The 5 reasons why you need to be difficult and demanding when your loved one is critically ill in Intensive Care
Published: Tue, 12/03/13
instantly improve the lives of Families of critically ill Patients
in Intensive Care, so that you can have real power, real control
and so that you can influence decision making, even if you're
not a doctor or a nurse in Intensive Care!
In last week's blog I showed you "The 5 questions you need
to ask when the Intensive Care team is talking about "Futility
of treatment", "Withdrawal of life support" or about
"Withdrawal of treatment!" and if you haven't read,
watched or listened to the update, you can check it out here.
http://intensivecarehotline.com/?p=4115
In this week's blog I want to talk about "The 5 reasons
why you need to be difficult and demanding when your loved one is
critically ill in Intensive Care!"
If you have found yourself in the situation that your loved one is
critically ill in Intensive Care, you have probably found yourself
in a difficult and challenging situation. You have probably also
found that other people(the Intensive Care team) are driving the
bus and you probably feel like you have no or little control, power
and influence about the decisions that the Intensive Care team is
making.
Those decisions may or may not be in the best interest of your
critically ill loved one. You probably feel very vulnerable and you
may struggle, feel overwhelmed and you're probably frustrated
by the situation that you, your Family and your critically ill
loved one are in.
More importantly, depending on the diagnosis and prognosis of your
critically ill loved one, you may have found that the Intensive
Care team may paint a pretty grim "doom and gloom"
picture of your critically ill loved one's situation and you
may feel like its all negative. Overall, it appears to be a one-
sided coin with the Intensive Care team holding all the power...
It's not a very good position to be in and you should always
contemplate what's behind the Intensive Care team's
positioning.
Why you need to be difficult and demanding
Even more important, you need to start being difficult and
demanding whilst your loved one is critically ill in Intensive
Care, because if you're not, your critically ill loved one may
actually not receive the best of treatment and care. It could even
be worse and if your loved one is in a really difficult, life
threatening situation or is a long-term Patient in Intensive Care,
the Intensive Care team may position your loved one's prognosis
and diagnosis as a situation where they suggest to "withdraw
treatment", "withdraw life support" or they start
talking about "futility of treatment". If it has come to
that point, it may already be too late and that's why it's
so important that you and your family are difficult and demanding
from the start, when your loved one is critically ill in Intensive
Care.
Why you need to go against the grain
It sounds counterintuitive and it sounds like you need to go
against the grain, when you're difficult and demanding whilst
your loved one is critically ill in Intensive Care.
The reality is that if you're not difficult and demanding you
are like 99% of Families of critically ill Patients in Intensive
Care who don't position themselves correctly and those Families
have no influence, no power and no control and those Families and
their critically ill loved one are at the mercy of the Intensive
Care team.
Who do you want to be? The choice is yours...
You certainly don't want to be one of those Families. You want
to be a Family who has control, power and influence. The minute you
start becoming difficult and demanding that's the time when the
dynamics shift in your favour! Therefore, I'll give you
"The 5 reasons why you need to be difficult and demanding when
your loved one is critically ill in Intensive Care".
Let's look at those 5 reasons in detail.
1. Most Families of critically ill Patients in Intensive Care put
the Intensive Care team on a pedestal and they think the Intensive
Care team is "superior" to them
CONTINUE reading and get ALL 5 reasons by clicking on the link
http://intensivecarehotline.com/?p=4248
You can also check out this week's question that I answer here
How long can my critically ill loved one stay on an Intra-aortic
balloon pump(IABP)? http://intensivecarehotline.com/?p=4280