ICU and the BiPAP

 ICU and the BiPAP

 

    Not even a week after my initial appointment with the team, I would be rushed to the ER and admitted to the local ICU. When I got to my room, they had brought me two warm, vanilla Ensures. I chugged them both down, knowing I was about to go into battle. I’m not sure how I managed to get them down as I was using all my energy to breathe. I was given a non-rebreather mask and I would plug up the holes in the mask as I inhaled, so as to only take in pure oxygen. On the exhale I would move my hands from the holes to allow the air to flow out again. I continued like this for as long as I could. I didn’t see how I would ever be able to sleep. I needed to focus on breathing. I kept choking on my thick mucus and had a lot of trouble getting it up. One of the therapists that I had had during my recent stay heard I was in the ICU and came to see me. He saw me struggling to breathe and jumped on my bed and began to hit me with an anesthesia mask attached to a tongue depressor. He was able to help me dislodge the mucus so I could cough it up. Someone would then wipe the mucus from my tongue. He was afraid he might lose his job by doing this, but he did it anyway. It provided much needed relief. Earth angels were all around me.

    I was eventually put on the BiPAP. This would force air into my lungs and make it so I wouldn’t have to work so hard to breathe, but I found it very hard to get into the rhythm of the machine. It took a while to get used to it. The staff realized later on that they had the settings set to hot hair instead of cool air, which is part of the reason I struggled so much. My mother was able to slip me Xanax’s to chew every now and then, to take the edge off. The time spent here is blurry. Partly because I didn’t have my glasses on; partly because I kept my eyes closed; partly because it was traumatic; and partly because I was in and out of consciousness. I’m not sure how, but I managed to sleep. I remember my family being around me and that I tried to communicate with them through signs I made with my hands. I didn’t have the energy to talk. I had already been reserving my breath for some time. I hadn’t been talking much for a while. My body was burning up. My family would spray me with water and put cold rags on my head. Eventually they were told to stop as my body temperature was dropping, despite me feeling like I was burning up. An arterial blood gas shunt was placed into my arm so the doctors could constantly monitor my CO2 levels. This was an extremely painful procedure. As I mentioned before, the artery they use is deep in the wrist. Lidocaine was used to numb the area first but is was still rather painful. The transplant team had been made aware of my situation and after a few days perhaps, I was transferred by ambulance to the transplant hospital. The nurse who had been watching over me accompanied me and made sure the BiPAP machine was working correctly. I was so grateful for this. I really trusted her and was relieved when they let her come along.