The ICU Team is Negative About My Dad’s Condition, But Is There Hope? Live Stream!

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!

This is another episode of “YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED“ and in last week’s episode I answered another question from our readers and the question was

How Can My Mom Come off the Ventilator in ICU & Avoid Long-Term Acute Care (LTAC)?

You can check out last week’s question by clicking on the link here.

In this week’s episode of “YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED”, I am here with a live stream today, where I want to answer your questions if you have a loved one in intensive care. And this is one of the most commonly asked questions for families in intensive care and it’s a question that we get all the time. And today’s live stream is about,

The ICU Team is Negative About My Dad’s Condition, But Is There Hope? Live Stream!

Hello! Welcome to another Intensive Care Hotline Live Stream. Today’s topic is, “The ICU team is negative about my dad’s condition, but is there hope?” It’s a question we get all the time. ICUs are very good at removing hope from people’s lives, and that is very bad. One should never remove hope from anyone. Hope is all that we have. And whilst I argue hope is not a strategy, it’s still a very good emotional fuel to get the outcomes that you want. And I will break it down in more detail in a minute when we go into a case study, how you can manifest that hope for yourself.

Now, a little bit of housekeeping. Type your questions into the chat pad about today’s topic, I will get to them. If they’re not onto today’s topic and you have another question about intensive care or Intensive Care at Home, just type them in, I will get to them at the end of this presentation.

You might be wondering, if you’re new to this, what makes me qualified to talk about this topic today? I have worked in intensive care for over 20 years in three different countries. Out of those 20 years, I have worked as a nurse unit manager in intensive care for over five years. I have been consulting and advocating for families in intensive care for the last eight years. And I also own and operate a nursing service, Intensive Care at Home where we basically provide a genuine alternative for families in intensive care, predominantly for ventilation and tracheostomy. That’s a little bit of housekeeping and a little bit of background.

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Again, I want to welcome you again to this Intensive Care Hotline livestream. Today’s topic again is, “The ICU team is negative about my dad’s condition, but is there hope?” And before I get into today’s topic, like the video, give it a thumbs up, share this video with your friends and families, and subscribe to my YouTube channel for regular updates and regular live streams for families in intensive care, and obviously, leave your comments and questions below. I’d be very happy to answer them. This video today is recorded so you can watch it at a later stage once it’s uploaded to my YouTube channel.

So, today’s topic, “The ICU team is negative about my dad’s condition, but is there hope?” So, today’s topic, it’s a question we get so frequently, whether we get it almost daily, that when families have loved ones in intensive care, that one of the first things families are hearing is, “Oh, the prognosis is really poor. The chances of survival are slim. If your loved one does survive, they probably won’t have any quality of life.” And the list of negatives is just endless from an intensive care perspective.

Now, is there hope in such a situation? And the good news is there’s absolute hope. No one can take your hope away, but yourself. Doesn’t matter what the intensive care team says, hope is something you can manufacture yourself. It’s all in your head. It’s not in the intensive care team’s head. It’s up to you to manufacture your own hope. It’s up to you to do research and it’s up to you to seek help from professionals like we do here at intensivecarehotline.com.

But to underpin what I just said with some statistics, so is there hope? Intensive care teams, you know that by now, it’s negative, it’s doom and gloom. They’re telling you the chances of survival are pretty slim.

Now, here’s the good news, 90% of intensive care patients survive. So therefore, you have to question everything the intensive care team is telling you. If about 90% of intensive care patients survive, that means that only around 10% of intensive care patients do not survive. The odds are in your loved one’s favor. The intensive care team is not telling you that. So, why would your loved one be 1 out of 10 instead of 9 out of 10, the ones that survive? Those are the questions you need to ask.

Why is the intensive care team so negative and why is it all doom and gloom? Well, the reason for that is that intensive care teams want to be in control of the narrative. What do I mean by that? So, if they tell you from the minute your loved one gets admitted to intensive care, that it’s all negative, and that it’s still gloom, and that your loved one won’t survive the intensive care stay, it’s so much easier for them to manage the dynamics and manage your expectations.

Imagine your loved one came to intensive care with pneumonia, gets on a ventilator, gets intubated, gets in an induced coma, and the ICU team is telling you, “Oh, well we’ll just give your loved one four days of antibiotics, we’ll clear the pneumonia, we’ll get him off the ventilator, and next week your loved one will be back home doing whatever they were doing before they went into ICU.” If it was only that easy. But imagine they would be telling you that and then it wouldn’t happen, you could hold them to account. You could hold them to account, and you could take them to court for misleading you.

Now, by telling you that your loved one is going to die and if they do survive that they won’t have any quality of life and therefore they should limit support, should limit treatment, they’re controlling the narrative and they’re controlling your expectations. And that’s why it’s so important for you to do your own research. And I hope that’s why you’re here today, to do your own research because 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’s what we are here to help you.

So, let’s look at the trajectory of an intensive care patient, so that you understand why intensive care teams are saying what they’re saying, but what’s also happening in reality.

Hi Helene, nice to see you again.

