Back in March we had a guy in our ICU who coded twice in one night. I was on compressions for the second one. Honestly I went home thinking that was it for him, and I thought about him the whole drive.
Today he walked onto the unit. Walked. With a cane, and his wife carrying a giant tray of cookies that were mostly crumbs by the time they got to us. He didn't remember any of us, which makes sense, but his wife did. She hugged our charge nurse for a solid minute and nobody really knew what to say.
I've been in critical care 7 years and you almost never get to see the after part. You get them at their worst and then they're gone to the floor or rehab and that's it. Does anyone else ever get the follow-up or is this a once in a career thing? Because I needed it more than I realized.
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Post replyAsk your unit if they'd do an ICU follow-up clinic or even just a survivor letter board. Ours started one after a patient's family wrote in and it's changed morale more than any wellness pizza ever did.
I'll be the slightly different take. I'm glad for you, I really am, but I've stopped hoping for these because for every one who walks back in there are a dozen who end up trached and pegged in an LTAC and nobody brings cookies about that. I think we need a way to process the work that doesn't depend on getting the happy ending.
We had a 19 y/o MVC with a GCS of 4 on arrival who came back two years later in scrubs. She was doing her clinicals on our unit. Didn't recognize any of us, but our manager pulled up her old chart number and just sat in the break room for a while. Half of us ended up in there with her.
Seven years and this is the first one walking back in? I'm 12 years in and I can count mine on one hand. Hang onto this one for the bad nights.