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Today I have an email from Mike who says, 

“Hi Patrik, 

My wife passed away from COVID (Coronavirus Disease). She was on the ventilator for 3 weeks before having a tracheostomy. ‘Brain damage is a real risk the longer someone is ventilated.’ Is this true? Because the intensive care team said that my wife had brain damage and that it was ‘in her best interest’ to have treatment withdrawn because she won’t have any ‘quality of life’ if she was to survive the COVID.

From, Mike.”

Before I go into today’s question answered, my name is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com, and this is another quick tip for families in intensive care.

The email from Mike illustrates what often can happen in ICU where families are being “sold” on an end-of-life situation for their family member as being “in the best interest” for their loved ones. Now, I’ve yet to find out what will that makes sense, but let’s break this down step by step.

So, if your wife was on the ventilator for 3 weeks before having a tracheostomy put in for COVID. She probably had ARDS (acute respiratory distress syndrome). She probably had lung failure, that is most likely why she might have passed away. 

However, you haven’t shared really what the cause of her death was. Is there a higher risk for someone ventilated for a long period of time to sustain a brain damage? Yes absolutely, there is. Because the patients might have a stroke. They might have seizures. When someone is in an induced coma, they may not necessarily have enough oxygen going to their brain that might go undetected especially when it comes to COVID and ARDS. Those are all real risks, no question about it, and it needs to be managed.

However, for anyone to say that it’s “not in the best interest” of your family member to survive, that is up to you. I assume your wife was not in a position to make a decision, but that would have been up to you to object to that and get help, get a second opinion. It sounds to me like you might have just signed off on it, believing everything they were telling you. But that might be too much speculation on my part, and I don’t want to speculate. 

What I do want to ask you is, was it a real or was it a perceived end of life situation? A real end of life situation is that no treatment, no surgery, no medication, no fancy equipment, nothing would have saved your wife’s life. That’s a real end of life situation. Perceived end of life situation is there’s a perception that your wife might die if best care and treatment is not done and not offered.

So, my question is, has best can treatment been offered at the time? Was she in on prone position when she was in COVID with a ventilator? Was she offered ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation)? Was she offered nitric oxide? Was she offered epoprostenol? Was she offered steroids? Was she on antibiotics if there was also a bacterial infection? Was she on antifungals if there was also a fungal infection? She would have been on antivirals for COVID, most likely. But what were they doing to try and save your wife’s life? Was their brain damage? Was it irreversible? Was there a hemorrhagic stroke? An ischemic stroke? Did she have seizures? Did she have encephalitis, meningitis? What else was going on? That’s the question. Was she on inotropes? Was she on vasopressors?

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 is exactly what you were up against.

Families in intensive care don’t understand the high-stakes situations they are in. They underestimate completely what is at stake, that their loved one’s life is at stake, and that the intensive care team may not necessarily offer best care and treatment unless you get a second opinion, unless you get advocacy, and unless you get a consultant in that can help you with the advocacy side of things in intensive care.

I have worked in critical care nursing for 25 years in three different countries, where I worked as a nurse manager for over 5 years in intensive care. I’ve been consulting and advocating for families in intensive care since 2013 here at intensivecarehotline.com. I can very confidently say that we have saved many lives for our clients in intensive care. You can verify that on our intensivecarehotline.com podcast section. We have done client interviews, and you can also verify it on our intensivecarehotline.com testimonial section where you can read the testimonials of our clients. 

The way we help is we’re looking at medical records, or I talk to doctors and nurses directly with you and on your behalf and holding them accountable, making sure all the questions are asked that you haven’t even considered asking, that no stone remains unturned. 

You need to ask for help when your loved one is in intensive, not afterwards and asking, “Oh, was it the right thing to do to let my loved one die?” That’s not the right question to ask. The right question to ask is, “Is my loved one getting best care and treatment while they are in ICU?” That is the right question to ask and a much better question to ask.

Our advice is absolutely life changing. Like I said, we have helped so many families in intensive care, hundreds and hundreds of clients and members over the years, and you can join a growing number of members and clients that we help and get results for you and your family member.

That’s why I do one on one consulting and advocacy over the phone, Zoom, Skype, WhatsApp, whichever medium works best for you. I talk to you and your families directly. I handhold you through this once in a lifetime situation that you simply cannot afford to get wrong. I also talk to doctors and nurses directly. When I talk to doctors and nurses directly with you or on your behalf, I ask all the questions that you haven’t even considered asking but must be asked when you have a loved one critically ill in intensive care.

I also represent you in family meetings with intensive care teams so that you have a strong voice in those meetings so that intensive care teams can’t walk all over you.

We also do medical record reviews in real time so that you can get a second opinion in real time, which is something that Mike should have done in today’s video. Mike should have asked for a second opinion right from the start, making sure his wife gets best care and treatment because 90% of intensive care patients approximately survive. That’s 9 out of 10 surviving. So why would your wife be the 1 out of 10 not surviving? Very good question to ask. It’s a question you must ask. We also do medical record reviews after intensive care if you have unanswered questions, if you need closure, or if you are suspecting medical negligence.

We also have a membership for families of critically ill patients in intensive care, and you can become a member if you go to intensivecarehotline.com, if you click on the membership link or if you go to intensivecaresupport.org directly. In the membership, you have access to me and my team, 24 hours a day, in the membership area and via email, and we answer all questions intensive care related. In the membership, you also have exclusive access to 21 eBooks and 21 videos that I’ve personally written and recorded. That will help you to make informed decisions, have peace of mind, control, power and influence, making sure your loved one gets best care and treatment always.

All of that you get at 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.

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

I also do a weekly YouTube live where I answer your questions live on a show. You will get notification for the YouTube live if you are a subscriber to my YouTube channel, or if you are a subscriber to my intensivecarehotline.com email newsletter.

Thank you so much for watching.

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

Take care for now.

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