Yesterday Neighbor L was in something of a dither over whether she should go to the city far, far away to be with D. On the one hand there’s nothing useful she can do there* and the dogs, cats and horses need her here. On the other hand, she has needs too. Hers involve being near her husband at this very bad time. I can certainly see both points, and have no opinion.
Our weekender neighbors S&L also live in that city, and have offered to put her up for the duration. I am of course at her service in regard to dogs, cats and horses.
And so when she called this morning, I was delighted to say that what she wants, she gets. In fact it’s something of an honor: She’s extremely particular about the horses – perhaps a bit less so about the dogs – and I know of at least two more horse-experienced neighbors she won’t let near hers. My experience with horses is a bit peculiar – I’m a poor white boy from Detroit and probably have more fingers on either hand than times in a saddle in my whole life. I know next to nothing about tack and am not by any means a horse expert. Yet I’ve looked after them for other people off and on many times since I was young. I like them, I’m not afraid of them, I’m intimately familiar with their feeding, their temper and their byproducts, but otherwise have no opinion about their care so I just do exactly what I’m told and leave it at that. This seems to keep the customer satisfied.
So I’m going over there this afternoon for no doubt extensive instruction, and will be spending quite a bit of time at D&L’s for the next couple of days at least. Glad to be of help.
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*I’ve been a very badly damaged person in an ICU, and while occasional visits were welcome it really didn’t help to have people hovering around all the time. Frankly, being that badly damaged keeps you busy.
I don’t know if the lady is one who will hover and smother the guy, but it doesn’t seem like that from what little I know of her. I do know, from experience, that the simple, quiet presence of a loved one can make all the difference to a seriously ill or injured patient. If she just comes in for the five minutes an hour that is usually allowed for an ICU visit, sitting quietly and even holding his hand if it doesn’t make him restless… that can make all the difference in the world to him and his ability to fight the infection.
In my opinion, leaving him alone for long stretches of time would be the worst, because in his altered state he might think he’s been abandoned. Not necessarily a rational conclusion, of course, but he’s probably not in much of a rational frame of mind now.
Depends, too, on whether he’s sedated/ on a ventilator or not. The sedation and ventilator can do serious nasty to one’s thinking process…
No reflection on ML or any other competent and caring medical professional (which is most of them), but having spent a lot of time in various ICUs with one of my kids, I feel I would have to be with a family member who was there. Most (all?) of the medical professionals seem to be VERY overloaded with work. If someone is in an ICU, by definition they are not in a good state and it wouldn’t take much to tip them into a worse state. So I always (and I know ML will cringe when she reads this, but my several medical professional family members support me totally on this) make myself VERY aware of my kid’s condition, treatment plan, prognosis, etc. I talk to the doctors about treatment plans and the nurses about how the plan is carried out. I review test results and ask for explanations on what I’m seeing. In general, I probably make a huge pain of myself at first.
And yes, I watch the doctors and nurses like a hawk anytime they are doing something with that kid. 99% of the time, they are doing exactly the right thing at the right time for the right reasons. But those 1% of times still give me nightmares once in a while…
As a way to partially compensate the staff for being such a pain in their rear, I take on as much of the patient care as I can and as they are comfortable with. Bathing, dealing with “messes”, fetching items needed by the patient or staff, etc. Basically, I act like I’m a Candy-striper (do they even have those anymore?) or unpaid CNA. And it keeps me busy and less bored/terrified while I live in the ICU/room with my kid. For up to 6 weeks on a couple of occasions, but it’s not for everyone. As I’m sure ML can attest, some people react in very bad ways to seeing a loved laying in an ICU, but it sounds like Neighbor L is made of sterner stuff. One to ride the river with, or however you want to phrase it.
And she (and Neighbor D will certainly be in my thoughts until I hear things have resolved themselves.
Just my $,02.
Just knowing that someone who cares is there can be a huge help.
At first site this will probably appear daft.
We generally don’t have any conscious memories from before the ages of two to three years, but the lower parts of the brain that we share with reptiles and little furry critters are active and are learning far before that.
In the case of the amygdala, which controls fear and fight or flight responses, it is on line and learning from about five or six months from you being conceived.
Before about three or four years old though, fight and flight are not possible options for us, so what the amygdala triggers is a freeze response, which modulates up to a complete floppy playing dead, so that a predator might be fooled into not using a killing bite or blow. Despite being floppy, stress hormones are raging, and they suppress the immune system. All resources are mobilised for surviving trauma rather than infection.
Here’s the nasty bit that connects those dull academic findings to us.
Up until about 1980, some in medicine assumed that infants couldn’t feel pain, and even if they could, they wouldn’t remember it -after all, an infant that has just had bits cut off it, soon stops crying, so it can’t have hurt much… When actually it’s system is measurably flooded with stress hormones and its brain has gone into a dissociative freeze response (there are fMRI scans of adult volunteers dissociating- most of the cortex stops working, the amygdala doesn’t).
