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Thank You to intensivecarehotline.com for Saving My Mom’s Life in the ICU!
Patrik: Hello, 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 intensivecarehotline.com podcast, and today I have a very special guest with me. Today, I have Whitney with me.
Hi, Whitney.
Whitney: Hi, Patrik, nice to meet you today.
Patrik: Very nice to meet you. Thank you so much for joining me on this podcast. Whitney, we have been working with you. You have been one of our clients for a long time now.
Whitney: Yes.
Patrik: I’m losing track of time. How long?
Whitney: Almost a year.
Patrik: Oh, my goodness. Almost a year. Whitney, I really want you to share your experience, to share your family member’s story and journey in
and out of hospitals. Why don’t you start where you want to start?
Whitney: Yes, so it’s definitely has been a long journey. We’re approaching almost 15 months since my mom had her first hospital stay. My mom is no stranger of going to the hospital because prior to that, my mom has diabetes, she’s a kidney transplant patient, and she’s also legally blind. But before this
journey started, she had decent health, where hospital stays, maybe every other year that she experienced for maybe 2 to 5 days.
But last year, the exact date, August 15th, I’ll never forget it, I had brought her into the emergency room just to be seen, just because she had some confusion. She was losing weight. She wasn’t eating normally like she does.
My mom, if you meet her, she’s sharp as a whiz. She’s the person that reminds me of everything. She’s well-educated, she’s a former ICU nurse herself.
Patrik: Yeah, right.
Whitney: So, I knew something was
off. So, I brought her into the emergency. The doctors, they evaluated her. They checked her for everything, all the way from any terminal illness you could think of, cancer, I don’t know, any sort of deadly illness, a stroke, they checked for a stroke.
And everything came back normal.
Then found that she had an infection, I can’t even think the name of the infection, but something they said, it’s like a general cold. They said for someone like her, it’s harder for her to fight because she is autoimmune suppressive because of her kidney transplant, and for someone like me, it
would be just like a cold.
So, they treated her and unfortunately, the antibiotic that they treated her with did not do well because she has kidney disease. So, it
completely altered her mental state. She began to have seizures. She was extremely confused, didn’t know where she was. She almost went into; it was almost like she was in a coma for about 2 weeks.
So, since then, we’ve gone through where my mom was given a tracheostomy, seizures, and so on. So I was at the point, my mom was in ICU, neuro ICU. I remember the doctor said that “We need to have a meeting.” I didn’t understand what that meeting was because, again, my mom’s never really been in the hospital like that, only 2 to 3 days. I understand she has health conditions, but she always had decent health. She was able to manage her diabetes and so
on.
So, it’s like, “Okay, maybe the meeting is for us to strategize” because I’m a project manager by profession. So, I was just thinking maybe it’s to strategize, maybe it’s just everybody can get aligned and understand how can we help my mom so she can get better.
So, I forgot to mention I was
pregnant, so I was definitely dealing with a lot of emotions during that time. So, we sat in the meeting, and they said, “We have three options.” It was like a social worker there, someone from palliative care.
When I did my research, it said palliative care is basically someone from assist you like hospice, but they can help from complex issues and things like that.
So, they said, “We have three options. We can either do everything we can to help your mom. We can stop treatment and allow for her to just transition on.” They used these very difficult medical terms, I’m going to be honest.
They said, “Or we can do on do not resuscitate, and whatever happens, happens.” I told them, the first thing I said, “I’m a believer. I believe in God, and I believe that miracles can happen. I’m
not going to give up on my mom and if I give up on my mom, that means I’ve given up on God.” And so, they really looked at me crazy, honestly, like I was insane.
They threw in science. I said, “I understand science.” I said, “My mom’s been in the health field for years, decades.” And I said, “I’m not giving up on her.”
And so, they said, “Okay.”
So, I went home, and I cried, and I prayed. For some reason, God told me to look up, like ICU help. I literally typed in ICU help, and I saw Patrik’s link and I just paid for it. I didn’t know what I was paying for, honestly. I was like, “I hope this is good for us.”
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Patrik: You were hoping it was legit.
Whitney: Yeah, “I hope this is legit, but I’m just going to pay for it now.” I found Patrik, and from
that time that I found Patrik into now, he’s helped me navigate through the questions that I asked.