So, let’s just break this down. So, let’s just take the example that I just said, that your loved one is getting into ICU with pneumonia. They often end up on a ventilator, with a breathing tube in an induced coma. They end up sometimes on inotropes, vasopressors, they might develop a septic picture. They are on sedatives such as propofol, midazolam, Versed. They’re on opiates such as morphine or fentanyl to keep them in the induced coma. Even in a best-case scenario, the doctors, and the nurses, they’re clearing the pneumonia and the loved one comes to a point where they can be assessed for extubation. Their chest x-ray has cleared up, their blood results look favorable, and now they’re at a point where you can take them out of the induced coma and hopefully extubate them.

Now, life has strange ways, and after a few days of an induced coma, patients decondition very quickly. And it may not be as easy as just taking out the breathing tube. In many situations it is the case. But in many situations, it’s not the case because your loved one has deconditioned already. They’re too weak to get off the ventilator. The critical illness has taken its toll and now, all of a sudden, there are complications. Your loved one can’t come off a ventilator, is agitated, is potentially confused, has gone into ICU delirium, ICU psychosis, is withdrawing from benzodiazepines. All sorts of things could come their way. Then, when they can’t be weaned, they end up with a tracheostomy. And that’s when the narrative of the ICU team is kicking in of being negative.

It’s almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy at times. And that’s why it’s so important that you are in control of your own reality. Don’t worry about the ICU team’s reality. Their reality is about controlling the narrative, controlling the beds, controlling the finances, controlling the resources, i.e., staff, medical staff, nursing staff, allied health staff, they need to control that.

The worst-case scenario for an intensive care team is to look after someone in intensive care with an uncertain outcome for an unlimited period. That is their worst-case scenario, and that’s what they’re constantly trying to manage. And by controlling the narrative, they can manage that. So, it’s time for you to control the narrative. It’s time for you to do your research and know what’s possible.

By now understanding that 90% of intensive care patients survive, you already know that the odds are in your favor. Therefore, any negativity that comes out of the ICU team’s mouth, you need to question. You can show them the research. So now, you’re armed with more positive information that you can use to create your own reality.

So, then what else is happening? What else needs to give you hope? A lot of ICUs nowadays have become complacent for a number of reasons. I always say nowadays that hospitals are built for doctors and nurses, they’re no longer built for patients. We’ve seen that in the last two years, compassion has gone out of the window. Patients were left to die in ICU during COVID without relatives being able to visit. And there might have been valid reasons for it with infection control, not bringing in more COVID into an ICU, I get all of that. But still, patients and families have suffered tremendously and so have health professionals because the workload has just increased dramatically for them.

In any case, why is there always hope? Let’s set the benchmark here once again. The benchmark is 90% of intensive care patients survive, that is the overwhelming majority patients survive, that’s the benchmark. What needs to happen from there to manufacture that hope, but also underpin it with reality. What do you need to do to make that hope a reality, and make it produce outcomes for you? Let your loved ones survive. Don’t let ICU teams stop life support because they think it’s “in your loved one’s best interest.” I have yet to find out how death is in the best interest of a patient. I’ve yet to find out how that is in the best interest of a patient.

So anyway, so here we go. How can you fabricate that hope? So, let’s just say your loved one is not getting off the ventilator and now, all of a sudden, needs to have a tracheostomy. What are the next steps to help them survive? So, the next steps are often to mobilize patients. If they can’t get mobilized, they often can’t get off the ventilator. And it’s really critically important for you to understand that patients can really only come off the ventilator if they can get mobilized. And a lot of ICUs, in this day and age, stop mobilizing, unfortunately, which is a shame, which is a real shame. It comes down to families not asking the right questions and not being armed with the right information when it comes to improving the loved one’s condition in intensive care.

So, as much as intensive care teams want to take control of the narrative, it’s very important that you take control of the narrative. Now that you know that 90% of intensive care patients survive, and now that you know that mobilization will help improve your loved one’s condition, you are taking control of the narrative and you know what your loved one wants. If ICU teams tell you, “Well, it’s in the ‘best interest to let your loved one die and let them pass away”. Well, you know what your loved one wants, and they probably don’t want to die. So therefore, it’s time for you to take control of the narrative. It’s time for you to ask all the right questions. It’s time for you to get professional help and set your own narrative, making sure you get the outcomes what you want.

I was just talking to a client this morning and one of the biggest challenges that our clients are facing is they don’t believe that they have any control over what’s happening. The first thing that I often need to do when I talk to clients is tell them, “Look, if you don’t think you have any leverage here, I can’t really work with you because I can show you the leverage, but you actually also have to believe it.” The clients that get the best outcomes in intensive care for their loved ones are simply the clients that know and believe that they can have input, that they can have leverage, get advice from us, and then implement. They are the clients that get the best outcomes.

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If you are intimidated by intensive care teams in the slightest, you won’t get any good outcomes. You really need to put your foot down. ICUs are very good, and they are trained to control the narrative. They are trained to try and intimidate families in intensive care. They’re trained on what to say, how to say it, when to say it, and they’re trained to withhold certain information. So, that’s what you have to keep in mind.

