Joe* remains in limbo. He remains in a coma, and his vital signs are still relatively unstable.
His family continues to camp out in the ICU lobby, taking permanent residence on the hospital's couches and chairs, where they make idle chatter and peruse through tired old magazines or newspapers, as they wait for the latest information on their stricken family member.
Meanwhile, I and the other nurses on duty who are assigned to this man care for Joe as best as we possibly can, hoping and praying for some improvement in his overall condition. Drs. Jagadish (his main physician while he is in the hospital), Tackett, Van Der Hoekken, and Smythe-Pickard are doing all they can to bring him back, or at least, give his family a hopeful word, but to no avail.
Joe remains as sick as ever. Diabetes that's out of control. Kidney failure. Lung and heart failure. Morbid obesity (the guy weighs over 500 pounds easily). Possible neurological damage to his brain. He's only existing on wings and a prayer. It is becoming out of our hands; the ball is in God's court now. All we can do is pray that a.) he improves, b.) he wakes up from his coma, or c.) die mercifully if things don't look as his attending doctors would want (and it's looking more and more like #3 with each passing day).
It is very discouraging. Sometimes the ICU can be a very depressing place, especially if a person isn't doing well (as in the case of this man), or the person has an unexpected "Code Blue", and then we have to work like h-e-double hockey stick to save their life.
It makes me appreciate my husband a lot more when I go home to him. My husband isn't healthy by any stretch of the imagination, but he's certainly a lot better off than the man I'm currently caring for in the hospital bed here in the ICU unit!
This is when I can thank God for small favors and blessing me yet again!
Just checked on Joe a little while ago. No change. *Sigh* It can go either way: either he can improve and wake up from his coma, or he can go visit the angels in Heaven. It's up to him, or maybe it's all up to God. We can't do much of anything except care for him as best as we can and try to reassure his worried family members that we are doing everything possible to keep him stable while he is still here on this earth.
~Louisiana M. Sandusky, R.N., Nashville, Tennessee.
*Not patient's real name.
*To be continued.*
