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Hi, it’s Patrik Hutzel from INTENSIVECAREHOTLINE.COM , where we instantly improve the lives for Families of critically ill Patients in Intensive Care, so that you can make informed decisions, have peace of mind, real power, real control and so that you can influence decision making fast, even if you’re not a doctor or a nurse in Intensive Care!
In the last blog I talked about
Having your loved one critically ill in Intensive Care, don’t be a victim!!!
You can check out last week’s blog by clicking on the link here.
In this week’s blog I want to read out a testimonial and share some feedback from one of my Clients and let her tell you her and her family’s story and how my information helped her saving her grandmother’s life!
Simply, thank you! You helped saving my grandmother’s life!
Jaymi shares her story here as follows
Hi Patrik,
I just wanted to email and say thank you for saving my grandmas life!
I’m sure you get the panic “help me” emails all the time, but I’m not sure how many you get after the family is done when their ordeal in the ICU is over, to know the difference you have made in their families life.
I will just quickly tell you- my grandma was 83, had never been to the hospital before in her life, healthy as a horse, more active than me who’s 35 and then one day found herself haemorrhaging(=bleeding) unconscious and on deaths doorstep.
She had bleeding ulcers from a stronger version of Ibuprofin that her doctor had prescribed for minor back pain.
She immediately went into emergency surgery and they intubated(=insertion of a breathing tube) her and performed emergency surgery and they seemed to have stopped the bleed.
We were all very relieved and felt like, ok she’s in the ICU – we are safe and can relax; they will do the hard work so we can just focus on loving her and being by her side.
The days went on and they were able to extubate(=removal of the breathing tube) her and get her breathing on her own. They soon, about day 10, sent her down to a lower floor to recover a little bit and then the health insurance people started showing up daily and soon she was out the door for physical therapy in a home.
It wasn’t but four days in that she started haemorrhaging (=bleeding) again. They had rushed her out too early. Back to the ICU, back to being intubated, back for emergency surgery, and back to square one.
This time they brought in a few more experts to be on hand during the surgery, they sewed up everything they could and then up to the ICU she went again. She survived another surgery. She’s a fighter.
She there she was intubated again, recovering and unconscious. Right around day 9 or so they started to try to bring her out of the induced coma again and get her breathing on her own and it was tough.
They tried for a few days. Then right around day 12 they called us all into the room and gave us “the talk”. To which none of us were prepared for. They said, “we have to get this tube out so you have 2 options- tracheostomise her or let her go.”
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“If you tracheostomise her she will most likely be in a home, unable to talk, her quality of life will be poor or you can let her go peacefully.” Basically “are you going to be selfish or unselfish”.
I couldn’t believe I found myself sitting in this room hearing this from the doctor, someone who we were supposed to trust and thought had our best interest… What he was saying didn’t add up in my mind.
She just survived two major surgeries and is just healing- so she’s having a tough time breathing on her own and coming out of it- (for 3 days)- who cares?! Give her more time! I couldn’t believe they were suggesting to let her go.
She made it through the hard part already and now you want to let her die??!
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I thought just let her recover and she will be fine. So yes, then give her a trache. But most of my family was looking at me like I was so selfish for thinking to trach her and make her “suffer”. But something wasn’t adding up and I just knew that couldn’t be the only outcome of being trached- but he wasn’t saying that.
While the rest of my family was drinking the cool aid- I wasn’t- and for about a day or so I was the selfish one for not buying everything the doctor was saying and wanting to fact check the doctor.
But surely there’s no way this happens in the United States- that a doctor would try to encourage you to sign the DNR… why…?
Because she was getting near her unwelcome limit of 12 days??? This was ludicrous. But I had no bounds to tell my family it was because I didn’t know that was actually a thing, but I felt it in my gut.
Doing your own research pays dividends!
So I went home and started googling… Politics of ICU etc… and shortly your website came up and validated everything I suspected but was wondering if I was crazy.
I bought the first little manual/Ebook (THE 10 THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ARE HAPPENING BEHIND THE SCENES IN INTENSIVE CARE THAT HOLD YOU BACK FROM HAVING PEACE OF MIND, CONTROL, POWER AND INFLUENCE, WHILST YOUR LOVED ONE IS CRITICALLY ILL IN INTENSIVE CARE!) and it it was the best money I ever spent.
While I was in disbelief that this would happen in Southern California, what I read was textbook of what was happening to us.
And we were now at the phase when we outstayed our welcome and they wanted a pass to let her go. I cried and cried reading all of your information because I knew there was hope and that we were so close to being duped.
I immediately emailed it to everyone in my family and said read this tonight. And let me tell you from that day on it was a whole different world in that ICU room. Realizing the doctor wasn’t on our team completely and that they might have another agenda was disheartening, but was just what we needed to know at that time.
It was true that no one will love her and care about her the way we do, so we needed to fight for her and be her activist and propose solutions and make sure they were doing certain things. We were difficult. We were demanding. We looked them in their eyes and they knew we meant business. We questioned them on everything. We were their worst nightmare. We kept them on their toes and nothing was getting by us anymore.
We had numerous times different doctors respond to our requests with, “well I don’t know, I’ve never had anyone ask me to do that before…”
We heard that over and over as we took over control of the situation. We couldn’t believe it was working! Soon we somehow had the doctors working for us. A shift happened and they came over to our team once they knew they couldn’t pull the wool over our eyes anymore. Now THEY were coming up with the solutions to problems and trying harder.