Now, coming back to some more clinical examples. I talked about an example of pneumonia. Now especially, in the last years with COVID as well. Many patients in ICU with COVID, either COVID pneumonia or COVID Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome survived, but it was certainly a long stay. Many of them died as well, but it certainly didn’t happen overnight. Many of them were in prone position, ended up with a tracheostomy, ended up on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. I’m certain that the ICU length of stay in the last two years would’ve gone up on average because of COVID prolonging the length of stay in ICU. And I wouldn’t be surprised if many of the COVID patients are still not back to a full recovery. It takes time for them to get back on their feet, and an ICU stay certainly takes their toll.

So then, other situations that we often see are trauma, either physical trauma, but also head and brain trauma, also hypoxic brain injuries. And especially when it comes to head and brain injuries, whether it’s a trauma or a hypoxic brain injury, again, ICU teams are very quick to say that with a brain injury, your loved one definitely won’t have any quality of life. Again, who am I to say what is quality of life? Who is the ICU team to say what is quality of life?

Quality of life is subjective. Quality of life cannot be measured on a scale from 0 to 10. It can be measured on a scale from 0 to 10 on your own scale, but it’s not an objective scale. What’s acceptable for quality of life for me might not be acceptable for you. What’s acceptable for your loved one’s quality of life might not be acceptable for the doctors. Don’t let the doctors tell you, “Well, I wouldn’t want to have my mom or my dad in a situation like that. I would rather have them die.” Okay, fair enough. That’s your choice. Would it be their mom or their dad’s choice? I guess that would have to be answered if they came to a situation like that.

But especially with head and brain injuries, whether induced by trauma or by a hypoxic brain injury, ICU teams are extremely quick to say that they won’t have any quality of life. Well, I know plenty of patients that have a brain injury of some sort, and they very much enjoy their lives, and their families enjoy having them around. So, talk to people outside of ICU.

That’s the biggest problem for ICUs, they have such a limited worldview, they don’t look at what’s happening outside of ICUs. And they just think that with all the stuff that’s going on in ICU, that the quality of life outside of ICU is not possible.

Now, that leads me directly to what else we are doing. As some of you may know, we are also running a service called Intensive Care at Home, and certainly, we take long-term ventilated patients with tracheostomies home. So again, comes back to the original question, which was, “The ICU team is negative about my dad’s condition, but is there hope?” Well, I believe with a service like Intensive Care at Home, there is definitely hope. Maybe your loved one’s quality of life can’t be improved, but maybe that is acceptable for you, and you want your loved one at home and maybe your loved one wants to be at home and it’s acceptable for them.

The questions need to be asked, and options need to be given to patients and families. This is not a one size fits all in ICU. The ICUs, many ICUs still operate on the following paradigm. Two paradigms in ICU. One paradigm is, “Well, we’ll either get you better and you leave and go to a hospital floor or to a hospital ward.” Or Number 2, “We can’t get you better and you’re going to die.” Well, that’s very black and white, very black and white. It’s not conducive for patients and families because with Intensive Care at Home, we’re offering a third proven option by going home. So, you have to think outside of the box, and you have to create your own hope, and you have to do your own research into what is possible for you and your family. Don’t let ICUs control the narrative. You need to control the narrative and you need to control the narrative as quickly as possible. You can only do that by doing your research from day one when you have a loved one in intensive care.

Yesterday, I had someone call me and they said they had their wife in ICU for 40 days after cardiac arrest, for 40 days. He was just absolutely brainwashed by the ICU team that it’s all negative and that it’s probably best to stop life support. He didn’t realize that there was help out there. He only realized it on Day 40. I’m not saying it’s too late, it’s never too late. But the sooner you can make your own inquiries and the sooner you can manufacture your own hope, manufacture your own narrative that can counteract the ICU team’s narrative, the better you are off and the more chances your loved one will have to survive their ordeal in ICU.

This has nothing to do with age, nothing to do with age whatsoever. Doesn’t matter whether your loved one is 22, 62, 82, 92, doesn’t matter. As long as there’s life, there’s hope. And I’m sick of people saying in ICU, “Oh, the older the patients are, we should limit resources given to them.” That’s just a whole lot of crap and it’s very dehumanizing. Who are we to limit resources for anyone? Life is sacred as far as I’m concerned. So, do your own research and push the ICU team just as much as they’re pushing you. Demand what needs to happen.

If you’re watching my videos, if you’re reading my blog, you know what needs to happen, you know that you can’t be in an induced coma for too long. If you’re having a tracheostomy, you should get mobilized as quickly as possible. Do breathing exercises, physical exercises and so forth. That is what needs to happen and you know that. So, there is always hope.

We have so many patients and families living at home instead of intensive care with our Intensive Care at Home service that I wish you could talk to them, to ask them what would they have preferred, buying into the doom and gloom of ICU teams or creating your own narrative and looking for your own solutions. You have the answer, you can answer that for yourself.

Then, there’s many patients in intensive care that have gone home without needing Intensive Care at Home and they’re leaving a very good quality of life. I’m sure there would’ve been some doom and gloom scenarios too. So, there’s many families contacting us saying, “Oh, thank you so much for your information. Thank you for your consulting. Thank you for your counselling. We’re so glad that we listened to you. And now that my mom, my dad, my spouses are at home, we’re so grateful because the ICU team told us they’re not going to survive.” Again, it’s them trying to control the narrative. Very important for you to control your own narrative.

