intro / husband in critical care

[Lunalg]

Hi

My husband has a road accident on 24/11 suffered an tbi and is currently in critical care. He has been off sedation since about the 27/11 but is still unconcious.

He is responding to pain and has started to lift both arms when nurses fiddle with his tubes.

He was off the ventilator all day yesterday but they tried this again today and he could only do two hours.

Any support / advice / stories shared would be greatly appreciated as my school age children and are struggling to cope with the uncertainty and the drs constant pessimism.

[Sepsur]

it can be a bit up & down with consultants erring on the side of being quite negative, I don’t know if this is an attempt at preparing you for the worst(?) - waking up isn’t straight forward

[FamilyHistorian]

it can take a while to come off sedation and properly come round. The medics are often pessimistic which doesn’t help the relatives. No matter the reason that you go into icu there are further consequences of the stay. One of which is loss of weight, not only fat but also muscle from all parts of your body. It takes time to recover from that and can be as simple as lifting hands, speaking swallowing etc

[Copse77]

ecmofamilysupport.com/ecmo-...

Our family story above was written to provide hope to other families. Please see the reply I posted today just now to another lady in a similar situation to you with young children. I hope your husband makes a good recovery

[BlueTheCat]

I can only give a perspective as a former ICU patient following a subarachnoid haemorrhage. I don't really have any memory of my time there, but I can apprecite what it must be like from a partner's side. The constant will they won't they thoughts.

There will be ups and downs. Over a period of weeks I bounced between ICU and HDU a couple of times as I started to get better then picked up various infections such as pneumonia and went down hill again.

Recovery can be very slow. I had to learn to sit/walk/dress myself again. Bowel and bladder control had to be worked on.

18 months on, whilst I am still a bit wobbly on my feet, I do regard myself as a success. Life is pretty well back to normal. I'm back to my previous line of work.

It's not easy from your side, and I can but imagine the effects on your children but hang on in there 😀