Hi, it’s Patrik Hutzel from INTENSIVECAREHOTLINE.COM , where we INSTANTLY improve
the lives of Families of critically ill Patients in Intensive Care, so that you can 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!
In last week’s BLOG I shared with you
"THE ULTIMATE FASTLANE TO PEACE OF MIND, CONTROL, POWER AND INFLUENCE WHEN YOUR LOVED ONE IS
CRITICALLY ILL IN INTENSIVE CARE!”
You can check out last week’s BLOG by clicking on the link here.
In this week’s BLOG I want to take you on a journey with me where I show you
“HOW TO GIVE YOURSELF PERMISSION TO
HAVE PEACE OF MIND, CONTROL, POWER
AND INFLUENCE WHEN YOUR LOVED ONE
IS CRITICALLY ILL IN INTENSIVE CARE!”
If I had a Dollar for every family member of critically ill Patients in Intensive Care who doesn’t have PEACE OF MIND, control, power and influence whilst their loved one is critically ill in Intensive Care, I would be a Millionaire!
And if I had a Dollar for every family member of critically ill Patients in Intensive Care who hasn’t given themselves permission to have PEACE OF MIND, control, power and influence whilst their loved one is critically ill in Intensive Care I would probably be another Millionaire…
So what am I talking about here?
I am talking about a crucial mindset that Families of
critically ill Patients in Intensive Care need to adopt quickly when they first find themselves in this “ONCE IN LIFETIME” situation and challenge when having a loved one critically ill in Intensive Care!
You and your family are so far outside of your comfort zone, anxious, fearful, stressed, overwhelmed, frustrated and vulnerable until you first realise that other people are running the show when your loved one is critically ill in Intensive Care!
And if you are like 99% of Families of critically ill Patients in Intensive Care who have no PEACE OF MIND, control, power and influence, you don’t question and you don’t challenge the status quo!
But worst of all, if you belong to those 99% of Families of critically ill Patients in Intensive Care who have no PEACE OF MIND, no control, no power and no influence, you haven’t given yourself permission to
have PEACE OF MIND, control, power and influence!
You let the Intensive Care team do their thing and you let them run the show even if your critically ill loved one is
- very unstable and in a very critical condition
- in a life threatening
situation
- in Intensive Care for long-term treatments and long-term stays
- having a severe(traumatic) head or brain injury
- threatened with an “NFR”(Not for
resuscitation) or “DNR”(Do not resuscitate) order
- In a situation where the Intensive Care team suggests a “withdrawal of treatment” or a “limitation of treatment” as being “IN THE BEST INTEREST” of your critically ill loved one
- approaching their end of life in Intensive Care
Think about it for a minute. If your critically ill loved one is in one of the aforementioned challenging, difficult and heartbreaking situations and if you haven’t given yourself permission to have PEACE OF MIND, control, power and influence in those situations, the consequences of this limiting mindset can be catastrophic!
It’s therefore crucial that you give yourself permission to have PEACE OF MIND, control, power and influence no matter what!
The Intensive Care team has given themselves permission to make life and death decisions 24 hours a day, 365 days per year!
The Intensive Care team has given themselves permission to make crucial life or death decisions for you, for your family and for your critically ill loved one 24 hours a day, 365 days per year!
And it’s not only that they have given themselves permission to make crucial life and death decisions for you, for your family and for your critically ill loved one, because as a matter of fact if you don’t give yourself permission to ultimately have PEACE OF MIND, control, power and influence, the Intensive Care
team will ultimately drive their decision making from the things that are happening “BEHIND THE SCENES” in Intensive
Care!
If you don’t give yourself permission to have PEACE OF MIND, control, power and influence you won’t do your own research, you won’t
question, you won’t stand up for what you believe in, you keep “sucking up” to the Intensive Care team and you keep being intimidated by the Intensive Care team’s “perceived power” and their “perceived authority”!
Related
article:
How to STOP being INTIMIDATED by the Intensive Care team and how you will be SEEN as EQUALS!
Changing your belief system is critical!
The problem is that most families of critically ill Patients in Intensive Care continue to put the Intensive Care team on a
pedestal without actually realising that they are basically handing over any PEACE OF MIND, control, power and influence they may have had over to them on a platter!
What you need to do instead is to give yourself permission to have PEACE OF MIND, control, power and influence, no matter what!
What you need to do instead is changing your belief system to the effect that
you know you can handle any situation, no matter how challenging!
Your belief system is so critical that I can’t stress this enough!