Also, even though intensive care is very complex, and you need to look at the details because the devil is in the detail, at the end of the day, many patients follow almost like a path. They get into ICU, often on a ventilator, they end up in an induced coma, then they try to get weaned off the ventilator and the breathing tube. They can’t be weaned off the ventilator and the breathing tube. They then end up with a tracheostomy, then they need to get mobilized. ICUs often don’t mobilize because they’re simply too lazy or they want to send people out, they don’t want them to improve. That’s when you need to push and push and push to get what your loved ones need so they can keep improving.

If your loved one can’t be weaned off the ventilator, for example, and the tracheostomy, that’s when you need to look at services like Intensive Care at Home. So, that’s where we’re at in this situation. It doesn’t really matter; I am generalizing today in terms of client’s conditions or patient’s conditions. The condition doesn’t really matter, you should try anyway. And you should be trying anyway. The condition is not the predetermining factor. Your mindset is the most important factor. Your mindset is the most important factor in all of this. Not the ICU team’s mindset, not my mindset. Your mindset and your beliefs are the most important factor. You are creating your own hope underpinned by strategies.

You can read up the strategies on our blog, you can call us, you can talk to me. I’m also happy to talk to the doctors. I’ve been in hundreds, maybe even thousands of family meetings over the years, either over the phone or in person when I was still working in ICU. I have a lot of insight there and I know how to counteract the negativity of the ICU team.

So, now I want to open the floor now for questions. I don’t know if anyone has any questions about today’s topic or any other ICU related questions. If not, I am going to wrap this up and I will be doing another YouTube Live next week.

Next week’s live stream is about, “My 18-month-old girl is ventilated with a tracheostomy in the Pediatric ICU. Can she live with Intensive Care at Home?” That is the topic for next Sunday or next Saturday for our U.S. viewers. So, that’s for next week.

If you have any questions, please type them into the chat pad now. You can also call in live to the show if you want to. I’ll quickly give you the numbers if you are in the U.S. and you want to call in now on the show and ask your questions there, It’s 415-915-0090. That’s again for U.S., 415-915-0090. U.K. is 0118-324-3018, 0118-324-3018. And for our Australian viewers, 041-094-2230, 041-094-2230.

Helene, thank you for your question, “Mom, doctors induced, caused mom to suffer hypoxia, encephalopathy, permanent brain injury from misuse of the BIPAP machine. This was due to a sentinel traumatic iatrogenic injuries that was swept under the rug.” How do you know it was swept under the rug? Have you looked at medical records? Tell me more.

While I’m waiting, tell me more, Helene, why? So, you have looked at medical records. So, did this only become evident to you after the situation with your mom? I believe your mom has passed away. When did this become clear to you, after your mom had passed away? Did it become evident to you while your mom was in ICU? Can you share a little bit more?

“Plus, they refused to make an incident report.” Yeah, look, things like that need to be reported. No question about it. The question really is, what do you do with that information? Are you suing the hospital?

Right, “In real time”, are you suing the hospital? What do you make out of that information? You can call. You’re welcome to call 415-915-0090. And then I can get you on the phone now and then we can talk in more detail. It might be easier to get to the bottom of it if you call.

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While I’m waiting, you should also check out intensivecarehotline.com. Go to the website if you have a loved one in intensive care and call us on one of the numbers on the top of the website or send us an email to [email protected]. You also want to check out our membership for families in intensive care at intensivecaresupport.org.

Patrik: Hello.

Helene: Hi, Patrik, it’s Helene.

Patrik: Helene, nice to talk to you.

Helene: Hey, thank you. Same here.

Patrik: That’s wonderful. Wonderful to talk to you. We’ve been going back and forth on those YouTube Lives for quite some time and in some emails. Why don’t you share a little bit more about what you’ve done with the information that you’ve been sharing today?

Helene: Well, let’s go back to a question you had asked to, pardon me calling. “How did I know that they had caused this brain injury?” Well, it was like from the word malfeasance medical malpractice was definitely being used versus the standard of care. She was given the wrong antibiotic on January the 4th of 2016 for Cefdinir, which she was allergic to because it had the same chemical makeup as penicillin and my mom was allergic to penicillin. This was prescribed to her by a pulmonologist at her PCP (primary care physician). But we saw a different doctor versus her normal one and he refused to give her a Z-Pak (azithromycin). It was the early stages.

But he instructed me that she gets any worse, to get her to the ER hospital that was closer to us than where they were located. But he knew that she was going to have an allergic reaction. So, that was one of her allergies, not to prescribe anything with penicillin, and so he knew.

So, she ended up suffering with hypoxia… I’m sorry, what is it? Carbon dioxide build-up in her lungs. And also, this doctor refused to call me back, even when he prescribed it, I did question him. I said, “Well normally when she gets pneumonia, her doctor, they normally give her a Z-Pak and it clears it up.” And he says, “No, we’re going to do something different this time.” And I was really against it. But I went along with it. He did a chest X-ray in their office, and it definitely showed pneumonia, but it was in the early stages.

Well, over a couple of days, I did not see the normal pattern where she was getting better, she was getting worse. So, I called to ask if he would call in a Z-Pak. He would not return my call, he would not call it in. And I called several times, it was totally ignored.

