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Quick Tip for Families in Intensive Care: From the Death Bed in ICU to a Cruise Ship Holiday!
Thank You for Saving My Mom’s Life!

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

So, today I have another success story from a client, Debra who we worked with last year, would have been November time last year. She had her mother in ICU with severe pneumonia at the time, and the ICU either wanted to withdraw treatment saying that the mother won’t have any quality of life if she survived anyway, or they wanted to do a tracheostomy.

Obviously, after we reviewed all the notes, after we talked to them and got medical records and looked at all the things that were going on, we said, “Well, she should be extubated and not have a tracheostomy, let alone palliative care.” So, it was touch and go, don’t get me wrong. But the client eventually got extubated, got put on BIPAP (Bi-Level Positive Airway Pressure), and ultimately survived. She’s off BIPAP now, she’s at home, and she’s even travelling, which is why I want to read out the email from the client.

So, the client says:

“Hi Patrik,

You saved my mom’s life! After her RV transport from Connecticut to San Diego on January 6, I got her local medical support during her recovery (physical therapy, OT (occupational therapy), a few home blood draws and nurses, oxygen prescribed, Hoyer lift, etc.). She got a CT (Computed Tomography) scan at the hospital and saw her doctor on March 15. He would never have approved her for air travel with her oxygen needs so we didn’t even ask. On March 17, I drove her from San Diego to Tampa. On March 23, we got on a 14-night transatlantic cruise to Barcelona and on April 6, we drove to Oslo in Norway. Here is the photo of us and dogs on the cruise!  Thanks to you, she got to do her life goal of being on a cruise!

Best wishes, from Debra.”

Well, Debra, thank you so much for sharing this. This is incredibly amazing. It’s such a great success story, and it’s another sign that family in intensive care should never give up, should do research, and should get a second opinion.

I have worked in critical care for nearly 25 years in three different countries where I also worked as a nurse manager for over 5 years. I’ve been consulting and advocating for families in intensive care all around the world since 2013, over 10 years.

This is not the first testimonial that we’re getting where we can confidently say we help save a life and that’s what you can get when you work with us: getting that critical second opinion, moving away from the doom and gloom, and getting some real-world solutions and some positive outlooks. This is exactly what has happened here.

It’s great to hear firsthand from Debra how well her mom is doing and the whole talk from the intensive care team, “Well, she won’t have any quality of life,” but she’s now on a cruise.  Intensive care teams are notoriously bad at predicting what’s happening outside of ICU. They’re pretty good at what’s predicting inside of ICU, but sometimes they can’t move beyond their ego and say, “Hey, we’ve gone wrong here. Let’s give it a go and let’s move away from the negativity, let’s do what is right for a patient,” which is again, what has happened here. But it didn’t happen at the time without much pressure from the family which we encourage them, obviously, to put that pressure on and remind the hospital of their rights. Intensive care units are very good at pretending they can do whatever they want, including removing life support when it suits them.

Well, nothing could be further from the truth. These are all ingredients that came into play here where the client and we had to remind the hospital, “Well, here are our rights, and we will exercise them.” That’s not up to the intensive care to decide. Should we withdraw life support? Should we move this patient to hospice, or should we keep going? Should we try and extubate this patient and avoid a tracheostomy? Because there would have been an LTAC waiting on the other end and we know that LTAC, as you know, if you watch my videos for any length of time, LTACs (Long Term Acute Care) are not great places.

So, we have other testimonials on our website at intensivecarehotline.com where you can see what our clients say about the work that we are doing, and you can also look up our podcast section with some client interviews where we have clients on the podcast who share their experience how we help them and their loved ones save their lives.

Now, because we’re getting so many questions for families of critically ill patients in intensive care, that’s why we created an online membership for families of critically ill patients in intensive care where you can ask questions and where we answer all questions intensive care related. So as part of 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 access to 21 eBooks and 21 videos that I exclusively have written and recorded for our members and those eBooks and videos will help you to make informed decisions, have peace of mind, control, power, and influence, making sure your loved one gets best care and treatment.

So, I also offer one-on-one consulting advocacy over the phone, Skype, Zoom, WhatsApp, whichever medium works best for you. I talk to you and your family directly, advising you directly. I also talk to doctors and nurses directly and I ask all the questions that you haven’t even considered asking when talking to doctors and nurses directly. Once again, all with the goal of you making informed decisions, having peace of mind, control, power, and influence with the goal of your loved one getting best care and treatment. You will see that once I start talking to doctors and nurses directly and I’ll ask all the right questions that the dynamics will change in your favour.

I also represent you in family meetings with intensive care teams.

We also offer medical record reviews in real time so that you can get a second opinion in real time. We also offer 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 send us an email to support@intensivecarehotline.com.

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, comment below what you want to see next, what questions and insights you have, and share the video with your friends and families.

I also do a weekly YouTube live where I answer your questions live on the show. if you want to know when that YouTube life is happening, please subscribe to my YouTube channel and you get notification there.

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.

Related Articles:

Quick Tip for Families in Intensive Care: What is Considered Life Support? Quick Tip for Families in ICU: Why Quality of End of Life in ICU Matters! Quick Tip for Families in Intensive Care: How to Deal with Setbacks in Intensive Care! Quick Tip for Families in ICU: Should BIPAP Only be Used in ICU or Can it Be Used on a Hospital Ward? Quick Tip for Families in ICU: 32-year-old Son’s in ICU with Pneumonia, Sepsis, Multiple Organ Failure for 7 days & ICU Team Says He’s Going to Die! Help!