There are times where they’re like, “How do you know this stuff? How are you figuring this out? How do you know about these things?” I just feel comfortable and empowered to challenge these doctors because they do come in, and they use all these strange things, and these strange words, and things like
that. Especially someone that doesn’t have a medical background, it’s almost like foreign to you.
So, his team has honestly helped my mom still be here today and I really appreciate it. I’m trying not to cry because it’s definitely been a difficult journey. My mom’s been at a place where she literally had a tracheostomy and learning how to breathe on her own. Now, she can breathe on her own. She doesn’t have a tracheostomy.
Even though it’s been a journey, these last 15 months, she’s been at a place where she’s able to walk with a walker and things
like that. We’re still navigating the hospital. But Patrik, I really appreciate your team.
Patrik: I was just about to say, just I have to give a big, big shout out to my team here because this is not a one man show. So, a big, big shout out to my team here, to Cheryl, Sittie, and Mila, and also our VAs that are working in the background. So, big shout out there. Thank
you.
Whitney: Yeah, but to make that long story as short as I could, that’s pretty much what my experience has been these last months.
Patrik: What I remember, because we have been working with you now for a long time, correct me if I’m wrong here, Whitney. When I
looked through my records earlier, the first ICU stay for your mom, initially, they were adamant to move her towards end of life as quickly as possible?
Whitney: Yes.
Patrik: Then once she turned the corner and improved, then they were adamant sending her to LTAC (Long Term Acute Care) from memory, is that correct?
Whitney: Yes. Yes, that’s true.
Patrik: We were telling you, “No, no. Don’t let her go to LTAC. Let them
wean her off the ventilator in the ICU”, and they did, didn’t they?
Whitney: Yeah. They were so aggressive. I didn’t know
what to do, what to say. But yeah, you guys helped me understand what exactly to do with that.
Luckily, with that, I was just pushing them. I was asking them question about insurance. During that entire time, she was weaned off. They couldn’t do anything, so they weaned her off and she didn’t have to go to LTAC, which I’m grateful that she didn’t, because I heard it’s a nightmare.
Patrik:
It’s a nightmare. It’s an absolute nightmare. Also, from memory, Whitney, weren’t they telling you that she’s running out of insurance entitlements in ICU?
Whitney: They did. They did.
Patrik: Then we probably told you, you’d better check that with the insurance.
Then you checked it with the insurance and the insurance said, “No, no. She still has entitlements for ICU.”
Whitney: Yeah, yeah.
Patrik: I keep saying over and over again, hospitals are trying to pretend they can do whatever they want, until you challenge
it.
Whitney: Yes. It’s almost like they’re like bullies.
Patrik: Bullies.
Whitney: Yeah.
Patrik: If you had given in at the first sign of resistance, your mom may not be here.
Whitney: No, she wouldn’t. Like I said, they’re like bullies. They try to use my age against me. Like, “You’re so young.” And, “I have kids your age.” And “I don’t think, if I was your mom, I would never want to go through this. You have so much
on your plate. Caring for your mom is just too much for you.”
Just things like that that they would throw in to try to make it seem like they care, but no. They were like bullies.
At this point, when I walk into that hospital, they like know “Whitney’s coming and she’s going to challenge us, and we
better not ask.” Even when they ask about palliative care, I’ll say, “I don’t want to hear about palliative care. I don’t care about palliative care. What I’ve asked you to do is to take care of my mom and do what’s needed.” They’ll ask about, “Do you want to change her from full code?” I say, “No.” What it says is full code, do not bring that up again.
So, honestly, I feel like I run the hospital,
at this point, just because I have Patrik’s team behind me that can help me challenge this hospital, and the doctors, and so on.
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Patrik: With the notion of the hospital saying, “Oh, if it was my mom, I wouldn’t want her to go through this.” As far as I’m aware, your mom is full of life with all the challenges that she’s experiencing, but at no point in time has your mom said to you, “I want to give up.”
Whitney: She hasn’t. She hasn’t said any of
that. She said that she still wants to keep fighting, and she still wants to keep going to therapy, and just improving. Which she has. She’s been improving.
