simply that they don’t know what they don’t know. They don’t know what questions to ask. They don’t know what to look for. They don’t know their rights and they don’t know how to manage doctors and nurses in intensive care.

And that is my quick tip for today.

If you have a loved one in intensive care, go to intensivecarehotline.com, call us on one of the numbers on the top of our website or send us an email to [email protected].

Also check out our membership site for families of critically ill patients in intensive care at intensivecaresupport.org.

Like this video, subscribe to my YouTube channel for our updates for families in intensive care, comment below on what you want to see next, and click the notification bell.

This is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com and I will talk to you in a few days.