The Intensive Care team’s belief system tends to stand on solid ground and on solid foundations and the minute your critically ill loved one is either
- very unstable and in a very critical
condition
- in a life threatening situation
- in Intensive Care for long-term treatments and long-term stays
- having a severe(traumatic) head or brain injury
- threatened with an “NFR”(Not for resuscitation) or “DNR”(Do not resuscitate) order
- In a situation where the Intensive Care team suggests a “withdrawal of treatment” or a “limitation of treatment” as being “IN THE BEST INTEREST” of your critically ill loved one
- approaching their end of life in Intensive Care
the wheels that are in motion in Intensive Care “BEHIND THE SCENES” and the positioning of your critically ill loved one’s diagnosis and prognosis of the Intensive Care team is almost always a result of
- the financial interests of the Intensive Care team, I.e. is the Intensive Care Unit making money $$$ and/or meeting their budget targets by continuing to treat your critically ill loved one? Or does the Intensive Care team anticipate that a lengthy and prolonged treatment would put a gaping hole in
their budget?
- The bed situation in Intensive Care and the bed management pressures. The demand on Intensive Care beds tends to be very high and if the Intensive Care team has to manage their limited number of beds, they will weigh up how long they want to occupy an
Intensive Care bed with a particular Patient
- Their medical research interests. Medical research activities are constantly being performed on real human beings and on real critically ill Patients often without them knowing about it, let alone them or their families having given written or verbal
consent! Medical research is a Multi- Billion Dollar $$$ per year industry and it’s a funding and revenue generator for Intensive Care Units , as well as a positioning tool for Intensive Care Units! Often Patients who fall into a medical research category get preferred treatment and the Intensive Care team has a high interest in continuing to treat these Patients, whereas other Patients may miss out on crucial treatment!
I am only scratching the surface here, but the fact of the matter is that the Intensive Care team has given themselves permission to make decisions that can be morally and ethically
highly questionable, because their decision making is often a direct result of what’s happening “BEHIND THE SCENES” in Intensive
Care!
The Intensive Care team has given themselves permission to base their life or death decisions on the politics, the power play and power struggles, the dynamics,
the hierarchy, the competing interests, the intrigue and the psychology in an Intensive Care Unit without giving you any insights of what’s happening “BEHIND THE SCENES!”
It’s you and your family who knows your critically ill loved one
best!
The question is when will you give yourself permission to question things, to challenge the status quo, to do your own research, to follow your gut and
do the right thing and do what’s best for you, for your family and for your critically ill loved one?
How much longer do you want to wait, to give yourself permission in order to get what you want, irrespective of the challenges you are facing?
After all, it’s you and your family who know how your critically ill loved one can deal with adversity. After all it’s you and your family
who know best what your critically ill loved one would want in such a difficult and challenging situation.
After all, it’s you who needs to give yourself permission to get the results and outcomes that you want, irrespective of dealing with an Intensive Care team who has “perceived power” an ”perceived authority”! After all, it’s only perceived and not even real!
After all, I can assure you that the minute you have given yourself permission to have PEACE OF MIND, to have power, to have control and to have influence and after you have given yourself permission to question things, to do your own research, to speak up and to challenge the Intensive Care team, that’s the
minute when things change for you and that’s the minute when you will get results!
The minute you have given yourself permission to have PEACE OF
MIND, to have power, to have control and to have influence that’s also the minute when the Intensive Care team realises that they are dealing with a powerful family who is prepared to do whatever it takes to get the outcomes that they want and deserve, irrespective of the challenges they are facing!
Also, check out our "YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED" section
where I answer all of YOUR questions
http://intensivecarehotline.com/category/questions/
Hi, it’s Patrik Hutzel from INTENSIVECAREHOTLINE.COM , where we INSTANTLY improve the lives of Families of critically ill Patients in Intensive Care, so that you can 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 last week was
"WHAT ARE THE RISKS AND BENEFITS OF A TRACHEOSTOMY?”
You can check out the answer to last week’s question by clicking on the link here.
In this week’s episode of “YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED” I want to
answer another question that our readers ask quite frequently and the question this week is
”HOW WILL I KNOW THAT THE INTENSIVE
CARE TEAM ARE MAKING THE RIGHT
DECISIONS WHEN THEY SAY THAT MY
CRITICALLY ILL LOVED ONE IS DYING?"
Today I want to address another hot topic that Families of critically ill Patients in Intensive Care are constantly asking via our website INTENSIVECAREHOTLINE.COM
And it’s a topic where the Intensive Care team can be very guarded or secretive and they can be poor communicators around the topic.
And I have also seen far too many families of
critically ill Patients in Intensive Care simply not knowing what to do, they don’t know what questions they need to ask and worst of all they simply don’t get enough moral and practical support from either the Intensive Care team or from people within the health system when their critically ill loved one is in a real or perceived end of
life situation.
Looking death in the eyes!
Furthermore, death, dying and end of life are not “sexy” topics, not for anyone and that includes the Intensive Care team as well. It takes a lot of guts and balls to face reality, to face death, dying and end of life head on.
