My beloved Dad (72) survived a severe septic shock. They called us 3 Weeks ago after a routine bile surgery and told us that he is now in the ICU. They told us he had internal bleeding and they needed to perform surgery on him. We were shocked and prayed that night that everything would go well. He survived they stopped the bleeding and the multiorgan failure. He was critically stable and on ventilation, dialysis and on heavy heart medication (noadrenaline). Later we found out he had to be revived too for 10 minutes.
Time went by and he got more and more stable each day. After around one week in the induced coma they found bile fluid in his stomach which still caused infections and they had to get rid of it. They performed surgery but failed to place a stent where the fluid was leaking. He was moved to another hospital. They were successful with the surgery. His liver is doing better and better. He is not on the dialysis everyday (they can occasionally turn it off now) his lungs are way better and he has no medication for his heart anymore. One problem persists and this scares me the most: he won’t wake up. They completely reduced all the sedation medication one week ago and besides opening his eyes (he started doing that 3 days ago) there is no real progress and the staff gets worried about that. He got a ct scan of his brain and everything looks fine. They also made a ct at the first hospital to make sure he is okay and it all looked well. He was reanimated for 10 minutes but they started right when his heart failed he was already at the ICU. We never got told he could suffer from not enough oxygen in his brain.
How long will it take for my dad to wake up? To react to our voices. My mum visits him everyday and I do it whenever I can but it’s so hard seeing no progress. Time runs against us and it hurts. I don’t understand why it’s so hard for him and where this will lead us. Apparently he has no obvious brain damage. Can it be that his liver and kidney which are responsible to wash out the sedatives are working hard?
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Bshyhsh
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hi. First of all we are all different, in particular recover in different ways.
In my case (I shall be 75 next March) 3 years ago almost to the day I was sedated and put in a coma in icu with sepsis double pneumonia and a failing heart. I had open heart surgery and initially my family were told I would be brought round in a few days, that was extended, to a week, then a few weeks and eventually they would told I would come Road when I was ready. In that time they tried many times to bring me round and it just didn’t work. During this time I had a tracky. My family were called in twice to be told I wouldn’t make it. It was just under 2 months when I did come round.
At his time your dad will be cared for by the icu staff so it is really important that you and your mum look after yourselves. Recovery at home takes time.
just after posting this my mom called and told me she was in the hospital and played voice messages my sister and me prepared for him. He turned his head to the phone and she says he recognized our voices. He is only reacting to us and not to music or other sounds. I pray that this is first progress
Whilst in ICU it is likely that he will lose a lot of weight. What is important to realise the weight loss is not just fat but also muscular. And you have muscles everywhere in your body so these too have to recover. In my case I had to learn to swallow, talk, walk etc. depending on the area you live will also depend on how much follow up you will get. Some areas are very good. In my case I came out into COVID and little or no support.
You also need to aware of the mental effect of being in icu. It is possible that he may have had hallucinations. You won’t necessarily know this happening. These are very real dreams some of which are unpleasant. He hay not want to talk about them. I had issues with memory. I have lost all memory for 3 months before going into icu. I don’t remember my time in a coma other than the hallucinations which I treat as living in another reality. Now I have difficulty working what are real memories are which are generated by the hallucinations.
I found a charity Critical Care Support Network which operates on zoom. On a Tuesday evening they offer a support group for relatives. On a Thursday there is a similar group to support primarily patients. On other days during the week there are various exercise classes, yog, relaxation and mindfulness all of which is free. Contact can be made via their website.
I haven’t answered your question about how long. It really does depend on the individual. Some COVID patients who went through icu just needed support for a few months for others (for a whole range of issues) it’s on going.
Having been on dialysis for 7wks after multiple organ failure - it took me 11 days to come around after sedation was removed - I’m sure this process was exaggerated by my kidney failure at the time - no way for sedatives to leave my system
he has his eyes open more often now but he is not looking at anybody. Today is day 9 with no sedation. He moves his head around and he doesn’t need any kind of ventilation anymore (tracheotomy was precautiously performed 2 days ago but they found he doesn’t need it anymore). My mom says you can visibly tell he is more awake now since you can recognize the emotions in his face.
They will perform a mrt and ercp today. Sadly they can still find infectious bile fluid in his stomach. They think the stent might moved and the fluid is leaking out again. I pray that the mrt won’t show any brain damage and that the ercp (the placing of a new stent) will be successful and they can finally stop the leakage. This is day 27 he is in the icu…
he now closes his mouth and nods when asked something. He also fixates us with his eyes. He is visibly conscious but his body is not moving yet. What makes me scared is that they want to move him back to the first hospital where all the trouble started. This is day 11 after no sedation (with 1-2 surgery’s in between where they had to sedate him a little)
This is for anyone seeking for answers when in the same situation. Hang on your loved one is fighting. The best thing you can do is give them reassurance and spend time with them if you can
I wanted to send my very best wishes at such a troubling time
When I was in a coma in intensive care (double pneumonia, status asthmaticus, Legionnaires' Disease) for three weeks I had terrible hallucinations, very real situations where the doctors and nurses were conspiring to sell my organs in China and where one doctor in particular tortured me - with-holding the ventilator and performing god-awful experiments on me with the relish of a modern Hauptsturmführer Mengele and his merry bunch of Schutzstaffel shitheads.
All through this I can remember my family talking to me in the coma and the terrors mixed up those loving messages but by christ I am so grateful that they kept talking to me.
I now know what my wife and children went through during those apocalyptic weeks whilst my brain was shorting out and causing me to believe I was totally and utterly in hell.
I say these things, not to scare but to reassure. He may be undergoing these crazy hallucinations and maybe suffering from muscle wastage through being in bed for these weeks. 1 week in a bed in ITU can equate to 1-3 months recovery.
Keep talking to him, play him loved tunes on the iPad and show him pictures of loved ones, he'll come back online when he is ready - as Sepsur often remarks - some people can take weeks, even months to click back into reality after such a brutal experience as coma in an ITU.
My best wishes again, he's lucky to have a loved one like you to keep the faith (whatever that may be) and I hope he is soon better.
hello, I’ve had a lot of experience in comas, ICU situations and other things, personally after I was taken off sedation from my coma at 26, I took a long time to show I was in there, when they took me off it I could think and see more clearly but because of how exhausted my body was from fighting and how much my body had been exhausted it took a very long time for me to be able to respond to anything, that doesn’t mean he isn’t in there! With his age as well he may just take time to come around, it can at times take months for someone to start responding normally, I really hope he comes back to you soon ❤️
He is more stable now and more awake. Moves his fingers and feet a little. We told him what happened and looked carefully to not scare him. Ofc he still got worried bc he can tell his situation is bad. He is able to sit on his bed with a lot of help and he can talk a little bit. I am worried that the problem with his bile still persists. They can still find bile fluid in his stomach and can’t stop the leakage. When he is more stable he will get another surgery… if only he just had to get his strength back
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Not waking after sedation weaned
Waking up from coma
Things took a bad turn
ICU for 4 weeks.MRI show no brain damage all clear after heart stopped for 10mins but he’s not still waking up fully. 