Well, on January the 7th I noticed she was very lethargic. She was barely eating, barely responding to me. So, I called the paramedics, and they were going to take her to Hospital A that he referred me to send her, but they were on the diversion. So, they had to call the… And I wasn’t with them. I was going to join them later because I was packing up a suitcase because when my mom goes into the hospital, I’m with her 24/7. And I wanted to get her personal things.

So, I got a call back from the paramedics and the lady told me, “Well, this particular hospital was on the diversion.” So, they had to take her to another hospital, which was totally out of that particular healthcare system. And it was a horrible hospital they had to get her to. And I said, “Why did you not get her to Hospital B?” And she told me that, “If we tried to make it there, your mother would’ve been dead on arrival.” I was like, “What?”

So, I had to run back up, grab all my mother’s medical records and the durable power of attorney. And just basically power of attorney of mine says that I can handle everything that dealt with my mom, medical as well as financial. And I got a list of all her medicines. So, once I got there, and I also made the instructions, as soon as they get her stabilized, let’s get her transferred to Hospital B, where her primary PCP, I mean her pulmonary doctor is, because I trusted him and at least I thought I could. But that’s another story. And they said, “Okay.”

Well, when I got to that ER (Emergency Room), the ER doctor would not even come and talk to me. They had mom on a BIPAP machine, and what was so strange about it is that they had it so tight around her head that she was uncomfortable. I know it has to be snug, but it was really uncomfortable. And they were giving her IV fluid and she wasn’t even dehydrated. They lied to me.

There were so many lies. They even tried to get me to consent to getting her a tracheostomy to put on a ventilator that night. And then at another hospital, this is done by a hospitalist. When a second hospitalist came in, I was being coerced and bullied to put my mom on again. And I said, “No.” I said, “She has pneumonia.” I said, “She just needed to be given the right medication.” And they said, “Well, we’re going to take her up to ICU, would you consent?” And I said, “Only if you allow her to be able to get up. I can put her in a wheelchair or in a chair, have her mobile, make sure she can use a bedside toilet because she doesn’t like urinating in a diaper.” I saw a pattern of certain things happening that deteriorated her health in the past. And I said, “Please do not give her excessive fluid overload.” And I asked, when would you discontinue this IV fluid?” They said, “We don’t know.”

So, that was an alarm to me because I know that excessive fluid overload infiltrates the lung where it’s like drowning, you can’t breathe. And that’s a sure way to have to get that breathing tube in or I can’t say where they put the needle in the lungs and drained it. I saw that that was the pattern that she had been exploited by in the past, as well as ending up on a ventilator. So, when we got her up in the ICU, they put her on excessive fluid. I started seeing mom start having difficulty breathing, she was using her upper chest.

Patrik:Yeah.

Helene: They did give me her blood gas and it was bad; it was bad. No doubt about it. And then after that, they were giving her all these kinds of drugs. They wouldn’t even tell me when they were going to get her off the BIPAP machine. They had her on a BIPAP machine for 72 hours straight, no food, no rest, no water. Do you understand me?

Patrik: I do.

Helene: 72 hours straight. And they weren’t even checking her blood gas. And even when she was no longer in duress, pulmonary duress, they still kept her on the BIPAP. But after three days, they were doing it just at night. And then one particular night, they had mom on restraints too. All through the night, the nurses in the ICU would never come in and check on her. I saw all kinds of things happening to her, like blood coming out of her IV port. There were just a lot of strange things that people were not checking on her. She was an elderly lady with dementia. She was 84 years, maybe 83 at that time, but she died at 84. But it was the same year she was in this particular hospital. They knew she had ARDS (Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome); they were giving her excessive fluid overload with that BIPAP machine. Remember, I shared with you in other sessions that with them giving her this excessive fluid overload, they wouldn’t tell me when they were going to discontinue it.

On one particular day, the hospital and ICU got a referral to have a team come up and some radiology to drain the fluid off her lung. And they said, “Oh, there’s not enough fluid on her lungs yet.” That let me know that that was a common practice that they were intentionally doing with stuff.

and told me that the kind of pneumonia she had, she needed excessive fluid overload. No one needs excessive fluid overload because she starts showing several signs of edema, such the heart failure and respiratory failure. She ended up having a heart attack on one particular night, unbelievable. So, that went from January the 7th up to… And I kept asking, “When is she going to be discharged? When are you going to transfer her?” They were lying to me about this transfer, “We’re working on it.” No, they weren’t. They lied to me that she even had, they did a CAT scan and said she had cancer, lung cancer.

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They lied to me that she had the BIPAP (bilevel positive airway pressure) machine. They said she had a collapsed lung. No, she did not. But that BIPAP machine could have easily caused her to suffer that. But fortunately, it did not because I was able to advocate to have that minimized.

Also, one night she chewed a piece of the plastic off the mask and from the force of the BIPAP machine, it was blown down her throat. You could see the blood, dried blood on the right side of her mouth. When I woke up and found her mask kind of popped out over her mouth and nose because she had used her chin. My mother was very smart and very strong and very determined because she had restraints on her, and it was very miserable for her. So, when I showed the attending nurse that morning and I said, “A piece has been chewed off” because my mother had her own teeth.