It’s sad it took all this work to get them there because you would think that’s what they would automatically do for every patient when you walk in. But they don’t.
They size you up and either eat you alive or eventually get on your team. From day one she was never left alone. My grandpa slept there every night.
We all took shifts everyday- and that floor knew we loved her and that if something went array she had an army behind her that was going to fight. Well believe it or not, something did go array again.
One night just when we thought we were out of the woods she started haemorrhaging again. Blood everywhere on the walls, everywhere. The nurse that happened to be in there was new and a travelling nurse. But as soon as she started yelling for help there were no joke 20 nurses in there working fervently to stabilize her. It was a beautiful site. And a testament to you.
By the time this happened about a month in, nearly the whole floor was aware of my grandma and they didn’t want to lose her like we didn’t want to lose her. They were fighting for her because we were fighting for her. They were absolute angels. It was the first time, even though it was the most critical time of her entire stay, that I could relax because I knew in my heart of hearts they were genuinely fighting for her.
But had I not gone home that night and found your site, my grandpa would have signed the DNR because he of course “wouldn’t want her to suffer”. But the reality of it was, the tracheostomy is temporary, it came out in 3 weeks and she is now in physical therapy on the mend getting her strength back.
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I told her the other day what had happened and that because you were old and “had a nice life” that they were encouraging us to let you go, or that if we kept you your quality of life wouldn’t be great.
And then I told her that I read some information from an ICU nurse who gave an inside look into the politics of the ICU and what is behind their motivations.
She just cried and said I’m so glad you did that research and fought for me. I didn’t want to die. And I said, “I know gram. We weren’t going to let that happen.”
She ended up on that last haemorrhaging getting a very last shot at an experimental surgery that the surgeon had never done, but had thought and studied her anatomy and what was really happening and wanted to give it a shot – it was that or she would die. And none of that would have been possible if we had given into their suggestion to sign the DNR.
So thank you. We are forever indebted to you and you are doing an incredible service to the vulnerable families of ICU patients. No one should ever have someone in the ICU without reading the information you provide. It is priceless and worth every penny!
Thank you forever,
Jaymi
Hi Jaymi,
thank you for your wonderful feedback and for your kind words.
It’s great to hear that you’ve used my information and applied it with much success!
Even though you’ve had all the information and info you need to take all the right steps, it still takes courage to apply it!
I have some Clients that I teach 1:1 and they don’t get results because they are too scared to implement!
Your testimonial is one of strength, courage and action that delivered the result you wanted!
If it’s OK with you I will publish your email on my blog soon.
Your story will inspire many families in Intensive Care!
Kind Regards
Patrik
Hi Patrik,
Absolutely I’m happy to share with you’re readers because really truly, even though you are not on the ICU floor anymore, you are still saving lives! So thank you for your service. It was just crazy how spot on you are!
I don’t think I would of ever believed this was all real unless I had been through half of it by the time.
I found your website and it was textbook for what we had been through thus far. So the earlier families find you the better. There are not enough words of gratitude to express how grateful we are to you. So simply, thank you.
Jaymi
How can you become the best advocate for your critically ill loved one, make informed decisions, get PEACE OF MIND, control, power and influence quickly, whilst your loved one is critically ill in Intensive Care?
You get to that all important feeling of making informed decisions, get PEACE OF MIND, CONTROL, POWER AND INFLUENCE when you download your FREE “INSTANT IMPACT” report NOW by entering your email below!
In Your FREE “INSTANT IMPACT” report you’ll learn quickly how to make informed decisions, get PEACE OF MIND, real power and real control and how you can influence decision making fast, whilst your loved one is critically ill in Intensive Care! Your FREE “INSTANT IMPACT” Report gives you in-depth insight that you must know whilst your loved one is critically ill or is even dying in Intensive Care! Sign up and download your FREE “INSTANT IMPACT” REPORT now by entering your email below!
In your FREE “INSTANT IMPACT” REPORT you’ll learn how to speak the “secret” Intensive Care language so that the doctors and the nurses know straight away that you are an insider and that you know and understand what’s really happening in Intensive Care!
In your FREE report you’ll also discover
- How to ask the doctors and the nurses the right questions
- Discover the many competing interests in Intensive Care and how your critically ill loved one’s treatment may depend on those competing interests
- How to eliminate fear, frustration, stress, struggle and vulnerability even if your loved one is dying
- 5 mind blowing tips& strategies helping you to get on the right path to making informed decisions, get PEACE OF MIND, control, power and influence in your situation
- You’ll get real world examples that you can easily adapt to your and your critically ill loved one’s situation
- How to stop being intimidated by the Intensive Care team and how you will be seen as equals
- You’ll get crucial ‘behind the scenes’ insight so that you know and understand what is really happening in Intensive Care
- How you need to manage doctors and nurses in Intensive Care(it’s not what you think)
Thank you for tuning into this week’s BLOG and I’ll see you again in another update next week!
Make sure you also check out our “YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED” section where I answer your questions or send me an email to [email protected] with your questions!
Or you can call us! Find phone numbers on our contact tab.
Also check out our Ebook section where you get more Ebooks, Videos and Audio recordings and where you can also get 1:1 counselling with me via Skype or over the phone and via email by clicking on the email and phone counselling tabs on the top of the website!
This is Patrik Hutzel from INTENSIVECAREHOTLINE.COM and I’ll see you again next week with another update!