If you want to know if you should stop treatment for your 84-year-old dad with hypoxic brain injury after cardiac arrest, stay tuned. I’ve got news for you.

My name is Patrik Hutzel from intensivecarehotline.com with another quick tip for families in intensive care.

Today, I have an email from Shaney, and he says, 

“The ICU team wants us to stop treatment for my 84-year-old dad with hypoxic brain injury due to cardiac arrest. 

What should we do?

Here is what I advise Shaney in a situation like that. First thing is it doesn’t really matter what the intensive care team wants. You have rights. Intensive care teams are very good at pretending they can do whatever they want, including taking someone’s life if they feel like it, but that’s just a pretend.

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 and where 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 as part of our consulting and advocacy here at intensivecarehotline.com. You can verify that if you go to intensivecarehotline.com, if you have a look at our testimonial section, and if you have a look at our intensivecarehotline.com podcast where we’ve done client interviews. Our clients have written on our testimonial section, and you can see for yourself that we’ve saved many lives for our clients in intensive care with our consulting and advocacy.

Here’s the thing, Shaney. If you agree to a withdrawal of treatment, you know the outcome. If you don’t agree to a withdrawal of treatment, you don’t know the outcome. But if you don’t agree to a withdrawal of treatment, you give your dad a chance.

I know your next question is, how high are his chances? How high are my dad’s chances to survive and go back to a normal or quality of life that he is happy with? Very difficult questions to answer. We would need to look at medical records, and we would need to talk to doctors and nurses directly to give you that second opinion and find out what your dad’s chances. At the moment, it would just be speculation.

My other advice in a situation like that is you should make decisions that you do not regret in 12 months’ time. Do make decisions today that you don’t regret in 12 months’ time. Because I’ll tell you why, when families are in situations like that, and they make hasty decisions, and they agree to a withdrawal of treatment and all the rest of it, and they might regret that. Then they come back 12 months later, have second thoughts, and think, “Oh, if I had only not agreed to a withdrawal of treatment.” That is what they think, and then it’s too late.

For example, if you continue treatment for your dad and he’s on a breathing tube or he’s on a ventilator but not waking up, maybe a tracheostomy is the next step so that you can wean him off all sedation, but it’s more comfortable for him to be on a ventilator and then start weaning him off the ventilator slowly.

I’ll give you a tangible example here. Currently, we are working with a client who’s in a similar situation. The client is 80 years of age, very similar situation and the ICU wanted to withdraw treatment. The family objected. The ICU said, “Well, your dad won’t survive.” Then the ICU team said, “If your dad does survive, he won’t have any quality of life.”

Three to four weeks later, he’s got a tracheostomy and he’s weaning off the ventilator. He’s slowly and I will say this slowly, I’m not making up things that are not true. He’s very slowly waking up, very slowly at his own pace. The goal here is that maybe your dad will come to a point where he can make his own decisions. How good would that be?

You don’t want the intensive care teams making decisions for your dad or for you, for that matter. You would want to come to a point where your dad can tell you, “Yes, I’m happy with the tracheostomy,” or “No, I’m not happy with it.” Or even, “I want to live” or “I want to die.” The bottom line is, there’s plenty of time to talk about end-of-life care in ICU, plenty of time. What’s the hurry to kill someone in ICU? Please tell me. What’s the hurry? 

Most research suggests that 90% of intensive care patients survive. So, why would your dad not survive if the odds are in your dad’s favor? 

Also, the longer your dad stays ventilated with the breathing tube, the higher the chances he’ll catch an infection, the higher the chances he’ll end up with a ventilator-associated pneumonia, the higher the chances he’ll end up with UTI (urinary tract infection), with the sepsis. 

The sooner things can be normalized, the sooner you can have a tracheostomy and get back to normality, can get mobilized, can have physical therapy, can have some level of stimulation the quicker you will actually find out what your dad is capable of. The sooner the tracheostomy is done, your dad should be completely off sedation. 

Your dad might be off sedation already, we don’t know, you haven’t mentioned that. But 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, and that is exactly what you are currently dealing with.

We have helped hundreds and hundreds of members and clients over the years to improve their lives instantly when they have a loved one in intensive care, which includes saving their loved one’s life. Once again, you can verify that on our testimonial section, and you can verify that on our intensivecarehotline.com podcast section, where we’ve done client interviews.

I also 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 can’t afford to get wrong. I also 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 professional representation in family meetings with intensive care teams. 

We also have a membership for families of critically ill patients in intensive care. You can become a member if you go to intensivecarehotline.com by clicking 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 videos and 21 e-books that I have personally written and recorded. All of the information and access to me and my team will help you to make informed decisions, have peace of mind, control, power, and influence, so that your loved one gets the best care and treatment always.

We also do medical record reviews in real time. 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.

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 this video with your friends and families, and comment below what you want to see next, 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 notifications for the YouTube live if you are a subscriber to my YouTube channel and if you are a subscriber to my intensivecarehotline.com email newsletter at intensivecarehotline.com.

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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