But so, we looked for the piece, and could not find it. And so, I said, “Miss, if we could not find it in the covers, on the floor or anywhere else and the mask was on her mouth, that meant it was blown down her throat and it covered her esophagus.” And they did nothing to retrieve it. I did make a complaint and ask for a report to be done and what was going to be the plan of care to try to retrieve it, they did nothing and then it got really retaliatory.

They also, as far as being my mom’s durable power of attorney, the ER nurse didn’t even put it in her medical records. I was there all the time. But they had it looking like she was an elderly person in the hospital by herself, so the doctors could make any decisions that they wanted to, and I was sitting right there. Then the doctors also started attacking me, “Why are you here all the time? Shouldn’t you go home?” They were trying to keep me from getting enough sleep or something and not thinking clearly. I said, “When my mother’s asleep, I’m right here, next to her in this chair asleep too. I’m getting plenty of sleep.”

They were trying to bully me, and they were insulting me like, “You must not have a job, you’re here all the time. How can you do that?” I said, “My job is to take care of my mom.” I said, “When she’s at home I take care of her full time. So, I’m doing the same here. I make sure her hair is combed, make sure she eats, et cetera, et cetera.” I was constantly being harassed because I had to report everything in real time to her insurance provider, Humana. I was making reports to the patient management team. I was past patient relations because I’ve seen this pattern of excessive fluid overload happen at other hospitals before, and I’m like, “We’re not going through this again.” So, I was always trying to be preventative, like, “Hey, let’s stop this.” I said, “Y’all need to know what’s going on here.” And I was letting them know.

I said, “You all are inducing respiratory failure.” I said, “That’s a felony.” I said, “You’re not supposed to be doing that.” And so, I remember the pulmonary team, they wouldn’t intervene. They were okay with the excessive fluid overload. They were even okay when the hospitalist put hold on water for mom for three days, where she became dehydrated. They were shocking her system. They were doing all these egregious things and then they were giving her all these opiates, like Clonazepam and some other ones that I didn’t even know the name of. They wouldn’t even tell me what they were giving her.

I’m a Christian and so I’m going to speak that language because that’s what I know. I had to, it’s like the Holy Spirit, it literally just told me what to ask them, when they tear the package and put it in the trash, just get the package and put it in your briefcase. Because here at that time, I didn’t have a phone that I could Google and find out what those drugs were.

They even gave her this excessive amount of medicine. Those were the large bottles, like a bottle that could have been about five inches at least. And it was, wow. They ordered two bottles, they were delivered together, but only one was charted in her records. But I saw them give her two. One on one day and then the next bottle a couple of days later. So, what I did is I picked the box out of the trash and put it in my briefcase because that wasn’t normal to me either.

I listened to those red flags. That doesn’t seem right. And understand, at that time, during that time they had put a hold on water, so they were drying her out. So, that was a way to induce kidney failure. They weren’t even monitoring the water going in and out.

They also put her on a bed that was never sterilized from another patient. It was one patient and my mother ended up getting emotional and hepatitis and septic shock from the injury.

They did have a, what is it? Infectious diseases doctor to come in. She wasn’t telling me anything. She just said, “We’re going to try this antibiotic.” Also, the hospitalist, he was giving her antibiotics, it’s only supposed to be a certain window you give it. He had exceeded it. And I’m like, “You’re causing her to have immune deficiency, you’re creating a superbug, then she won’t be able to fight off any infection.” And I had to go to the TMO (treating medical officer) and report this and I had to partner with another pulmonologist and he and I had to advocate for it to be discontinued.

One other thing they did too, with the excessive fluid overload. They stopped giving her any fluid, and then she needed sodium. So, he did a referral to a nephrologist. This particular doctor, she said all she needed was a salt pill. But see, it was like they were using her as a commodity to make money. It wasn’t about let’s be right to this patient. It was about we’re going to capitalize on her. And so, mom was downgraded from ICU to PCU (Progressive Care Unit) and on the January the 23^rd, this doctor said, “I hear wheezing in your mother’s lung.” And then another pulmonologist came the next day, and he heard wheezing. And he said he was going to put an order in for an X-ray to be done.

On the 25th, this particular hospitalist came early that morning, and said, “Your mom’s going home today.” And I’m like, “What?” I said, “Wait a minute. Two doctors have said that they heard wheezing in her lung. I’ve been asking from Day 1 when she’s going to get transferred or be released to go home, and you all never gave me an answer. Now all of a sudden, you’re going to send her home? She’s really wheezing, she’s lethargic.

Also, her oxygen saturation that morning, because she had knocked the nasal cannula out of her nose, was 69%. I said, “No, I’m not taking my mother out of here without you all checking her blood gas, doing her blood panels and an X-ray downstairs.” Well, he said, “Okay.” So, what he did, he ordered a bedside X-ray where it had the camera, where you can look at the immediate capture of the X-ray and I’ve seen enough X-rays, that cloudy image shows pneumonia. And I said, “Oh no, I’m not taking her out of here. Not at all.” And come to find out, they knew she had MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) on the 22nd before they downgraded her to PCU. They knew she had MRSA pneumonia infection.

