What I learned

What I learned from this experience, most of which I already knew or guessed.

1) You really need an advocate in the hospital. Not just someone to come visit, but someone to really check what the medical staff is doing. If we had not intervened with regard to the sedation, I wonder if Lilian would have survived.

2) I heard one of the Dr. tell the nurse to keep Lilian elevated from the waist up, otherwise she might "aspirate", which means "choke to death". How many times does this happen to a patient? I shudder to think.

3) Sedating and older person is very bad. There is more and more evidence of hallucinations in elderly patients, some caused by medicines. As the neurologist explained to us, in an older person, it takes much, much longer for the body, and the brain, to clear out the medicine.

4) Ask questions. Generally the medical staff likes to tell you what they know, show how smart they are. If they aren't too busy, you can learn a lot by asking questions.

5) If you aren't happy with the staff taking care of your loved one, ask to speak to the supervisor. The nursing supervisor can't know everything that is going on, and with the nursing shortage, it's very likely they have some employees that need watching.

I guess the best thing I learned, is even an 83 year old person can be on a vent for a week, and yet survive, and recover.

I had almost given up hope on modern medicine. It's nice to be proven wrong.

So here's what happened....part 3

To finish up this story, she had pneumonia, and then apparently had a heart attack while in the hospital.

She was on a ventilator, vent for short (also called a respirator, apparently the same thing in medical speak) for something like 5 days, and a feeding tube for 7 days. The vent keeps your airway open and forces air into your lungs. The machine can be adjusted as to how much work the machine does, vs how much your lungs do. Apparently now the standard protocol is to leave someone on a vent through the mouth for no more than 2 weeks, and if it is still required, do perform a tracheotomy and insert this through the neck.

Anyway, Lilian kept trying to pull it out, so they had her tied down and sedated. Even being tied down she would scoot her upper body down so she could reach the tubes to pull them out. She was quite a handful, so the nurses kept sedating her. The Dr. wanted to wean her off the sedation, so they could get her off the vent...but the nurses kept sedating her so they would have to keep pulling her up in bed to keep her away from the tubes.

Only because we were there all the time, seeing what went on, did we get the Dr. to give instructions for no sedation (the Dr. wouldn't give a drip, only "as needed", but apparently "as needed" is as needed for the nurses, not for the patient, LOL). When we learned the nurses were giving her Ativan every 2 hours, which was as often as they were allowed, we informed the Dr., who then gave instructions for no sedation. The next time we came back, they had additional staff watching her, to make sure she didn't pull out the tubes.

Anyway, she finally got off the vent, but was so confused due to all the drugs they thought she had a stroke. They sent her for an MRI, which did not show any sign of a stroke.

She was extremely confused for the next week, but now, about 2 months later, she has recovered enough to make a previously planned trip.