Some respite for Joe
After seeing Joe's struggles over the last 24/36 hours it was a great relief to us initially to see him peaceful and 'asleep'. Even if that sleep was through sedation at least he wasn't distressed any more.
It's a shock when you first see someone in that condition though. Joe had various needles in him in addition to the tube that was providing the oxygen. This tube was taped to his mouth and nose. He had tubes that allowed for suctioning and eventually tubes that fed him. Though the first feelings were relief we were very scared and very tearful.
It's important to remember that mechanical ventilation isn't a cure, it is only used to buy some time to enable someone to resume breathing normally. The doctors needed to get Joe off the ventilation as soon as possible. The side effects can be extremely serious and they include, infection, lung damage, collapsed lung and pneumonia. The sedation required to keep someone ventilated for a long period of time also has its own risks.
So we spent the next few days glued to the screens that showed Joe's stats. We became experts at what the numbers meant and started to become calmer when we realised that Joe wasn't in imminent danger of dying. What became the focus over the next few days was the percentage of the oxygen therapy he was receiving. When he was first ventilated he was put on 100% and it was the mission to get this down whilst trying to get to the root of what was causing Joe to be so ill.
Theories about what was causing Joe's illness were many. After a transplant it's important to get the fluid balance right so Joe was being pumped full of fluid to flush out his new kidney. One of the first suggestions was that Joe was 'too wet'. That he had been given more fluid than he could safely get rid of so lung tissue was being affected. This despite the fact that fluid is carefully measured. It soon became obvious that what was happening was that Joe's lungs were bleeding. The difficulty was that no one knew why.
It's a shock when you first see someone in that condition though. Joe had various needles in him in addition to the tube that was providing the oxygen. This tube was taped to his mouth and nose. He had tubes that allowed for suctioning and eventually tubes that fed him. Though the first feelings were relief we were very scared and very tearful.
It's important to remember that mechanical ventilation isn't a cure, it is only used to buy some time to enable someone to resume breathing normally. The doctors needed to get Joe off the ventilation as soon as possible. The side effects can be extremely serious and they include, infection, lung damage, collapsed lung and pneumonia. The sedation required to keep someone ventilated for a long period of time also has its own risks.
So we spent the next few days glued to the screens that showed Joe's stats. We became experts at what the numbers meant and started to become calmer when we realised that Joe wasn't in imminent danger of dying. What became the focus over the next few days was the percentage of the oxygen therapy he was receiving. When he was first ventilated he was put on 100% and it was the mission to get this down whilst trying to get to the root of what was causing Joe to be so ill.
Theories about what was causing Joe's illness were many. After a transplant it's important to get the fluid balance right so Joe was being pumped full of fluid to flush out his new kidney. One of the first suggestions was that Joe was 'too wet'. That he had been given more fluid than he could safely get rid of so lung tissue was being affected. This despite the fact that fluid is carefully measured. It soon became obvious that what was happening was that Joe's lungs were bleeding. The difficulty was that no one knew why.
Comments
Post a Comment