pamwagg
Member
- Joined
- Oct 11, 2006
- Messages
- 28
- Reason
- Friend was DX
- Country
- US
- State
- CT
- City
- Wethersfield
Hello again, everyone. I "left" abruptly in the middle of a discussion of what to do about my friend Joe's mucus problem. Everyone's advice was so helpful and I printed it out and gave him the sheets to read. But I have schizophrenia and had a relapse under the stress of it all. Luckily, other friends help him too, so they were there when I was in the hospital. Joe stuck it out, enduring the secretion problem for another month or more, though he was suffering more than he let on. He was even given a "clean bill of health" by his PCP on Tuesday morning, when he was told his chest was clear (it sure didn't sound it to me). But by Tuesday night, he was having trouble breathing again, and choking on the mucus he couldn't cough up. Two friends took him to the Emergency Room, where he was admitted with pneumonia. I visited as soon as it was possible, and was horrified to find him struggling for air. The next night he was sedated and put on a ventilator, his choice. Now his left lung is almost whited out on the chest film, and the right is full of secretions and mucus plugs as well, according to his nurses. He rises from unconsciousness occasionally, but is confused and possibly delirious (hard to know because he can't speak). He has been placed on a cooling blanket, so his fevers come down, but his status so far is nothing better than "very ill" and "unchanged."
I write all these details because I want to know: does this sound like the end? They are talking about a tracheostomy in two weeks or so, but I want to know if he is even going to survive! My sister, a physician, thinks it might be kinder of fate to take him now, to spare him an inevitable future of such infections. His two caregivers and I are also on disability and we all live in disabled housing, on low incomes, there is no way we can care for someone on a vent by ourselves, nor pay for help the state does not provide...But these are problems I would welcome because I'd like to see him smile again and because he still has a lot of life in him yet. Am I selfish to want him to live? I know he always intended to live, even if on a vent, but he didn't know then that he could suffer so. I still think he'd want to live, but not if he feels like he is suffocating.
I'm talking too much. I just have so few people to talk to about this who truly understand. Thanks for listening,
Pam
I write all these details because I want to know: does this sound like the end? They are talking about a tracheostomy in two weeks or so, but I want to know if he is even going to survive! My sister, a physician, thinks it might be kinder of fate to take him now, to spare him an inevitable future of such infections. His two caregivers and I are also on disability and we all live in disabled housing, on low incomes, there is no way we can care for someone on a vent by ourselves, nor pay for help the state does not provide...But these are problems I would welcome because I'd like to see him smile again and because he still has a lot of life in him yet. Am I selfish to want him to live? I know he always intended to live, even if on a vent, but he didn't know then that he could suffer so. I still think he'd want to live, but not if he feels like he is suffocating.
I'm talking too much. I just have so few people to talk to about this who truly understand. Thanks for listening,
Pam