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

So, on the weekend, I was talking to a gentleman who has his 41-year-old wife in ICU after cardiac arrest and potentially a hypoxic brain injury. She’s been in ICU since around the 3rd of May. The time of this recording it’s the 22nd of May 2023. And he says that, she’s opening her eyes, blinking her eyes, but not moving. And the ICU team and the neurologists are telling him that there’s no hope for his wife, that he should just switch off everything and let her go peacefully so that he’s not prolonging the suffering.

Now, she doesn’t even have a tracheostomy yet, which means she would be still sedated, she would be still needing some level of sedation to tolerate the breathing tube. So, the next step really here is, in order to determine what her level of functionality is, to do a tracheostomy, stop all sedation, and see how she can wake up, how quickly she can wake up, whether she can wake up at all.

The question here for families should be, what’s the hurry here to talk about the end of life? It’s only been three weeks. Sometimes it takes months for patients to wake up, and yet ICUs do not want to give patients the time, and they want to switch off machines as quickly as possible to free up ICU beds and not give people a chance, and they want to stay in control of the narrative.

What is quality of life? Well, what is quality of life for this man and his wife? That’s really the bottom-line question here. And of course, it’s a very difficult question to ponder. I’m not suggesting that this is an easy decision to make, but you can still talk about the end of life in a few weeks’ time once a tracheostomy has been done, and if things don’t improve, the next step is to do a tracheostomy. Get her out of bed. Start mobilizing her, stimulate her. That’s assuming she doesn’t have any contraindications such as fractures, or doesn’t get hypotensive, or doesn’t have any other contraindications. So that would be the next step to really give her time, give her a good shot, and do what is actually in her best interest and let her live at least for longer to see how she can wake up, if she can wake up at all. But you can’t really determine after three weeks. And why am I saying that?

I will post a podcast below this video. A podcast that I did a few weeks ago with one of our previous clients, who was in a very similar situation. He had a (TBI), a traumatic brain injury, and the ICU team was telling the family that again, he won’t wake up and that any treatment going forward is futile and that it would be, “in his best interest” to stop life support, withdraw treatment, and let him go peacefully.

Now, only a year later, this man sits on a podcast with me and his family and says how grateful he is that they found our service here at intensivecarehotline.com, so that we could advocate for him and give him more time, because time actually helped this man to recover. You can see it for yourself on the video podcast.

So that is my quick tip for today.

You always have to get a second opinion when it comes to a perceived end of life situation because that’s what it is. It’s a perceived end of life situation, not a real end of life situation. You have to take into account what our patient’s spiritual, moral, ethical, religious beliefs, which have not been mentioned in this situation, but can make all the difference.

Now, 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 have a look at 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 and via email, and we answer all questions intensive care related.

Also, we review medical records for patients in ICU in real time, get access to the medical records, and then come to us. We can review them for you in real time and give you a second opinion. We also review medical records after intensive care. If you have unanswered questions, if you need closure or if you want to know whether there has been medical negligence or not, we can help you with all of that.

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

Thanks for watching.

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

Take care.