I will sweat blood to fight for your baby’s life, no matter the age. Your plight is a very real confrontation of the frailty of our children. Oh dear mom, as you try to maintain your composure while your child remains unresponsive, I have to fight to keep from sobbing all over your shirt while I hug you. I don’t let you see that, but I choke back my own tears while you cry. When their conditions mirror each other, so similar in presentation, it’s like peeling the scab off my grief. I think of my own mom who has passed away. I want you to know that when I see your mom in this condition I feel your pain. That distracts me sometimes and makes me a less than perfect conversationalist. You see, I’m giving the maximum amount of all those drugs you see hanging. I was wondering what I could try next when his blood pressure plummets again. I was focused on the change I just noticed on your dad’s EKG. I know you thought I was being rude, and I know that once outside again you complained about me, saying “she must have wanted a break instead of taking time to talk to me!” I’m really sorry if I seemed short with you when you came in to visit. We’re afraid if we cry, we won’t be able to stop. I held her daughter and let her cry in my hair for twenty minutes. The patient next door to him wasn’t so lucky. Just when we were afraid it wouldn’t restart, it did.
We shocked him so many times, and I actually broke his ribs. We also restarted the heart of the man across the hall.
We didn’t think we’d get the breathing tube down in time… I hope you can understand that while you were waiting outside unaware we saved the young woman next door. You don’t see anything funny with your mom being confined to that bed, attached to all those monitors. I know you just heard us laughing and cracking a joke in the hall. I’m concerned for him, but I don’t want you to see that on my face. Your dad almost died before I let you back. What you don’t realize is I’m singing to calm my nerves, to keep myself relaxed. After all, these are a few of my favorite things.īut seriously, I’m not singing for my own satisfaction.
So you walked in to me singing a song out loud as I hung that IV medicine, huh? You were a little bewildered, and thought, “Is that from the Sound of Music? Why is she so inappropriately jolly considering my dad has a tube down his throat?!”įirst off, it is the Sound of Music. Following is a letter to the families of ICU patients everywhere.ĭear Disenchanted Family Member of My ICU Patient, Maybe you’ve even thought, “how can they act that way with all this going on with my family member?” Maybe you catch us acting totally inappropriate for the situation at hand. Often times we may act a little wacky though. But I can also promise you that if you end up here you will get stellar care by a team of the best health care providers available. If you are then that means you’re really sick. I can promise you that you do not want to be a patient in my unit. It’s fast-paced, intense, and the stress of some situations can even occasionally make my own heart rate go up as high as one of our trauma patients. Working in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) is an experience that can’t quite be put into words.
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