Patrik: Yeah. It’s great that you say nice things about us. That’s wonderful. By the same token, it also takes a determined client to implement what we are saying, because I know from experience, the hospitals can be like
bulldozers. They really can. It also takes someone really strong-willed and say, “Look, you can try with me, but you’re not getting very far because I know my rights.”
Whitney: Exactly, exactly. Once I understood what my rights were, because I thought like, “Oh, the doctors can make these decisions without me being involved.” I feel very equipped. Throughout this entire journey, I
did not realize how strong, and passive-aggressive I can be with the doctors, and how much I can use what I’ve learned in other fields to challenge these doctors and make sure to advocate for my mom, because that’s what I’ve been doing this entire time, just being her advocate, and just making sure she has the best care so she can come home.
Patrik: Right. You mentioned
earlier, which I was unaware of, you mentioned earlier that you are a project manager in your professional life.
Whitney: Yeah.
Patrik: You are certainly project-managing your mom’s situation.
Whitney: Yeah. It worked out, just to make sure, when it comes to speaking to the entirely different doctors when they bring in like, “Oh, we’re recommending this medication.” I’m like, “Have you talked to nephrology?
Have you talked to our endocrinologist?” So, I’m always bringing those things in. There are times where they’re like, “What do
you do for work?” Or they’re like, “How do you know all this stuff?” So, it’s been great.
I remember, Patrik, when we had the meeting with palliative care, well, they weren’t involved, and you sat on the call, and they were like, “Who is this guy? Why is he asking all these questions? How does he know this?”
But yeah. I think I definitely have been my mom’s advocate during this time. I know she appreciates it. She’s said it multiple times, like, “I really appreciate you and love you for just continuing to advocate for me.”
So, there’s times when we go to, because she has been home throughout this time. She’s been home for about 4 months during this time. When we’re at her
doctor’s appointment, she said, “I’ll just let my daughter talk because I know she’s my advocate.” So, I’ll just talk for her, answer the questions, and go from there.
Patrik: Yeah, yeah. Your situation has really ticked a number of boxes of something that I’ve been saying for many years. I want to break this down for anyone listening because the first thing that it showed to me
was, let’s call it for what it is, they wanted to kill your mom.
Whitney: Yeah.
Patrik: You stood up against that, successfully because no hospital can just end someone’s life. Hospitals say they can, until you challenge it.
Whitney: They do.
Patrik: They’re very good at pretending, “Oh, well, we’ll just stop everything”, and then a patient’s going to die. Well, they will do that if you let them. They can’t if you challenge it with the right tools. That was number one.
Number two was, the insurance issue where they told you, “She’s running out of ICU entitlements,” until you checked with the insurance and the insurance clearly verified with you. “Well, she can still stay”
Whitney: This is not true.
Patrik: This is not true. So, two agendas there straight away from hospitals. Number one, they needed the bed, wanted to end your mom’s life. Number two, they needed the bed, “We’re telling you she’s running out of insurance entitlements. She needs to go somewhere else.” Well, that didn’t work. Number three, eventually they wanted to send it to LTAC, that didn’t work because you stood your ground.
This is also something that I’ve been saying for over a decade now, they can’t just send a patient out to another facility without a patient, or a next of kin, or power of attorney consent. It’s just not happening.
Whitney: Exactly. Exactly.
Patrik: Just not happening. I don’t know, I can’t remember the ins and outs, but if your mom had gone to LTAC, would she have gone far away from where you are? Would they have wanted to send her hours away?
Whitney: No. There were options where it was hours away, but there were a few LTACs that were within like a 30-minute
radius.
Patrik: Radius, okay. Fair enough. Are you now on good terms with the hospital, or are they still giving you a hard time?
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Whitney: So, they’ll ask questions, like recently, my mom’s in the hospital right now. She has a simple infection, a UTI (Urinary Tract Infection), just very simple but she’s in the hospital for that. So, they asked her first, when she was in emergency room, they said, “Your mom is still listed as full code. Do you want us to change it?” I said, “No, keep it the way it is.”
Then they asked, have I talked to someone in palliative care? I said, “No, I do not want to speak to anyone from palliative care.” They did send, because I guess they have care ministries that are there, but they’re part of palliative care, and I learned that. I did not know, because that’s how it started.
