My wife’s in ICU on a ventilator with tracheostomy, ICU said she’s “unweanable”! Help! Live stream!

https://intensivecareathome.com/my-wifes-in-icu-on-a-ventilator-with-a-tracheostomy-icu-team-said-shes-unweanable-help-live-stream/

My wife’s in ICU on a ventilator with tracheostomy, ICU said she’s “unweanable”! Help! Live stream!

Book your free 15 minute phone consultation here
http://intensivecarehotline.com/scheduling-appointment/

Call directly 24/7

+1 415-915-0090 USA/Canada
+44 118 324 3018 UK
+6141 094 2230 Australia

Email support@intensivecarehotline.com

Get 1:1 consulting and advocacy
1:1 phone counselling
http://intensivecarehotline.com/one-on-one-counselling/

Become a member for families of critically ill Patients in Intensive Care

https://intensivecarehotline.com/intensivecaresupport-org-membership/

Immediate action steps http://intensivecarehotline.com/take-control-take-charge/immediate-action-steps/
https://intensivecareathome.com

And if you need a medical record review , click on the link and we can help you with reviewing your loved one’s medical records while they’re in ICU.
https://intensivecarehotline.thrivecart.com/review-of-medical-records/

Wherever you are, welcome to another live stream of Intensive Care Hotline and Intensive Care at Home.

Today’s live stream is, “My mother is in ICU on a ventilator with a tracheostomy. I’ve been told from the ICU team that she’s unweanable. Can you help me if she is really unweanable?” And I want to elaborate on that topic today in much depth with some case studies.

First of all, I want to thank you for coming onto the show, for coming onto the live stream. I want to thank you for all your support. I already have some questions there in the chat pad, but I’ll come to that.

Good morning. Good evening. Modema, nice to see you again. Just some housekeeping issues, type your questions into the chat pad. You can also dial in live on the show. There are phone numbers you can call on in the description of this live show today. It’s best if you can leave your questions until the end of the presentation. If you have questions to today’s topic, please type them in now and if not, I’ll answer them at the end of the presentation.

Just before I go into today’s topic, you might wonder what makes me qualified to talk about today’s topic. I’m a critical care nurse/intensive care nurse. I have worked in intensive care for over 20 years in three different countries. I have worked as a nurse unit manager in intensive care for over 5 years. I have advocated and consulted for families and patients in intensive care for the last 9 years as part of my intensivecarehotline.com professional consulting and advocacy service and I also run and own a service called Intensive Care at Home where we provide intensive care services at home as a genuine alternative to an intensive care bed where we predominantly look after long-term ventilated adults and children with tracheostomies.

Okay, so let’s dive into today’s topic.

What is unweanable? We have been working with a client and we are still working with a client who has their mother in intensive care with lung cancer. She’s been ventilated with a tracheostomy for quite some time. She has been told by the doctors that her mother is unweanable. Now, that was on the assumption that the lung cancer will continue to grow and that it will take up space in the lungs and that she can’t breathe, quite frankly. Our first question at the time was, well, what is actually the oncologist saying who’s treating the cancer? The oncologist was positive that the cancer might shrink and that then she might be able to be weaned off the ventilator Now, after a few months in ICU, the patient does have some time off the ventilator and is moving actually in the direction of weaning.

The biggest challenge for families in intensive care is that they don’t know what they don’t know. They don’t know what to look for. They don’t know what questions to ask. They don’t know their rights and they don’t know how to manage doctors and nurses in intensive care.

This is exactly what we’re seeing day by day. Families don’t know what to look for. They don’t know what questions to ask. They just buy into the doom and gloom and the negativity of the intensive care team without looking at the research, without talking to someone like us here at intensivecarehotline.com, where you can have a second opinion. Intensive care teams need to manage beds. They need to manage resources because they’re so scarce. One way for them to manage scarce resources is by being negative, by setting low expectations that makes it easy for intensive care teams to “sell you” on withdrawing treatment.

Continue reading at: https://intensivecareathome.com/my-wifes-in-icu-on-a-ventilator-with-a-tracheostomy-icu-team-said-shes-unweanable-help-live-stream/