Death, dying and end of life are not topics that our society wants to know about either, especially not in a culture that is filled with images and perceptions about youth and vitality etc…
Facing death, dying and end of life is a massive challenge it means we have to face our own mortality and it means we literally have to stare death in the eye so to speak.
And only after you know, understand, acknowledge and embrace that
inevitably we are all going to die sooner or later, that’s when you can move forward when you’re dealing with a real end of life situation or a perceived end of life situation of your critically ill loved one in Intensive Care.
If you face head on that the death of one of your loved one’s in Intensive Care might be a reality and/or possibility that’s when you will get clarity and as a result you will have PEACE
OF MIND, control, power and influence!
The fact of the matter is that it’s challenging for Intensive Care teams as well to stare death in the
eye!
And even though Intensive Care teams are dealing frequently with death, dying and end of life doesn’t mean that they are any good at it.
In fact, from my experience in more than 15 years Intensive Care nursing experience in three different countries, where I have literally worked
with THOUSANDS of critically ill Patients and their Families it’s frequently the combination of both, Intensive Care teams as well as the Families not wanting to stare death in the eyes that can make those challenging, dramatic, frustrating and often heartbreaking death and end of life situations messy and turn into a nightmare!
It’s the same for Intensive Care teams, dealing
with death, dying and end of life means that Intensive Care teams are facing their own mortality too! And again the more people have come to terms with the fact that we are all going to die one day, the better and the more mature they can deal with death and end of life situations!
The better they can deal with this situation the better they can communicate with you and the better they can support you, your family and your critically ill loved one during this stressful, challenging and traumatic “ONCE IN A
LIFETIME” situation!
But the unfortunate reality is also that you can’t rely on Intensive Care teams to manage death,
dying and end of life situations well and you need to take responsibility if you want the results and most of all if you want to have PEACE OF MIND, control, power and influence!
Are you dealing with a real or perceived end of life situation?
So what do I mean when I talk about real or perceived end of life situation?
- A real end of life situation is a
situation where your critically ill loved one is inevitably going to die no matter what interventions, treatments and therapies are offered. Usually in real end of life
Examples for real end of life situations can be severe accidents with severe bleeding, multiple fractures, severe head injuries and also situations where your critically ill loved one might be septic or otherwise so unstable from a haemodynamic point of view(=low blood pressure and/or irregular heart rhythms) where no life support, no fancy equipment, no
surgery, no drugs, no medications and no other intervention can save your critically ill loved one’s life!
Examples for perceived end of life situations are
situations where your critically ill loved one is in a situation where the Intensive Care team thinks that a “withdrawal of life support” or a “withdrawal of treatment” might be “IN THE BEST INTEREST” of your critically ill loved one!
Those are situations where your critically ill loved one might be on life support such as ventilation, inotropes(= intravenous medication to support low blood pressure) or ECMO and they may have other medical issues such as the possibility of brain damage, or they may have a weak heart, damaged lungs etc…
There are countless situations that could lead to a perceived end of life situation!
The reality and the truth of the matter is that the characteristics of a perceived end of life situation are exactly that, they are perceived and they are not even real.
But how can you tell the difference and how can you make sure that you have PEACE OF MIND, control, power and influence?
You can tell the difference by the Intensive Care team trying to tell
you that it’s “IN THE BEST INTEREST” of your critically ill loved one to either “stop”, “limit” or “withdraw treatment”!
You can tell the difference that whenever the Intensive Care team is hinting at something hypothetical such as the “perceived future quality of life” of your critically ill loved one if they were to survive their stay in Intensive Care!
Are you dealing with perception or reality?
Again they are talking about a perception of a future event and not reality.
And let’s face it, Intensive Care teams are the experts when it comes to treating critical illness in Intensive Care, however they are not the experts when it comes to how a Patient’s quality of life looks like after their stay in Intensive Care!
The fact of the matter is that as soon as Patients leave Intensive Care the Intensive Care team has no idea what a formerly critically ill Patient’s life looks like in six months time!
And again your
job is to know what you want, know your critically ill loved one, know your family and also know what outcomes that you want and then relentlessly pursue it.
The truth of the matter is that whenever the Intensive Care team is suggesting a “withdrawal of treatment” or a “limitation of life support” as being “IN THE BEST INTEREST” of your critically ill loved one you need to know and understand that this
positioning is often a direct result of what’s happening “BEHIND THE SCENES” in Intensive
Care!
Related article:
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”!
Whenever the Intensive Care team is talking about a “withdrawal of treatment” or a “limitation of life support” as being “IN THE BEST INTEREST” of your critically ill loved one your alarm bells need to go off and you need to be on high alert!
The 99% of families of critically ill Patients in Intensive
Care who have no PEACE OF MIND, no control, no power and no influence take everything for “face value” the Intensive Care team is telling them and they don’t look “BEHIND THE SCENES”, they don’t question and they don’t do their own research!
