My sister, now a retired nurse, always told her friends (mostly doctors and nurses) to never use a ventilator on her. She never put it writing. When the day came that she needed it "now" the doctor who new her wishes told my brother-in-law that he had about a minute to decide. He said do it, then called my other sister and me to ask if he did the right thing. We both said yes. Now, 15 years later she is still doing fine.

Some time later I met the doctor while visiting my sister. The topic of the ventilator came up and the doctor started laughing. He said he was thinking about the day they were ready to take her off it and most of the nurses walked off the floor. They were all afraid of how mad my sister was going to be when she found out what they did.

When the dust settled she threw a party to thank them all.

---

Sent to me by a friend:

Dennis


Yikes! My friend sent this from a co-worker. I don’t know how true it is but his wife is a nurse at Cedars. And my sister, who is a retired nurse practitioner, agrees with this.

From a source . . .

Not to scare you/ but allows u to see the other side of going out unmasked/without a shield:

Here you go folks... for those people who don't understand what it means to be on a ventilator but want to take the chance of going out without a mask...

For starters, it's NOT an oxygen mask put over the mouth while the patient is comfortably lying down and reading magazines. Ventilation for Covid-19 is a painful intubation that goes down your throat and stays there until you live or you die.

It is done under anesthesia for 2 to 3 weeks without moving, often upside down, with a tube inserted from the mouth up to the trachea and allows you to breathe to the rhythm of the lung machine. The patient can't talk or eat, or do anything naturally - the machine keeps you alive.

The discomfort and pain they feel from this means medical experts have to administer sedatives and painkillers to ensure tube tolerance for as long as the machine is needed. It's like being in an artificial coma.

After 20 days from this treatment, a young patient loses 40% muscle mass, and gets mouth or vocal cords trauma, as well as possible pulmonary or heart complications.

It is for this reason that old or already weak people can't withstand the treatment and die. Many of us are in this boat ... so stay safe unless you want to take the chance of ending up here. This is NOT the flu.

Add a tube into your stomach, either through your nose or skin for liquid food, a sticky bag around your butt to collect the diarrhea, a foley catheter to collect urine, an IV for fluids and meds, an A-line f to monitor your BP that is completely dependent upon finely calculated med doses, teams of nurses, CRNA’s and MA’s to reposition your limbs every two hours and lying on a mat that circulates ice cold fluid to help bring down your 104 degree temp.

-Anyone want to try all that out? Stay home and wear a mask when you go out! Stay safe and well!-

What this article doesn't say, is that the patient can hear everything that is said so if the staff carelessly talks about death, the patient panics. If the sedatives are lessened, the patient panics because he can't breath or talk or, in his case, move. When they begin to lower the pain medications, the patient screams in his head but can't make a sound. When they take out the tubes it's extremely uncomfortable. A trachea may replace the respirator, the patient still can't talk or eat without a tube.

Your child, your spouse, your parent, suffers from covid 19 alone in the hospital. The victims are not limited to strangers. When you choose to crowd, unmasked, into newly opened stores for some irrelevant purchase, ask yourself if it's worth a lifetime of knowing your child suffered, maybe died, alone.

Actually you are 100% wrong in your assessment of what I do. There was no doom and gloom in the message. It was for information. Until this morning I had no idea what a ventilator actually did or how it was used. It opened my eyes and my purpose for posting was to simply open the eyes of others who did not know either.

Again, I don't do many things I should be doing to stop the spread of the virus. Yet as a Liberal you take the Liberal way of putting me down for simply offering information. Aren't you special little sweetheart...

I see you live just up the road from me. Maybe you are unaware that San Luis Obispo, your county, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties just had a spike in virus cases. I can't help but wonder if it is you who has spread some of the virus germs around due to your nonchalance regarding the virus.

Dennis