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

Yesterday, I had an email from one of our email subscribers, Clint, and he says that his four-year old daughter had ASD surgery. ASD stands for atrial septal defect and often the only remedy for that is to do surgery and close the hole.

So now, Clint is saying that his daughter after four days after surgery has still not woken up after an induced coma. He’s also saying that the doctors are still giving sedation and he’s wondering how long does it take, when will she come out of the induced coma and so forth. Now Clint, just like with most of our other clients, your biggest challenge is that you don’t know what you don’t know and that you don’t know what to look for and you don’t know what questions you need  to ask.

So here are the questions you need to ask Clint. Number one, you need to ask, is your daughter still on sedation and if so, what sedation she’s on. Is she on Propofol, is she on Midazolam, also known as Versed, one of them is long-acting, one of them is short-acting, so that makes a difference there.

The other question you need to ask is, is she on Fentanyl or Morphine for pain relief and another important question is, is your daughter on inotropes or vasopressors, which is basically life support. It’s considered life support because if she is on vasopressors or inotropes such as Noradrenaline, Norepinephrine, Vasopressin, Dobutamine, Dopamine and a few more, if she is on Vasopressin or inotropes, there is a good chance that the doctors won’t wake her up until she’s off the inotropes or vasopressors.

So that’s my tip for today. Do your research and find out what you need to know, what questions you need to ask. Otherwise you will be walking in the dark because intensive care is such a highly specialized area and if you have any questions, just check out our website, intensivecarehotline.com or send me an email to [email protected] with your questions.

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