Can Mom’s Quality of Life Improve After Leaving the ICU?
Published: Tue, 07/25/23
Hi, it’s Patrik Hutzel from INTENSIVECAREHOTLINE.COM where 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, real power, real control and so that you can influence decision making fast, even if you’re not a doctor or a nurse in Intensive Care!
This is another episode of “YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED” and in last week’s episode I answered another question from our readers and the question was
You can check out last week’s question by clicking on the link here.
In this week’s episode of “YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED” I want to answer questions from one of my clients, Emma, as part of my 1:1 consulting and advocacy service! Emma’s mom is in ICU and she is asking
if her mom’s quality of life will improve after leaving the ICU.
Emma: She had a guy tell her, “Hey, it’s roach motel here, patients check in. They don’t check out.” I mean, that’s basically … I don’t know if you’re familiar with that commercial, but-
Ron: Yes.
Julius: Oh, my God.
Patrik: No.
Julius: I was by myself at the time then. I didn’t feel very good.
Patrik: No. And God forbid, even if you’re not getting the outcome that you would like, it’s still important for you to have perspective, because otherwise you would just get sucked into this
narrative without having perspective.
Julius: Yeah. I mean-
Emma: Yeah. We just want to know that we are doing everything that we can do and
that we tried everything. And-
Patrik: Absolutely.
Emma: You understand.
Patrik: Absolutely. And again, God forbid, if you’re not getting the outcome that you would like, it’s not necessarily COVID.
Julius: I’ll tell you I’ve got a lot of referrals for people that are just ICU things, that happened outside of this whole COVID, that they never knew there were … You must be very unique to this.
Emma: Yeah, I think you’re pretty unique because I looked around quite a bit and I didn’t really find anything else like what you have here.
Patrik: Yeah. And I
don’t understand it. I’m not going against what’s happening in ICU generally speaking. Not at all. There are a lot of good things happening in ICU, but I also know I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. There are a lot of good things happening in the ICU. Most patients in ICU recover and they go out alive. But-
Julius: Right.
Patrik: … I’m dealing with that 10%, where it’s not going well. I’m not dealing with families where things are going well.
Julius: No. No, because they-
Emma: They don’t give you that perspective either.
Julius: I mean, it was dire straits. “Yeah. Your mom looks like she’s doing well on that, just high venting. But don’t think it’s … But she’s 80 and basically, no one’s going to.”
Patrik: That’s right.
Julius: Basically, “No one’s going to …” “She looks good right now.” “Oh, but she won’t in a little bit. And basically, we don’t really see a lot of leave.” And I’m like, “No.”
Emma: Yeah.
Patrik: Sure.
Julius: It was heart-wrenching for me.
Patrik: For sure. If you look at the research, roughly 90% of ICU patients survive. Now, that’s not talking about what their quality of life looks like down the line.
Julius: Yeah.
Emma: Right.
Patrik: Right?
Julius: That’s my worry.
Patrik: Right? But roughly 90% of ICU patients survive. Now, having said that, the mortality for COVID in ICU is much higher.
Julius:
Yep.
Emma: Yeah.
Julius: Yep.
Patrik: So if you look at COVID isolated cases, the mortality, I believe it’s 40% to 60%. So there’s no question that COVID in ICU is serious business.
Emma: Don’t you think it could also be a little bit also from their kind of locked
protocols?
Patrik: Oh, 100%. There’s little room for experimentation.
Emma: I know you guys had a lot of things going on there.
Ron: You wouldn’t
want to come to the main city would you?
Emma: Probably would, actually.
Patrik: Look, we do need to open up something in the District. It’s just not
there yet, but we definitely need some sort of presence in the District. I don’t know how much research you’ve done. Here in Melbourne, we’re running an organization called Intensive Care at
Home. We’re basically looking after-
Julius: Yeah, I saw that.
Patrik: Right,
right.
Emma: Oh, yeah.
Patrik: We have so many inquiries from different locations so we definitely need some form of presence those
locations eventually. But it’s just not there yet. We’re so busy here. Eventually, yes. But I can tell you, I can assure you the narrative here has probably been worse than in the other countries but it’s crumbling. It’s crumbling by the day.
Emma: Right.
Julius: Really think worse than us here?
Emma: Oh, yes.
Patrik: Oh, worse. Worse.
Emma: Yes. Yes. You guys have been on the news. Yeah. She’s in the South.
Julius: Yeah.
Patrik: Worse.
Julius: Yeah.
Patrik: But-
Julius: I thought people are smarter.
Patrik: Look, look, it’s crumbling. It’s crumbling. And I hope that people start thinking for themselves again. Because on the day COVID hit, people stopped thinking for themselves. Got sucked into the hype.
Julius: Yeah.
Emma: Yeah. That’s exactly what happened.
Julius: And I just never did and that’s the problem. Other than maybe the first couple of weeks.
Emma: Other than a few people. A few people.
Julius: A couple of months of it, maybe.
Emma: And boy, did we get pushback from other people, if you didn’t get sucked into the narrative.
Patrik: It’s changing.
Emma:I got a lot of, “You’re trying to kill people.”
Patrik: Yeah.
Emma: You know?
Patrik: Sure. But before they kill people, they killed businesses and killed the kids not going to school.
Emma: Right. Yes.
Julius: Yes.
Emma: Right.
Julius: Yes. There’s no business left.
Emma: Yes.
Julius: I know. That’s why I’m like, “How stupid are they?”
Patrik: Oh, look, it’s just-
Emma: We have a hard time finding a restaurant to go out to eat in anymore because of that.
Patrik: That’s right. Stop eating because of COVID.
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