Reflections of a critical care nurse

<p>"Grandma Lilly is 87-years-old and in the ICU. She’s on a ventilator with her wrists restrained to the side of the bed. Grandma can barely see because her eyes are puffy: scleral edema. And her heart races: 140 beats per minute. Her blood pressure is low and Levophed and vasopressin drips are ordered.</p> <p>Her family can’t talk to her as she phases in and out of existence. For her, end-stage renal disease means dialysis. And respiratory failure equals ventilator. She’s a brittle diabetic with uncontrolled fluctuating blood sugars.</p> <p>Grandma Lilly can’t eat, and we feed her by a tube that goes into her nose and to her stomach. Tomorrow, she gets a PEG tube surgically inserted to feed her. She’s been on the ventilator too long.</p> <p>Next comes the ICU package: ventilator, dialysis, pressers, restraints, trach, PEG tube.</p> <p>Any second of clarity or awareness is pure brutality. There’s no pretty ending to this torture except through death.</p> <p>Poor Grandma Lilly."</p> <p><a href= "https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-moore-black-rn-a930a429" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Debbie Moore-Black</a> is a nurse who blogs at <a href= "https://www.facebook.com/Do-Not-Resuscitate-DMoore-BlackRN-406964559492113/timeline" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Do Not Resuscitate</a>.</p> <p>She shares her story and discusses her KevinMD article, "<a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2019/01/go-quiet-into-the-night.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Go quiet into the night</a>." (<a href= "https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2019/01/go-quiet-into-the-night.html">https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2019/01/go-quiet-into-the-night.html</a>)</p>