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

So, I have an email here from a reader who says, “My daughter has been in ICU for two weeks and is now nonresponsive, although her infection markers are continually dropping. What does this mean?”

Well, thanks for the email. I’ll start with what I’ve been saying over and over again that 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 to look for. They don’t know what questions to ask. They don’t know their rights, and they don’t know how to manage doctors and nurses in intensive care. That’s exactly what this lady is dealing with because she really has no idea what’s happening with her daughter. You’re just giving me information, maybe 5% of what is really happening.

When someone is in intensive care, it’s a very complex situation. There are dozens of things happening simultaneously. If she’s, for example, nonresponsive, that makes it very likely that your daughter is ventilated either with a breathing tube or a tracheostomy.  If her infection markers are dropping, there’s a very good chance she might be on antibiotics for the infection.

But it also means that if she’s nonresponsive, there might have either been a neurological event, God forbid, such as a stroke, or some seizures, or she might simply be in an induced coma. Sedated with sedatives plus some opiates such as morphine, or fentanyl, or other stuff. So, you can already see, I’m trying to go down rabbit holes here, that your daughter is in a very complex situation.

This is why I keep saying over and over again, you’ve got to do research from day one. In your email you’re saying, it’s been two weeks now. It sounds to me like by now, you have completely lost track of what is really happening. And knowing from experience, ICU teams are probably only telling you half of the story. And from your email, I can see you don’t know what questions to ask to really go down the rabbit holes that you need to go down to make sense out of what is really happening in intensive care.

Most families in intensive care can never make sense. They won’t have peace of mind, they won’t have control, they won’t have power, they won’t have influence, let alone being able to make informed decisions.  You’re a million miles away from that because, quite frankly, you’ve dropped the ball early on.

I’ll give you another example. So, currently, we are working with the clients. So, just to illustrate that. They have had their family member in ICU since around Christmas time, and they’ve come to us, sort of by early March, it’s now mid-May. Now, they’re giving us 12,000 pages of ICU medical records that we should look through, and again, it goes to show you can’t drop the ball because the situation is getting more complex every day when someone is in ICU, assuming they’re not recovering well.

The minute you drop the ball, you really need to play catch-up big time. And if you’re not understanding what’s happening, if you’re not having that second outsider opinion, the intensive care team can play yo-yo with you, quite frankly because you don’t know what’s happening.  And again, you won’t be able to make informed decisions, let alone have peace of mind control, power, and influence, which is crucial in those situations because ICUs pursue their own agendas, and their own agendas are all about money. It’s all about emptying beds and so forth.

So, you have got to be one step ahead of them, not two steps behind. And we can help you with that here at Intensive Care Hotline.  We know what questions to ask. We know what to look for. We can almost predict what’s going to happen next. I worked in intensive care for over 20 years in three different countries, and I have also worked as a nurse unit manager for over 5 years in intensive care, and I’ve been consulting and advocating families for families in intensive care all around the world for the last 10 years. So, you’re coming here to me and my team, and we can guide you through this step-by-step, and help you get better outcomes.

So, that’s 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 simply, send us an email to [email protected] with your questions.

Also, check out our membership for families in intensive care at intensivecaresupport.org. There, you have access to me and my team, 24 hours a day, in a membership area or via email, and we answer all questions intensive care related, 24 hours a day.

If you need a medical record review for your loved one in intensive care in real time, please contact us as well. We do medical record reviews in real time so you can have a second opinion in real time. We also provide medical record reviews after intensive care, especially if you have unanswered questions, if you need closure, or if you simply suspect medical negligence.

Subscribe to my YouTube channel for regular updates for families in intensive care, click the like button, click the notification bell, comment below what you want to see next, or what questions and insights you have from this video, and share the video with your friends and families.

Thanks for watching.

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

Take care.

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