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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 husband in ICU after multiple gunshots and those gunshots hit the kidneys, the artery, one of the main arteries on his arm, and the liver. So, he had one kidney resected and he had parts of his liver resected. And he obviously had multiple, multiple blood transfusions, up to 70 blood transfusions to save his life, that’s about 10 days ago at the recording of this video.

And now, he’s had a tracheostomy after about 10 days in ICU being ventilated after multiple surgeries, which sounds like the right thing to do because this gentleman won’t wake up in a hurry because he’s had numerous surgeries. He’s still on Precedex and fentanyl, and he has been on morphine as well in the past. There’s no surprises there because after multiple surgeries and multiple gunshots, one would be in excruciating pain.

So now the wife of this gentleman is asking, how long will it take for him to wake up after he’s had the tracheostomy, which was only yesterday? So, the answer to that really lies in how well controlled is his pain after multiple surgeries, that’s number one. He also had a colostomy formed because some of the gunshots also went into his colon. So multiple surgeries, multiple areas where significant pain is probably happening.

And then the other question is, is any other surgery coming up? And the wife says no, no other surgery planned. So, from that perspective, he can probably be gently woken up, but then again, pain is probably going to be an issue. It needs to be well controlled and only after pain has been well controlled could this gentleman be woken up very gently. There’s also the risk that if he had a lot of morphine and a lot of fentanyl, that he might be withdrawing from some of these opiates, which then needs to be managed as well with alternative pain medication.

So that is my quick tip for today.

If you have a loved one in intensive care, go and check out 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, comment below what you want to see next, click the notification bell, and subscribe to my YouTube channel for updates for families in intensive care.

I also do a weekly YouTube Live where I talk about a specific topic for families in intensive care and I also answer questions live on the livestream. It usually happens on a Saturday night at around 8:00 PM Eastern Standard Time, 5:00 PM Pacific Time, 10:30, 11:00 AM Sydney/Melbourne Time in Australia. Unfortunately, it’s in the middle of the night in the U.K., but anyone is welcome to join. Look out for the livestreams that I’ve got scheduled.

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