Sorry for long build up. Most of us(males anyway) had bad things happen to us as infants in hospitals. Even when our rational bits of brain are out of it, the dumb animal bit that controls fear, is still online and setting the fire alarms off, which buggers up immune response and healing.
Comforting “mother” contact can be incredibly helpful in soothing that, even if the person is not “conscious”.
Oh, JimBob… I think you totally misunderstand me. 🙂 I agree with you 100%, and have urged families to take such measures over my entire career, and even more since I retired.
Hospitals, with a few exceptions, are abominations. Family care is the natural and logical solution. They can usually be taught how to perform the care necessary in short order. Unfortunately, not everyone has a caring family, and many families are already overwhelmed with all the rest of the abominations brought to us by politicians and bureaucrats. sigh
Many years ago, I worked in a critical care cardiac unit for a while. This is the old designation for ICU, for cardiac cases. We had a patient who was the “papa” of a VERY large Mexican family, and there were probably no less than 40 of them in the waiting room at any given time. They demanded to visit him in large numbers, and the whole unit was in chaos until the doctor could be convinced to move him to a private room downstairs. He was only clinging to life in the CCU, and the doctors actually didn’t expect him to live. But he went home on the mend after a week surrounded by his family. And they never knew diddly squat about much besides the fact that they loved and needed him.
The spiritual and emotional support is far more important than watching each move the nurses make, but that never hurts either if you can manage it. 🙂
From the original post about D’s agitation, I think his wife’s presence would be very calming and reassuring if that kind of panic comes up again. When DH has been in the hospital after surgeries, he comes out of anesthesia very badly with major agitation and mental issues, and the nurses and docs have been happy I was there to deal with him. I try to make myself useful as possible without being in the way.
I also think she’ll be best there in case things go south. It would be a terrible burden to live with, for me anyway, not to be there if he dies. I’m sure that having Joel covering home base will be a comfort to both of them. You’re a good man, Uncle Joel!
ML – Well, that’s good to know! I’m always concerned that medical professionals will think I don’t trust them or that I somehow think I’m smarter than them. Nothing could be further from the truth. I just know that humans – even smart, dedicated ones – can make mistakes and that is compounded when they are stressed or overloaded. And mistakes in healthcare can have permanent results, so I try to act as their “safety net” as well as comfort my family.
The deal with trusting medical professionals is the same as with anyone else. Some you can, and some you can’t… with lots of them somewhere in between. It’s not easy to tell, especially when we are stressed and emotionally vulnerable. That’s why it is best to have a previous relationship with the doctors, at least, and familiar surroundings where possible. Dealing with strangers in an emergency is very difficult, even when there is no indication that they are not competent. It is probably wisest to assume they are busy, probably chronically understaffed and tired. I’ve known and worked with a good many ICU nurses, and all of those who really care soon burn out. It’s a killing part of the profession.
We can only do our best in that case, and having someone else with us who is not, or not quite as emotionally torn up, is important.
Keith: Wow. Your description goes a long way towards explaining some emotional reactions I had regarding my male sensitive bits which were truncated by the family doc in the fashion of the time. Everyone kept dismissing my um, angst, saying “Oh, you can’t possibly remember that”. I had no explicit memory, but felt “sumthin’ not good happened”.
Yeah, “that insensitive bit of skin on the end of a penis” describes a certain sort of male medical practitioner.
Keith – Insensitive my back-side! That little piece of skin has 1/3 of the nerve endings of the whole structure. There are ways to do circumcisions that do not require the remove of the flesh.
The family physician we had when my sister was in the hospital as a baby made it quite clear that either my mom or dad would be with my sister 24/7 until she was released. He stated that babies recover faster when one of the parents is always present.
I wonder, Joel, if you are like my dad when you are in the hospital and feel the need to interact with whom ever is in the room with you. Which is why we would pat dad on the hand when we saw him struggling to stay awake and leave the room so he would sleep. He always apologized if he woke up and we were sitting there quietly doing needlework or reading like he was a bad host or something.
There are ways to do circumcisions that do not require the remove of the flesh.
??? That’s news to me. As I understood it, removing that flesh was the *definition* of “circumcision”.
Well, yeah. Babies are different. My daughter was 6 weeks premature and had some serious health problems at first that kept us tied to the hospital. It was a rare moment when at least one of us wasn’t there with her. Since I still had to be at my job – my boss actually refused me time off – this largely fell on Mom during the day, and she was having her own recovery issues. Holy sleep deprivation, but it certainly needed to be done.
jabrwok – now that I want to show references I can’t find them with a quick search. Let me keep looking. But there is one out there, that I know about, that was called an ‘X’ circumcision (I think) and the foreskin is not removed just cut.
Joel – “my boss actually refused me time off” Sounds like a few managers I’ve had over the years. Then, they can’t figure out why either you get hurt because you can’t focus or you end up with a ‘bad attitude’.
Don’t know if comments on threads this old get seen, but will ask anyway. Any update on D&L?