Then on that day, on the 25th of January, they were bullying me to take her home. They had scheduled a home health service. I said, “I was told that when I take her home, I should have a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) for her, so she doesn’t have the carbon dioxide just build up on her lung anymore.” They wouldn’t do that. A pulmonary doctor even came to see me at 7:30 that night. And he said, “Your mother is safe to go home.” I said, “How do you know?” He said, “Oh, I saw the X-ray.” I said, “I thought the X-ray wasn’t back, I’d like to see it.” He says, “No, I’ve seen enough of her, she’s safe to go home.” I said, “You haven’t even examined her. You are standing out here, outside her door.” And then he walked over, and he listened. “Oh, she’s safe to go.” I said, “I’m not taking my mother out of here.”

Then another doctor, a hospitalist came, and she was very lethargic, her heart rate was up. See, I also had one of those pulse oximeters she put on the finger that I had at home, and I brought it with me to the hospital. Her heart rate was rising, she was extremely lethargic. She was so lethargic; she could not even take her medicine on the PM shift. And they would not even give it to her by IV because the doctor, the hospitalist discharged her at 12:57 that day and they wouldn’t touch her, you’re hearing me? This is what happened.

Patrik: That’s shocking. That’s absolutely shocking.

Helene: Oh, and then a heart doctor, a nurse came and came to educate me on heart failure. And I’m like, “Did my mom have a heart attack?” “No.” I knew she did it on the 13th. But she was like, “No, we’re just educating you on it because we’ve had it in the past.” Because the same stuff happened to her at a hospital in 2012 because they concealed a lot of things for me to find out after the fact. So, the next morning, well, let me say from 8:00 to 9:30 that night they were trying to throw my mother and I out of the hospital because they knew that all the injuries that they had caused, that they were going to be liable.

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So, at first, they wanted me to just transfer to a LTAC (long term acute care), I said “No.” And it was going to be in-house. I’m like, “Would it be the same doctors who’ve been treating her in ICU?” They said, “Yeah.” I said, “Oh no, no I’m not doing that.” And then because there’s going to be a choice of that or going home. And I said, “Well I’m not taking her home.”

So, all throughout the night, she just got worse and worse. Nobody would give her any help. The next morning, her infectious disease doctor came, and he ordered a sputum culture and the mucus that she spit up was green. Then later that morning at 10:30, she coded blue. Fortunately, there was a neurologist on her way because the new doctor for that day, she had put in an order because mom was like how you take your hand, and you rub somebody’s chest to try to see if they would respond. They did that throughout the night. Mom was not responding, and mom coded blue.

And then after that I was devastated, first of all, because I had been crying and asking for help. Everybody was ignoring her. They said, “She’d been discharged, and we really can’t touch her.” But they knew she was in danger. That’s the thing, if they could transfer you, they could try to have a defense that it didn’t happen under their watch or under their care. That’s why I knew not to have her transferred anywhere when I saw the state she was in.

Had I taken mom home that day, and I was being bullied to take her out of there. I mean bullied and it was bad how she was treated. And had I taken her home, she would’ve died on January the 26th of 2016 versus August the 27th of 2016 because it would not have been enough time for paramedics to get there and get her back to a hospital.

So, after they intubated her and they got her back into ICU, I was just exhausted. I said, “I got to go home and just kind of cool out and get some sleep and wash my clothes.” And I said, “I’ll come back the next day.” I was so tired, so exhausted because I had no one to relieve me. So, I didn’t even hear the call that came from the hospital, from the PCP. I’ll say Dr. M, she left a message and she said, “Your mother extubated herself because the respiratory tech did not put a tooth guard when she was intubated. She self-extubated and they did not know how long she was without oxygen. Even on the day of the 25th, she wasn’t getting oxygen to the brain. And that’s what I can’t understand. How can you discharge a person that O2 (oxygen) stats was 69 on room air.

Patrik: That’s negligence.

Helene: Big time, big time, yeah. And it was murder. If she went home, she was going to die.

Patrik: It’s murder, it’s murder. So, what have you been doing so far with all of this, Helene? Have you been doing anything with this? Have you been suing the hospital?

Helene: Yes. Oh, definitely. Well, what I did right, by God’s grace, is I was reporting it and I was documenting. And then I would go get pictures because she was intubated four times in that one hospital because they were manipulating things. There was a lot of other stuff going down, too. Then, they tried to make me their scapegoat. They were trying to accuse me of aspiration pneumonia. And that’s also the thing on the 25th, the doctor coming up, all trying to tell me, “Oh, it’s your fault.”

Patrik: Oh, my goodness.

Helene: What? Oh, yeah. So, I remember some stuff with my mom. But what I did right, I reported it. I was reporting to risk management in real time. I was reporting it to Humana in real time. I did it to the fraud department because they wanted to make it quality of care. It wasn’t about quality of care; it was about you intentionally induced illnesses for a profit. So, that’s criminal. And so, I was doing that and then I reported it to the state regulations.

Another thing, they did not give me a copy of important, like when you sign consent to treatment, they’re supposed to give Humana important message or information like if you don’t agree with a discharge, see they didn’t even give me that form. And then also, let me share this with you, I found out on the 29th that they did not ever admit her into the hospital. Do you hear me?

