Ventalator Ventilator
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my brother has pnemonia and is on a ventalator?
my brother is 34 years old. He was admitted to the hospital on the 23rd of dec 2009. He was put on a ventilator on the 26th, since he has made no improvements and seems to be miserable. the nurses never have any encouragement. it is now Jan 2 2010 is it normal to be on this machine so long? what are some questions i can ask to understand better what his outcome might be? yesterday i touched his leg and it was ice cold but he was sweating. what does that mean? any answers are appreciated.. worried!!!
There are some especially nasty bugs going around this flu season.... and it is perfectly normal to be on a ventilator for a few weeks, if he has a bad pneumonia. Right now, his care is going to be concentrated towards treating the infection and getting him stable enough to start to "wean" off of the ventilator; meaning we slowly decrease the amount of breathing the machine does for him and slowly increase what he does on his own. Then when he is healed enough, he can be "extubated", or have the breathing tube pulled. However, nor the nurses or anyone else will be able to give you a definitive amount of time that this will occur in.... it is impossible as there is great variation from person to person when it comes to recovery time.
Asl questions for things you don't understand, ask about chest x-ray results and if his blood work is improving... these are routine tests that are repeated frequently in people with pneumonia. Ask what type of pneumonia he has and do a little research...
Ventilated patients require a very high level of care, and time to heal. Try to be patient and hang in there.... best of luck