I
remember when they first came in, there was someone from the ministry and I said, “I just don’t know what to do.” I was in tears again, mind you, I was pregnant, so I was very emotional, and it’s my mom. I told them, “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know…” This was before I found Patrik. I said, “I don’t know what to do. I have a lot to think about with my mom. The doctors have said that she’s not going to recover and they’re recommending that I look into palliative or hospice
care.”
He was so genuine and so nice, and he said, “You have a lot to think about” and so he left. And that’s when the palliative doctor came, and the entire team came, and they basically said, “We can end her life that evening.” And I was like, “Wait.” I was honestly, I was hurt because I thought this guy cared.
I had to remind
myself, he works for this hospital. He’s part of this team.
So, they did send, most recently, someone from the ministry, and he asked, and I said, “Thank you so much. I really appreciate you coming in to see about my mom.” I said, I just told him, “My mom is doing well. She’s just taking time to recover.” And he said, “Okay, thank you”, and he left. But I know if I would’ve said more to him,
probably a palliative care doctor would’ve come in and said something similar than they did about 6 or 7 months ago.
Patrik: It’s almost unbelievable how far down, how bad the health system is, because if someone’s coming in and telling you, “Hey, I can take care of ending your mom’s life tonight.” That’s shocking.
Whitney: Yeah. It is.
Patrik: Absolutely shocking.
Whitney: It’s horrible. It’s horrible how they treat just human beings. It’s almost like it’s just a business.
Patrik: Just a business, just a machinery.
Whitney: Yeah. It’s just a business. It’s they treat them like numbers. They’ll say, I’ve corrected them multiple times to say, “Oh, patient 15.” I’ll tell them, “Her name is Crystal Hill.” So, I’ll say names, I’ll correct them like, “She’s a human. She’s not
just a number. She’s not just a bed. She’s a person. You got to treat her like she’s a human.” I have to remind the doctors, “If this was your mom, how will you treat them?”
The nurses as well, and just remind them like, “I understand this is your job, but you have to have some empathy for these patients and the family.”
Sometimes, the doctors and nurses are very receptive of that feedback, and they change their mindset but there’s sometimes where it’s pushback and they don’t care, and they’re more focused on, again, it being a business.
Patrik: Unfortunately, it’s a business, and unfortunately, many doctors and nurses are now desensitized.
Whitney: They are.
Patrik: Just another death, so what?
Whitney: Yeah, very true.
Patrik: For you, it’s your mom and for them, it’s just another number. I don’t know whether, in the course of working with you, whether we’ve sent you this documentary that was published from CBC in the U.S. a couple of years ago, that there are some insurances
they pay the hospitals an incentive when patients go into palliative care and hospice.
Whitney: Wow.
Patrik: I need to send that to you. I need to send that to you.
Whitney: Yeah, send it to me.
Patrik: It’s unbelievable. Unbelievable.
Whitney: Yes. Wow.
Patrik: It is unbelievable. To top it all off, if they do, those patients don’t even show up in the mortality rate of the hospital, meaning the numbers look really good. I’ll send it to you.
Whitney: Yeah, send it to me.
Patrik: I’ll send it to you.
Whitney: Wow. Okay.
Patrik: Shout out here at this point, the person that made me aware of this is Scott Schara. Shout out here to Scott Schara. Scott’s got his own podcast. He lost his daughter in 2001 in ICU, during COVID, his 19-year-old daughter. It’s an awful story.
Whitney:
Wow.
Patrik: He’s got his own podcast now, making noise about that the hospital killed his 19-year-old daughter, who also had Down Syndrome. It’s just an absolutely horrific story. Big shout out here to Scott, who made me aware of this documentary that I will send to you and that I will also publish here when we publish the podcast because people need to open their eyes.
Whitney: Yes, definitely.
Patrik: People need to open their eyes,
what’s happening out there, and that there’s an element of, I believe it’s population control.
Whitney: Oh, most definitely. Most definitely.
Patrik: It’s population control. Unfortunately, I keep saying 99.9% of families in intensive care, they don’t question.
They get walked all over and then 12 months later, they wonder, “Oh, was this real? Did this really happen?” Then they start asking questions, when they wake up, when they finally wake up, but then it’s too late.