Patrik: Yeah.

Helene: That’s illegal. So, they technically shouldn’t have even been able to charge Medicare for money.

Patrik: Absolutely, my goodness.

Helene: Yes.

Patrik: So, did you get an outcome from all of this or is it still pending?

Helene: Well, okay, so okay. No, okay. See, by the time she went there, my mother had gone from this at another hospital in 2012. So, there’s a statute of limitation in Atlanta, Georgia, there’s a two-year statute of limitation. No doctor would take the case because I didn’t know all the injuries. See, they were concealing a lot of the injuries from me like the ARDS. Also, they have a stroke and all the stuff they induced. Because at the other hospital they gave her surgery for diverticulitis versus doing the standard of care. Put her on antibiotic, give her 72-hour bowel rest. They didn’t do that. They gave her surgery, a nurse practitioner and they did not irrigate it, and that’s a whole another story. I won’t get that. But let me say this, for all the things I went through with my mom, and I was her full-time caregiver and I love my mom that I literally had a nervous breakdown. I suffered post-traumatic-

Patrik: I can imagine.

Helene: It was like post-traumatic stress disorder and then to be falsely accused of crime that I did not, that they were placing on me. So, they said it’s called break the chains of causation, so they won’t be liable or as bad. And then all these people teamed up on me. They had me under surveillance as of January the 29th. And they discontinued water and started giving her saline in her PEG tube.

Patrik: Oh, my goodness. Helene, I really appreciate you sharing this. I think it’s really important for other people to hear how cruel-

Helene: Oh, definitely.

Patrik: … how cruel the hospital system can be. Helene, my time is limited. I need to wrap this up.

Helene: Okay, no problem. No problem, no problem.

Patrik: I do really appreciate you sharing this because other people will hear this once the YouTube Live is uploaded. I really appreciate that you are willing to share this, that people need to watch like a hawk, unfortunately.

Helene: Yes, definitely. And that’s the lesson I want to say, they were trying to separate my mother and me. They banned me from being able to touch my mother. Especially, when she was in her most critical state of life. I cannot because they were restraining me for months, I’ve been accused of aspiration pneumonia. And the only time she had aspiration pneumonia was when she was in the hospital.

Remember I told you about the overactive saliva branch from that BIPAP machine where the BIPAP machine was blowing that saliva right down in her lungs and that’s how she got aspiration pneumonia. And they were trying to blame it on me. But I just got to go, but I’m so glad I had the confidence because of you, how you treat us when we’re on the broadcast, live chat, that I felt comfortable enough to call you. Because I did have to blow up my confidence to do this.

Patrik: Right. No, I really appreciate it that you do this. I think it’s so important for other families to hear. I’m not making this up, unfortunately. I wish I was making this up, but I’m not. I have these conversations with many other people.

Helene: Yeah, yeah. It’s a nightmare that I couldn’t wake up from.

Patrik: I can imagine.

Helene: It was real, and it was very traumatic. And like I say, it’s like divide and conquer. They could have divided me away from my mom and they were even threatened, and that’s another thing, like you show here your audience needing to advocate, but you got to stay cool, calm, and collected.

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Patrik: Absolutely.

Helene: If you get ballistic or whatever, they’ll throw you out of there and then you’ll be banned, and you won’t be able to be with them at all. So, I had to learn to repress a lot of stuff in. I would love to share more things with you in the future if you would like.

Patrik: I would love to. I would love to. So, you know what we could do as well? We could also record a podcast if you like, a separate podcast. But look, I need to wrap this up for now. I really appreciate you sharing this. Maybe I’ll get back to you. I think I’ve got your email, maybe I’ll reach out to you.

Helene: Do you need my number?

Patrik: I’ve got your number on my screen, I’ve got your number on my screen. I’ll reach out to you. I need to wrap this up for now. Thank you, Helene, and for all our watchers to watch this and listen to this today. I really appreciate you sharing this. Look out for the next YouTube Live for next week.

Helene: Oh, definitely.

Patrik: And we’ll talk soon.

Helene: You have helped me answer a lot of questions that I was being lied to about and that’s why I want to thank you personally. Appreciate it. Take care and God bless.

Patrik: It’s a pleasure. All the best. Thanks, Helene. Thank you so much. Bye-bye.

Helene: Okay, bye.

So, I really appreciate Helene sharing her mom’s story and her own story with post-traumatic stress. It’s a very unfortunate situation, but it also shows that unfortunately, I’m not making this up. Unfortunately, you need to watch like a hawk. You need to get a second opinion and you need to get professional help because otherwise hospitals, unfortunately, walk all over you. That’s what we are here for at the Intensive Care Hotline.

So, I need to wrap this up. Thanks everyone for watching.

Go to intensivecarehotline.com.

Thank you, Helene, again.

I do provide one-on-one consulting and advocacy for families. We have a membership for families in intensive care We also review medical records, have a look at all of that.

I want to thank you for watching this, and I will talk to you next week.

Take care for now.

Share the video with your friends and families and subscribe to my YouTube channel. Give the video a thumbs up.

Take care.

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