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My dad’s pancreas burst five years or so ago, which basically caused multiple organ failure — kidneys, liver, lungs. He was on dialysis and a ventilator for wee
by empath75 6y ago
My dad’s pancreas burst five years or so ago, which basically caused multiple organ failure — kidneys, liver, lungs. He was on dialysis and a ventilator for weeks, the doctors told us he had about a 20% chance of surviving.
He experienced what this article is talking about — icu psychosis.
He thought that he had been kidnapped, that he was being tortured, that I was trying to kill him and replace him. He begged me for mercy, he apologized for anything he did to me. And I was just standing there telling him he was going to be okay. He didn’t know who I was a lot of the time. It was terrifying to watch.
Eventually they put him into an induced coma when they put him on a ventilator, but even after they woke him up, it took a week for him to realize who he was and who we were and what had happened to him. He kept begging us to take him home.
Every time he woke up, we had to tell him where he was, who we were, what happened to him, what year it was what day it was.
It really took him 6 months to get anything close to who he was when he went in and he’s still not completely the same person. The light went out in some ways and never came back in again.
- sandeeps_ 6y agoOmg! That’s sound terrible. Did your dad recover?
- empath75 6y agoHe “recovered” but he’s not the same person he was when he went in. He had reduced brain oxygen for a long enough time to do brain damage.
- idunno246 6y agoMy sister was on a respirator for three days pre-covid. Came out refusing food and drink for weeks, hated us, thought the nurses were trying to inject bleach in her ivs. It’s rough, totally feel for what you went through Did a bunch of research, this isn’t covid specific, some huge percentage of people in the icu go through this but it’s not publicized nearly enough. The worst part is it’s a known thing, but there’s zero mental health support coming out of it. Especially since my sister went to rehab, they just weren’t staffed for it but couldn’t get her to people who were until the rehab ran it’s course.
- empath75 6y agoYeah the doctors were all like, yeah this happens all the time don’t worry about it, but it’s hard to not worry about it when your father is having a psychotic break.
- vmurthy 6y agoReally sorry to hear this :-(. If nothing else, this should make everyone reading this a lot more empathetic to anyone who gets into an ICU and realise that the psychosis and suffering is real.