Walking Home from The ICU Episode 13: Loved Ones Are Survivors Too Part II
Part II of how caregivers also leave ICU with high rates of PTSD and long-term life impacts. Mike Maranhas shares his side of his wife’s ICU stay and recovery. Episode Transcription Kali Dayton Bella mentioned to me that she had terrible hallucinations and delirium during that time being so profoundly sedated. And even once she
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Walking Home from The ICU Episode 12: Loved Ones Are Survivors Too Part I
Caregivers also leave ICU with high rates of PTSD and long-term life impacts. Mike Maranhas shares his side of his wife’s ICU stay and recovery. Episode Transcription Kali Dayton Now we’ve had penetrating insight into the sufferings of ICU survivors themselves. Yet, we would be missing a big part of the picture. If we dismissed
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Walking Home from The ICU Episode 11: Rehabilitate Rehabilitation
When we send patients to LTAC or SNF to relearn how to walk, what is that like? Susi Rimkus, DNP, shares with us her experience with rehabilitating rehabilitation. Episode Transcription Kali Dayton Now that we’ve heard about the months it took for a patient like Jim, to be able to walk again, let’s look at
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My dad came down with COVID pneumonia at the end of September. We did our best to treat him at home but eventually we realized we needed to get him to a hospital. After about four days in the hospital on oxygen he crashed and needed to be put on a ventilator. We were devastated.
When they put a person on a ventilator, hospital protocol generally is to sedate and paralyze the patient. My dad was sedated and paralyzed for a total of about 17 days. He was completely immobilized. One doctor told us that my dad had one of the worst cases of COVID pneumonia he had seen in a long time. We were, of course, extremely worried. As time went on, his condition worsened. Through a series of miracles, my dad stabilized enough that they were able to give him a tracheostomy. This was the turning point where he was able to get transferred to a LTAC facility (which is a critical care facility for COVID patients).
Fortunately, through a friend, we were put in touch with Kali Dayton. We were told she has had amazing success helping people come down off sedation and the paralytic. One of the side effects of sedation is the patients experience extreme delusions and hallucinations. While we were at the LTAC, Kali was extremely helpful in helping us understand the importance of getting my dad off the paralytic and sedation quickly. She informed us that every day he was on the sedation added weeks onto his recovery. We began pressuring the staff at the LTAC to get him off the sedation. Kali has found that it is critical to get a ventilated patient up and moving and you can’t unless they are off sedation. The staff at the LTAC were very hesitant to take my dad off sedation, at times even telling us he was off it, when in fact, he was still on sedation.
Heidi Lanthen
Utah, USA
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