Your job is to know that whenever the Intensive Care team is painting a “doom and gloom” picture and whenever they are talking about their perception of a “withdrawal of treatment” or a “limitation of life support” as being “IN THE BEST INTEREST” of your critically ill loved one it often is a direct result of the interests of the Intensive Care teams such as
- The financial interests of the Intensive Care team. I.e. will they meet their budget targets when they continue treating your critically ill loved one or do they think that they won’t be meeting their budget targets if they continue treating your critically ill loved one
- The bed management pressures of an Intensive Care Unit. I.e. does the Intensive Care team experience pressure on their expensive, precious, scarce and “in-demand” Intensive Care beds and do they want to give preference to other critically ill Patients needing an ICU bed?
- The medical research interests of the Intensive
Care team. Medical research is a Multi- Billion Dollar $$$ per year revenue generator for Intensive Care Units and a positioning tool. The medical research interests of Intensive Care Units are massive and quite frequently impact on the positioning of your critically ill loved one’s diagnosis and prognosis by the Intensive Care team. I.e. Does the Intensive Care team suggest to “withdraw life
support” because they can’t perform medical research on your critically ill loved one? Or does the Intensive Care team tell you that your loved one has a good chance of survival because they are enrolled in a medical research study, where the Intensive Care team performs medical research despite your critically ill loved one’s poor prognosis?
- Also, is the Intensive Care team not prepared to invest their emotional resources to continue treating your critically ill loved one? Is the Intensive Care team very academic, are they talking in medical jargon that you don’t understand and are they detached from empathy and compassion? Do they even have a limited mindset and they don’t believe that they can
save your critically ill loved one’s life? Are they overtly negative?
Related articles:
No matter the situation you and your family are facing you absolutely must make up your own mind and you must listen to your gut and to your intuition, because your gut never lies.
It’s also absolutely
critical that you do your own research and it’s first and foremost that you have PEACE OF MIND, control, power and influence, irrespective of what the Intensive Care team is telling you!
Please let me know if you have any questions. Send your questions
to support@intensivecarehotline.com
If you want your questions answered just hit reply to this
email or email me at support@intensivecarehotline.com and I'll answer your questions!
You can also send through your stories and share them on our BLOG for our readers! Just email support@intensivecarehotline.com or leave a comment on our BLOG
Or if
you want to be featured on our PODCAST with your story, just email me at support@intensivecarehotline.com
FREE Video Mini- Course out now!
If you are interested in more FREE education and information if your loved one is critically ill in Intensive Care, I
have created a FREE mini- course
A BLUEPRINT for PEACE OF MIND, CONTROL, POWER& INFLUENCE whilst your loved one is critically ill in Intensive Care!
The FREE Video Mini-
course consists of 4 short videos that will educate you quickly and succinctly how you can have PEACE OF MIND, control, power and influence whilst your loved one is critically ill in Intensive Care.
You can sign up and get your first FREE Video here
http://intensivecarehotline.com/free-mini-course/
Also, our cutting edge new information PRODUCT will be released in the next few weeks!
It has been a long time in the making and because it's such an in-depth program it took some time and we are now only a few weeks away from releasing our first information product for Families of critically ill Patients in Intensive Care!
Our first cutting edge information PRODUCT that will
help Families of critically ill Patients MASTER, take control, have power and influence in all of the most challenging situations in Intensive Care, even if their loved one is dying!
The information product will be an "IN-DEPTH" education product for
Families of critically ill Patients in Intensive Care and a SHORTCUT for Families to have PEACE OF MIND, control, power& influence! The focus of the education product will be on PEACE OF MIND, control, power and influence during the following situations in Intensive Care
- long-term stays in Intensive Care
- Family meetings with the Intensive Care team
- withdrawal of treatment situations and/or perceived medical futility
- what to do if your critically ill loved one is THREATENED with an "NFR" (Not for resuscitation) or "DNR" (Do not resuscitate)
order
- severe head and brain injuries (including traumatic brain injuries and stroke)
The information product will be made available in Ebook, Video and Audio format so that our Customers can consume the information product in their chosen
medium!
Keep your eyes on news and updates for our cutting edge new information PRODUCT in the next few weeks!
The Ebooks, Videos and Audios will be a solution to
the biggest and most challenging areas in Intensive Care for Families of critically ill Patients!
Our cutting edge new information PRODUCT is a shortcut to PEACE OF MIND, control, power and influence for Families of critically ill Patients in Intensive Care!
I will be sending more updates in the next few weeks about our first information product for families of critically ill Patients in Intensive Care!
If you have any questions about our upcoming products or if you have any suggestions
please let me know at support@intensivecarehotline.com
Your Friend
Patrik Hutzel
Critical Care Nurse
Founder& Editor
WWW.INTENSIVECAREHOTLINE.COM