March 3, 2020

Happy Detube Day

by pyrad
Categories: Non-Running
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Comments: 1 Comment

This post is a lot happier than the last one. This is the story about how I got transferred to an ICU closer to home, then got “extubated”: I got my breathing tube removed!

My wedding day, and the day of my daughter’s birth, and others are obviously some of the happiest days of my life. But, March 3, 2019 is right up there too, a day I will remember very fondly for the rest of my life. Since I almost died February 5, then about a month later on March 3 is when I feel like I came back to life. 

After several weeks in the ICU at St. Michael’s Hospital, I had finished plasmapheresis treatment, and was waiting to be transferred back to the Trillium Health Partners: Mississauga Hospital. 

There was a lot of waiting. First, a bed needed to be available at the Mississauga Hospital. Then a medical transport needed to be booked. Then the transfer people had to actually arrive! I think I was on edge to go back for almost 2 days. Eventually I just kind of decided I wasn’t going to get any real hopes up until the transport paramedics were actually at my bedside.
There was a lot of waiting as I got updates about the progress. First, I was told a bed was available. My family took home whatever meager possessions and gifts I had accumulated. Then the transport was booked. And then apparently the transport medics got lost or had to wait a long time for an elevator! They were finally at my bedside late in the evening of March 2, 2019.

So, funny story about EKG leads: When monitoring in the ICU, there were a series of wires connected to pads stuck to different parts of my chest. In case you didn’t know, apparently different hospitals, even different units use different EKG machines, so they need different pads, in different arrangements. Also, in case you didn’t know, I have a rather hairy chest. So, each time there was a transition, they had to rip the old pads off, and attach new ones. It’s like waxing! Ouch!! My chest had some interesting bald spots by the end of this transfer.

via GIPHY

So, after the ORNGE ambulance team arrived and did the transfer paperwork, they ripped off the old EKG pads and put theirs on. Still crippled, I they slid me onto their stretcher, and transferred all the wires and tubing to their portable equipment. It felt really nice to be wheeled out of St. Michael’s. It felt like something was finally happening.

The ride in the ORNGE ambulance was memorable! I was loaded into the back, and we took off. I could see much out of the back window, but I could see lights, and a clock. I could tell when we got onto the highway. I recognized the Gardiner Expressway. I feel like we were driving very fast. And I don’t think the ambulance had really good suspension because it was a WILD RIDE! I’m glad I was strapped down because it was like a roller coaster. The paramedic in the back with me offered me something to help with nausea, and something to “calm me down”. I declined both. We made it from St. Michael’s Hospital to the Mississauga Hospital in about 20 minutes, which is crazy fast.

Also crazy fast was the transfer from the ambulance to the hospital bed. It was a blur! I recognized the ambulance entrance to the Mississauga Hospital. After my stretcher was unloaded from the ambulance, the paramedics swiftly wheeled me into the emergency area, to an elevator, then into the ICU. In the ICU there was a team of 15-20 people in masks and gloves already standing by. Before I knew it I was in a room, they transferred me to a new bed, and my breathing tube was connected to the new equipment. That whole process from ambulance to bed couldn’t have been more than 2 minutes! And, I needed new EKG leads again! More chest waxing!

The night of March 2 was pretty rough. I was anxious, and had a very high fever. I got covered in ice packs, and they did another “blood culture” where they took a lot of blood. My mother came to the hospital and stayed until about 2:30am.

Now the good part. Starting 7am on March 3rd, a doctor came to see me and said they were going to try to remove my breathing tube. They took lots of precautions. The night before, the Respiratory Therapists had already repeated the “resistance” breathing tests like they did at St. Michael’s. Around 7:30am an x-ray machine was wheeled in.

At about 9:40am, my life changed for the better. The Respiratory Therapist, Ruth, removed the breathing and feeding tubes while my awesome nurse Wewe supported me.

I was pretty scared. What if I couldn’t breathe? As Ruth pulled out the tubes I gave a slight wretch, and finally I could breathe on my own.

