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

Here at intensivecarehotline.com, 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, control, power, and influence, making sure your loved one always gets the best care and treatment, even if you’re not a doctor or a nurse in intensive care.

So, Leslie, thank you so much for reaching out to us here today at intensivecarehotline.com.

Leslie got the following question.

“Hi Patrik,

Please help me, they want to pull the plug on my husband. I know he’s responding. They gave him a great number of sedatives for the brain bleed from a fall. He had a seizure, and I know it takes time, but they don’t want to wait. I want him to go to hospice and let him die. I know it’s all in there. It’s all in him, and they need to give him more time.

Please help.”

From Leslie.

The good news is, Leslie, you’ve come to the right place here because we have helped countless hundreds, if not thousands, of families in intensive care to save their loved ones’ lives, and I can confidently say that we can do the same for you if you’re open to help.

Let me address your situation directly because this is exactly what we deal with every single day at intensivecarehotline.com. Families feeling pressured to “pull the plug “ or transition to hospice when their loved one may actually have a real chance at recovery.

Here’s what you need to understand about your husband’s situation right now. Brain bleeds from falls are serious, but they’re not always hopeless. When someone has a brain bleed, also called an intracranial hemorrhage, after a fall, especially with a seizure or multiple seizures involved, the ICU team will typically use heavy sedation to protect the brain. This is standard protocol, but here’s what they often don’t tell families, it takes time. For sedation and opiates  to wear off, especially after brain injuries.

Your instinct that your husband is in there and responding is absolutely valid. Most families can see signs that the medical team might miss or dismiss — small movements, eye tracking, hand squeezes — these are all potentially meaningful signs of neurological function.

Let me walk you through the key treatments for brain bleeding that your husband may have received or may not have received. At least he should be receiving ICP monitoring, which is also known as intracranial pressure monitoring. This is a device placed in the skull to measure pressure inside the brain. High pressure can be deadly, but if it’s being monitored and managed, that’s a good sign that they’re treating aggressively and appropriately.

Next, EVD drainage, external ventricular drain.  This is a tube inserted into the brain’s ventricles to drain excess CSF (cerebrospinal fluid), also known as cerebrospinal fluid and blood. This can be lifesaving and helps reduce the pressure in the brain. If your husband has an EVD, this shows they’re actively treating the bleed.

Next, craniectomy, which is also known as decompressive surgery. In severe cases, neurosurgeons may remove part of the skull temporarily to allow the swollen brain room to expand. This can prevent herniation and death. Many patients who undergo craniectomy can recover, though it requires time and rehabilitation.

Next, medications — blood pressure control, seizure medications, and sedatives and opiates are all part of managing brain bleeds. But remember, heavy sedation masks neurological recovery and can make someone look much worse than they actually are.

Here’s the harsh reality, Leslie. Many ICU teams become pessimistic too quickly, especially with older patients or those with brain injuries. They often don’t account for how long sedation actually takes to clear from the system, which is sometimes 5 to 7 days or even longer — individual variations in recovery timelines, the cumulative effect of multiple sedatives, the potential for neuroplasticity, and brain recovery over weeks and months, not just days.

When they say your husband is not responding, what they often mean is he’s not responding yet, or he’s not responding whilst heavily sedated.

What you need to do right now is get access to all medical records  immediately, and this is absolutely critical. You need complete access to all doctors, physicians, and nursing notes. Medication administration records — especially what sedatives, opiates, anti-seizure medications he’s getting — but he might also be getting hypertonic saline to manage high ICPs. The devil is in the details. Get access to all CT (Computed Tomography) and MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scans and results, ICP monitoring data, lab results, ventilator settings, weaning parameters, and fluid balance charts. Leave no stone unturned.

If you have access to all medical records, it allows us here at intensivecarehotline.com to properly review your husband’s case and give you specific targeted advice and guidance.

A consulting call with myself or one of my team members at intensivecarehotline.com will be a gamechanger for you. Here’s what we do. We review all medical records in detail, we identify gaps in treatment or premature pessimism, prepare you for a family meeting with the ICU team, help you question the medical ICU team appropriately, advocate for your husband’s continued treatment. We give you the specific questions to ask about sedation levels, neurological assessments and treatment options. We can also facilitate or participate in calls with your ICU team to clarify the medical situation and push back against premature and unnecessary withdrawal of care and withdrawal of treatment decisions.

