Yesterday, the ICU was relatively short staffed, which meant my tracheostomy and ventilator got neglected. Mucus builds up in my lungs and needs to be suctioned several times a day. Additionally, because the air is pumped directly into my lungs, it needs to be humidified. Non-humidified air will dry out the lungs, making the mucus extremely thick. Yesterday, my humidifier was out of water all day. No one suctioned my lungs until 11:30 p.m. By this late in the day, most of the mucus had become extremely thick. The suctioning was rather ineffective, leaving most of the mucus in my lungs. In a vain effort to loosen the mucus, I found the distilled water and filled the humidifier myself. I hoped the mucus would loosen up over night.
Today, I felt like I had a bad chest cold. I could not breathe. I got up to go to the bathroom and nearly passed out. I was huffing and puffing, but hardly any air was getting into my lungs. When I layed down, I was overcome with coughing attacks. The mucus was audible as a bad wheezing radiating from my tracheostomy tube. I asked the nurse to suction my lungs. He did it once, but very little mucus came out. He then called the respiratory therapist. She squirted a bit of saline into my lungs to help loosen the mucus. She suctioned the lungs once. Despite being in respiratory distress, she refused to suction any more. My nurse told me to just relax and left my room. I fought to breathe for another five minutes before summoning the nurse back to my room. Breathing was becoming exceedingly difficult. The nurse suction two more times and was able to get more mucus out. Despite his efforts, I was choking and coughing trying to breathe.
Praise be to God, the commotion of my coughing and the alarms going off on my ventilator gained the attention of the charge nurse. The charge nurse asked if my nurse needed any assistance. My nurse said no. The charge nurse came into my room and assessed the situation. He folded up some paper toweling and came to my bedside. He then disconnected my ventilator hose from my tracheostomy tube. He told me to breathe in as much as I could and cough as hard as I could. As I did this, globs of thick mucus sprayed out of my tracheostomy tube. I kept coughing and coughing and thick mucus kept erupting from the hole in my throat. Finally, after several minutes of violent coughing spells, I suddenly could breathe again! The horrible congested noise ceased coming from my throat. The coughing stopped, and my breathing relaxed back into an easy rhythm. When I was growing very tired, and things seemed to be growing desperate, God intervened, sending the charge nurse, Marco, to my aid equipped with the knowledge to free me from my torment. Praise be to God!
"I will bless the LORD at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul will make its boast in the LORD; the humble will hear it and rejoice. O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt His name together. I sought the LORD and He answered me, and delivered me from all my fears" (Psalm 34:1-4).
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