Writing Journal/ Blog ~NurseWriter~

Story Time- Word Count 567

Today I took care of a hemipalegic patient. He only had partial use of his arms post a cerebral bleed and brain surgery.  What a sad existence at the age of 54, living this way for almost the last 10 years.

To make things worse, he is normally alert and oriented and able to talk.  I received him unresponsive with agonal respirations and barely a gag reflex.  This indicates his airway is in jeopardy, so he needed to be intubated.

Intubation is placing an E.T. Tube (Endotracheal Tube) through the mouth, vocal cords and into the trachea.  A balloon is then inflated to keep the tube in your lungs.  This is very uncomfortable.  The tube is connected to a breathing machine called a ventilator.  The machine breathes for you at a set rate.  Of course you can breath more, but it will only give you what ever it is set at.  I would think I would sit there counting waiting for my next breath.  That alone would make me go batty.

Now imagine this.  You can only partially move your arms. You cannot talk now, as a tube is preventing your speech.  You have aspiration pneumonia, which means something food, secretions, something was sucked back into the lungs causing pneumonia.

As if that isn't bad enough, you have a bed sore and I come in and place a catheter in your penis and a nasogastric through your nose, sinuses then throat to your stomach all why you are unconscious.

This is an awful mess of tubes, wires; intravenous, horrible artery sticks from the respiratory therapist to check the oxygen level in your blood.  To top it all off before waking he had a seizure.  So we medicate you to stop the seizure.

He finally woke up about 6 hours after arriving in the E.D. to what I would imagine feels like torture.

I wrote about this today as I prepare to move on to a full time job in a long-term acute care facility.  This means that many of these patients are on long-term ventilators.  Some are quadriplegic; some are just end stage respiratory cases that cannot get off a ventilator.  I was thinking what could I do for someone like this man on a daily basis.

Caring for someone like this for 12 hours is one thing, but day after day I know me.  I will have to do more then just go in and give custodial care.

So I was thinking about Story Time.  As an adult I sit here on WDC and I enjoy reviewing and reading stories and so must these poor people entombed in their body with a brain that is often still working.

I think what I will do is search through, and contact Authors, that have up lifting stories, poems etc and I will provide story time each day I care for my long term patients. 

They say the last thing to go is your hearing. So even if they cannot let me know that they hear me I will make it a part of my routine care anyway.  Possibly I could even involve the family and start some type of small storybook that I could leave with them, so who ever visits could also spend time sharing with them.


So I ask that if any of you find anything you would like to include, please send it my way.