(Sorry for the long delay in posting. This was due to unforeseen circumstances)
Some ICU situations are hopeless from the start. This situation was around a young man who had been in an horrendous motorcycle accident. I had spoken to the A&E consultant who felt sure he was brain dead and thought the patient would potentially be an organ donor.
As the medical staff waited the few days for additional scans to be carried out, the mum started to say that her son was communicating to her with his eyes. She was utterly convinced of this and wouldn’t have it any other way.
When I spoke to the staff they told me this was impossible. The patient had an extremely high neck fracture as well as a severe brain injury. The problem was because he was only 26, fit and young his muscles were contracting and he would occasionally twitch. His mum took this to mean he was getting better and that he was communicating with her.
It took 3 weeks of hard work to get the family to the point of accepting their son’s fate. During this time I had to support the staff, who were finding the situation really tough. The patient’s mum was really rude to them most of the time in her distress and would scream at them that they wanted “to kill her boy” It was a terribly sad situation but there was relief all around when we were able to remove life support and let this young man be at peace. I suspect it will be a long time until his mother finds peace again. If only I had that magic wand!
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