The ICU isn't a fun place to spend the night. In fact, if you belong there chances are you wouldn't be having fun anywhere else anyway.
I spent the weekend working the ICU, not my favorite place to be either.
A woman"s lungs were full of fluid like this:
On an xray air is black. You will notice a LOT of white in the lung area . . . that is fluid around the lung, compressing it.
When this happens and the patient is struggling to breathe we put these in:
Chest Tubes! Insert a tube through the intercostal space into the pleural space to drain the fluid.
EXTREMELY painful, it literally hurts to breathe.
Because gravity plays an important role in draining the lung we life our patients to be upright, but this hurts too.
This small woman was too weak and exhausted from breathing to sit upright, we tried every position and propping technique we could think of.
It was so hard to see her struggle, helpless for the both of us.
There was only one other thing I could think of. I stood in front of her and asked her to lean on me. She put her hands on my shoulders and laid her head on my chest. Her muscles relaxed for the first time. We sat there for a good hour just "hugging" each other.
Because we did she drained 900 ml out of her chest!
I think we were both breathing better after that ;)
The good thing today: I wore deodorant ;)
Teresa
Thank God for people like you!
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