Whitney: Exactly. Unfortunately, it is too late. I agree. If I look back, just family members that passed in ICU, I think if we would’ve known our rights and how to
advocate for our loved ones, they might still be here. So yeah, I agree.
Patrik: They might still be here. Just on that note, I do want to reiterate here, 90% of intensive care patients,
approximately, survive. So, don’t let ICU teams dissuade you saying, “Oh, it’s all hopeless. Patients die here.” Yes, patients die in ICU, but actually not that many.
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Whitney: Exactly.
Patrik: Actually, not that many.
Whitney: Very true. Yes. I look back in the past, like I said, my mom has had health complications prior to this. She’s been in ICU, and she got out just fine.
I think, at least for my mom’s situation, when it becomes so complex where the doctors are like, “I don’t know what to do, and let’s just move on from this, and talk to the patient’s daughter
about palliative care so we can move on and she can move on,” I guess, I just feel like that’s how they are, at least for my mom, for that situation.
So, I’m just going to keep pushing them and keep challenging them throughout this. Again, I’m a believer, and I’m faithful, and I’m going to keep praying, and pray that things turn around because I think they will.
Again, I’m happy that I have you, Patrik, and your team behind me, that can enlighten me on things that are in her chart and questions that I should ask.
They’ll probably ask for another meeting. I’ll tell them I’m happy to meet with them, but I don’t need palliative care in the room. I’m sure they’ll probably say we don’t have to
meet from there.
But I think I’m excited from moving forward. I’m hopeful that she’ll be back home with us, and we can continue on, and just work towards back to her life where she was walking around, and talking, and doing everything that she needed to do.
Patrik: Yeah. Look, Whitney,
I really, really appreciate you sharing so generously here.
Whitney: Thank you for having me.
Patrik: Thank you. I think this is really good, I think this is so much encouragement for everyone who has a family member in intensive care. So much encouragement here
that you can turn things around. You really can.
Whitney: Yes.
Patrik: But you need to be stubborn, and you need to be given all the insights, but you also need to implement, and you can’t be timid in implementing either.
Whitney: No.
Patrik: Because they are not timid, clearly not.
Whitney: Yes. I definitely have stepped out of my comfort zone, yes. So, you can’t be timid. I would definitely, yes, sure,
reiterate that you cannot be timid when you’re dealing with the doctors and the nurses.
Patrik: I think that’s a good, whatever comes your way now in life, if you can turn this situation around, you can probably turn any other situation around in life.
Whitney: Yes, I think so.
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Patrik: Yeah. No, thank you so much. Thank you so much, Whitney. We really hope and pray for your mom who’s now back in hospital. We really hope and pray for your mom that
she can get back home, like she has done, like she has beaten the odds many times before.
Once again, really want to thank you for sharing so generously. Any final words?
Whitney: I don’t have any final words. I just encourage, if there’s a loved one dealing with something similar as I
am, just remain, have a goal, and set your mind on that goal to achieve. If you want your loved one to recover, push for that, challenge the doctors, don’t be afraid to challenge them.
Don’t be afraid to challenge the nurses and tell them what they need to do, because you can do that, and remind them that you’re part of the team, and you want to be a part of the team. Every time they’re aware, the
doctors call me every day, even before I get into the hospital to see my mom, to give me an update. They’re aware that I love to get updates. So, I just recommend and encourage you all to shake the table if you need to, in order to ensure that your loved one recovers and can come back home to you.
Patrik: That’s wonderful. That’s wonderful. Thank you so much. So, we’re going to wrap
this up here. Thanks again, Whitney, for coming on to the call.
If you need help and you have a loved one in intensive care, go to intensivecarehotline.com. Check out our website.
You can also become a member of our memberships for families of critically ill patients in intensive care if you go to intensivecarehotline.com and you click on the membership link.
I also do one-on-one consulting and advocacy over the phone, Zoom, Skype, WhatsApp, whichever medium works best for you. We do medical record
reviews in real time and also after intensive care.
If you like the video, subscribe to my YouTube channel, give
the video a like, share the video with your friends and families, leave your comments. I also do a weekly YouTube live where I answer your questions live on a show.
Thanks again,
Whitney. Have a wonderful day and all the best. Take care for now.
Whitney: Thank you.
Patrik: Thank you. Bye.