When you have me and my team in your corner, the ICU team knows you’re informed, you’re serious, and you’re not going to accept a rushed decision for end of life without proper justification.

Leslie, you’re absolutely right that they need to give him time because buying time is buying hope. In brain injury cases, time is often the most important treatment. The brain heals slowly; sedation clears slowly. Neurological recovery happens on a timeline of weeks and months, not hours and days. If the ICU team is pushing hospice after just a few days or even a week or two, they’re likely being far too premature.

Your job right now is to buy time — demand appropriate sedation holds and opiate holds, periods where sedation and opiates are reduced or stopped completely to assess true neurological function, request proper neurological assessments when sedation is adequately cleared, question the prognosis and ask what it is based on, and advocate for continued aggressive treatment.

Leslie, I also want to give you hope for the long-term picture. Even if your husband requires extended ventilator support or tracheostomy  support, there are options beyond staying in ICU or hospitals indefinitely, let alone him going to hospice. Intensive Care at Home is our program specifically designed for families whose loved ones need long-term ventilation — with or without a tracheostomy, whether it’s invasive ventilation with a tracheostomy, non-invasive ventilation such as BiPAP or CPAP,  or support if he’s having difficulty coming off the ventilator, or even palliative care at home if that becomes the appropriate choice down the road.

The goal of Intensive Care at Home is to keep your husband out of ICU predictably and permanently while still receiving the critical care he needs at home — in the comfort of your own home with proper 24-hour intensive care nursing support, equipment, and medical oversight. Most families in intensive care don’t know this option exists. Hospitals will often present only two choices — stay in ICU indefinitely or go to hospice. The good news is there is a third option, which is Intensive Care at Home, and it provides a much better quality of life, better outcomes, keeps families together, and cuts the cost by around 50%.

Leslie, here’s exactly what you need to do right now. Request all medical records immediately — don’t wait for the hospital’s timeline, insist on getting them now. Go to intensivecarehotline.com right now and either call directly for an emergency consultation, email us (with your husband’s medical records to [email protected], or book a consulting call  so we can review your case in detail.

Do not agree to hospice or withdrawal of treatment until you’ve spoken with us and we’ve reviewed all the medical records for a second opinion. You need to stand firm. You have the right to question, to advocate, and to demand appropriate time for recovery assessment.

I also want you to know, Leslie, that Families face this exact situation every single day, and many of them successfully fight back against premature pulling the plug recommendations. With the right information, the right questions, and the expert support from myself and the intensivecarehotline.com team, you will be able to level the playing field.

Your husband deserves a fair chance at recovery. He deserves to have sedation properly cleared. He deserves appropriate neurological assessment. And he deserves to have you fighting for him, which you are already doing by reaching out to us.

Don’t let them rush you into a decision you will regret forever. Do not make decisions today that you might regret in 12 months’ time. And also ask the ICU team — where is the rush and the urgency to kill your husband? There should be a rush and an urgency to help your husband improve, not the other way around. Just keep that in mind.

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

And because our advice is absolutely life-changing, 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 why we help you to improve your life instantly, making sure you make informed decisions, have peace of mind, control, power, and influence, making sure your loved one gets the best care and treatment always. And that’s why you can join a growing number of members and clients that we have helped over the years, saving their loved ones’ lives.

And that’s why I do one on one consulting and advocacy   liver the phone, Zoom, WhatsApp, whichever medium works best for you. And 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. And when I talk to families directly, I also talk to doctors and nurses directly, asking 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.

We also do medical record reviews in real time so that you can get a second opinion in real time. We also do medical record reviews after intensive care, so, if, in case 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 e-books and 21 videos that I’ve personally written and recorded. And all of that will help you to improve your life instantly, make informed decisions, have peace of mind, control, power, and influence, making sure your loved one gets the best care and treatment always.

And all of that you get at intensivecarehotline.com. Call us on one of the numbers at the top of our website or simply send us an email to support at intensivecarehotline.com with your questions.

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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.