Stridor

One of the medical blogs I enjoy directed me to this story at a relatively new and entertaining blog, Ready To Deliver?

It made me remember the pride I felt at my recent highjinks in ICU. After four days on a ventilator, I was eager to be extubated. Finally, the tube came out and I eventually settled down in an effort to get some real sleep. That didn't happen because I had stridor and was put back on some sort of forced air do-dad.

As I would simultaneously tire and drift off, the oxygen saturation numbers would kick off a loud, obnoxious alarm -- and bring to my bedside a stream of medical types, all yelling at me to breathe, and other ridiculous verbal commands.

So, as my heart pounded from the sudden light, noise, and movement, the next thing my nurse would insist upon? "Retired Educator, you have got to relax and get some sleep!"

Yes. This went on for what seemed like forever but could only have been about 8 hours. The various doctors who wandered in assured me that the ersatz tube could be gotten rid of the next day, and that I should just relax and get some sleep -- surely I was exhausted!

ALARM-ALARM-ALARM-ALARM!

I decided that all tubes, except the foley, for which I was, in truth, quite grateful, would have to go... The i.v. was fine, too -- didn't hurt, didn't keep me awake, and didn't ALARM.

I was polite enough to discuss it with my nurse. She must have thought the discussion to be purely philosophical -- until I detached and yanked everything on my face, and handed it to her while she was still sputtering rules, regulations, and orders.

Respiratory Therapy decided not to go to war over my show of initiative, and the regular alarm proved much easier to sleep through. The alarms cannot be turned off -- but they were set at their least sensitive. And so I finally fell into a natural sleep...

Until my nurse showed up to put in another nasogastric tube. My reach had exceeded my grasp! I gather that most people who yank things out while in ICU are confused and agitated, have to be restrained -- both chemically and physically. So it must have been a weird site to my surgeon when he walked in and found me studiously attempting to help in the reinsertion of the n/g.

I don't know why. I mean, I explained it clearly enough: I meant to just pull out the breathing tube but accidently pulled out the feeding tube as well [goofy grin].