After the tube came out, they put me in a CPAP mask to help my breathing. It’s a fairly common medical device now but helped me a lot. It blew air in my mouth. I likened it to being on the windy deck of cruise ship.I smiled very big smiles finally being rid of the breathing tube. Such big smiles that the CPAP mask sometimes slipped.I was coughing a fair bit. A lot of fluids and such had accumulated in my lungs over the month. I finally had a chance to expel them.I got to hold my infant daughter too.

Around noon they tried transferring me to a mask with less oxygen and force. Unfortunately, I started to feel a little light headed and after only lasted 20 minutes and had to go back to the CPAP. I was so disappointed in myself.

Around 2:30pm, the nurse Wewe wanted to get me up and sitting in a chair. To do that safely, they had to take the mask off, if only briefly. I was hoisted with a lift into a nearby chair. Once there though, I didn’t feel lightheaded, and didn’t put the CPAP mask back on. They checked my readings and vitals, and I seemed to be surviving on “room air”.  I could speak! I was so, so happy! To be breathing on my own was a massive step. This gave me hope for some independence eventually away from life-supporting medical devices. It was a step towards freedom.

With the tubes out, I was finally able to speak, but my voice sounded incredibly raw. My wife said I sounded like Batman. I later found out I had least one paralyzed vocal cord. We are still not sure if it was from the neurological damage, or the breathing tube, but I was barley able to speak over a whisper. Even a year later, my voice has not fully recovered. The ENT specialist doctor I’m working with has seen improvement, but not 100% yet.

Sporting a nasty mustache after finally getting the breathing tube out

While in the chair, my mother shaved my face for the first time in a month. With the contraption in place to hold the breathing tube, some parts of my face had been covered, so in the ICU they could only shave part of my face. I had developed quite a nasty mustache! I was visited and checked by several doctors. I saw the Infections Diseases specialist months later, and he remembered that when I got off the breathing tube “I looked like crap.” I did lose over 40 pounds, and looked downright malnourished and shriveled-up. 

What was left of me after a month in the ICU

Throughout the afternoon, I didn’t want to go back to the bed. But, I was kind of bored because I had nothing to read, no phone, no TV. Wewe, the nurse assigned to me was awesome and found an old TV with a VHS player that was donated to the hospital. I rooted through the boxes and found a VHS of Star Wars: A New Hope

Yes, the VHS, but totally a nice treat!

While watching the movie, I got to drink juice! My first liquid I had drunk in over a month! They were careful, small sips, but a taste and feeling of thirst quenching I will not soon forget. Of the many things you take for granted, drinking and tasting were two that I never thought of! And, I was allowed to suck on ice chips to get my fluids up too. So I had A LOT of ice chips. Probably too many, because I got REALLY cold later in the evening.

About 6:30pm, they transferred me from the main ISU to the “j-wing” cardio ISU. Even nicer, and the nurse has a window too look in on you, which was reassuring.

I remember in the evening, the nurse was going to give me my battery of medicine which is about 25 pills! It occurred to me that I didn’t have a feeding tube anymore, so I wasn’t quite sure how I would get the pills into me. I hadn’t eaten ANYTHING in a month! The nurse crushed up the pills, and mixed them into some applesauce. It was a odd feeling to eat even semi-solid foods again. I hadn’t had an assessment from a Speech Language Pathologist yet so I had to be very careful. 

In the afternoon of March 4, I was “downgraded” from the ICU to a regular unit. My time in the hospital was far from over, but that would be a very different part of the journey, with different ups and downs. More about that in this post.

Perhaps the only downside of the day was that I missed running the Chilly Half Marathon in Burlington. I was registered and had completed that run 8 years in a row! I guess it took a trip to the ICU to break the streak.

Also, ironically, I had signed up for a weight loss grant (as mentioned in this post). If I lost 40 pounds by March 2019, they would pay for my weight loss program. I had been going to the gym and such, but probably wasn’t going to make that weight goal. And, I did lose that weight… but I don’t think almost dying and spending a month in an ICU is an effective weight loss program :p


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